Note-Making For Online Lectures

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Note-Making

Imagine this: you are sitting in your classroom, in your school. A teacher is taking a lecture explaining something important related to her subject. Your classmates are around. Some are listening to the teacher, some are daydreaming, some are eating their tiffin on the last bench, some are busy chatting and you are taking down notes. You ask doubts and you have noted the solution to your query. The class ends and a few days later while you are preparing for the exams using your Note-Making  your classmates are trying to ask you for help and get your notebook just for a look. You have easily cleared your exam, just because you regularly made notes and had them while revising. 

Making notes is important for students. It not only helps them recall the topics explained in class better but also helps them maintain writing practice and pace. Note making is also a skill that is very much in demand by most recruiters and comes in handy, in almost every field of work when you start working. Students lost the practice of making notes in online lectures since there was no need to maintain a notebook and the important parts could be printed from the e-books shared with students. In this article, we will be sharing with you the tips for note-making while studying online using an education app or attending a lecture using a video meeting platform. These tips will help you make more organised notes and also make your notes more meaningful and useful for exam preparation and revision. 

Just like making notes in a traditional classroom, there are three stages of making notes in an online or virtual classroom– Before the class, during the class and after the class. There are two ways of making notes while attending an online class-writing down the notes by hand on paper or typing the notes using a note-making application. It is suggested that students should make handwritten notes even in online classes. This helps them in learning better and is great for writing practice as well. 

Let us now take a look at the procedure of note-making for online classes using an education app

Before The Online Lecture

Three major steps need to be followed before you attend your online lecture. These steps are:

  • Revise the notes from the previous lecture and read through any material provided by the educator for this lecture. A thorough reading will also generate questions about the topic in your mind. These questions should be a part of your notes so that they can be answered during the lecture. 
  • Choose the method you wish to use for making your notes. Make sure you stick to the same method through the lecture and not keep switching and making incomplete notes. 
  • Set up your workstation or study area. Arrange your devices and books in place, get into a position that does not make you sleepy and close all the other windows on your device to avoid any distraction. 

During The Online Lecture

Before the notes are made or any tips regarding making notes are shared, it should be known that the date and topic be noted at the beginning of the notes. This will be helpful in navigating the notes and co-relating them with the other material provided by the teachers. The following are the other tips you need to follow during the online class:

  • Focus on the sub-topics that have been emphasized by your teacher. And note down anything that is not mentioned in the e-books or slides being presented by them. Do not try to write every word that is said in the class
  • Annotating your notes is a good exercise. Connect the dots between what you knew before the lecture and what you just learned. 
  • Use abbreviations, short forms, symbols and any other type of writing that you can understand to keep up with the pace of the teacher. 

After The Online Lecture

The three tips that you must follow after the lecture are:

  • Summarise your notes and all that you learned. Do a quick revision of the lecture. 
  • Reorganise these notes into a format that will be useful during the exams.
  • Note down questions to ask in the next session from this lecture.