A Reflection On Note Taking Styles

 A Reflection On Note Taking Styles 

One Word, One Phrase, One Sentence

This had to be my least favorite of all the note-taking skills we practiced in this unit. I found it very difficult to use my notes in a discussion setting, and it did not facilitate helpful learning skills. When referring to my notes and how I explained my choices of words, phrases, and sentences, the notes themselves did not help me collaborate with my peers nor did they help me when writing my final blog. I believe that using this method within another not taking style would be more beneficial than the original style itself. As well as the note-taking method itself, I do not think the enforced discussion method was helpful at all. The strictness and blandness of the discussion almost warrant the exercise useless and irrelevant to our learning. I do believe this style helped me in one way, and that was that it showed me I prefer and need less structured notes and open discussion on topics to benefit from it.

The Four A’s

This style was more effective than the previous, however, I still prefer the “old school” more freeform notes that we used last this unit. This style allowed for more open-ended note-taking, therefore allowing for a more open discussion about our findings in class with our peers. When I used the Four A’s method, I still had structure, but I was allowed to interpret my notes in a more personal way and build upon the text instead of just quoting from it. This note-taking style also allowed for the reader/writer to flesh out all their thoughts through the four points of the style. This gave us plenty to discuss and debate upon during the class. This helped me understand how to pull different opinions from the text and look at all aspects, not just the ones I agree with.

Old School

This style of note-taking is by far my most preferred method of note-taking due to the flexibility and simplicity of the style. I felt as if this gave me more freedom to take the parts of the text, I thought were most important and translate that into a reflection. Not only does this make it much easier to understand the text, but it also made it much easier for me to use in a discussion. During class, I was able to discuss the points I found the most important and compare those to the ideas others had about the text as well. I used the Cornell method to organize my notes, as I usually do, and it made it much easier to translate into a discussion later in class. This helped me the most out of all of the note-taking styles in this unit because it played to my strengths and allowed me to work in a way that I thought was the most beneficial.

Overall, I believe that all three of the note-taking styles we used showed how differently each student learns and how we can use different styles depending on the type of text and our end goal.