Topic 1 - Kevin Breel Confessions of a Depressed Life

In one of my first Communication lectures we learnt effective note taking strategies. The six "R's" which are Recording information, Reducing down to key points, Reciting outloud, Reflecting on what you've learned, Reviewing your information and Recap to learn. we then touched on four techniques of effective note taking which are Cornell Format, Outline Format, Sentence Format and Mind Mapping. (Cooke, 2013)

After undertaking the VARK questioner in one of my first labs I was identified as a read/write learner. A read/write learner is someone who is good at taking notes during lectures. They study best by reading over there notes or copying them out.

For this blog post we were asked to watch the following video, during this video I jotted down notes in the Outline Format which consists of bulleted lists. The outline format allows me to start with the main concept and add sub components and then to add points to these sub components. for example when I was watching the video above my main component was Kevin Breel - confessions of a depressed life. I then added my sub components like clear speech and language, movement, tone of voice etc, each of these components had small pointers.

I find this method of note taking best for me because its concise and neat to do during lectures. When using this format I like to use different coloured pens, highlighters, flash cards and big headings, I find this very effective when Im learning. However I do elaborate my notes for study but having the bullet point format on flash cards is a good way of jogging your memory before exams as it allows you to see the main point and sub points clearly and quickly without having to read through pages of notes.

I am also a fan of using the Sentence Format as it is also very neat and clear. When using this I state facts and sentences very clearly on separate lines and sometimes use numbers and hyphens. After the lecture I can then re write the sentences into longer paragraphs in my own words which is better for my understanding and it also helps to reinforce learning. 

Thanks for reading my first blog post, Bebhinn.



References:
Cooke, D. (2013) Communicatons and the learning environment. [lecture notes] Evective Note Taking. Institute of Technology Blanchardstown, Lecture theatre 1, 24th September 2013.
STAKMATE, ( n.d ) social skills training for autistic kids. [online] Available from: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/~doyleth/reachteach/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=162&Itemid=210 [ Accessed: 13 November 2013]