In our many years of teaching this course, we’ve seen many student approaches to taking notes. Some students have clearly developed careful note-taking habits, and continue to use them in this course. Others see that we provide a lot of note-like materials and don’t take their own notes. And some others are somewhere in between. In this document, we suggest some approaches to note-taking in CSC 151.
First, you should know that there is good evidence that taking notes helps you learn the material. Hence, even though there may be a record of most of what we say in class, you should still take some notes on your own. If your instructor makes a written record of the class, it is not intended to replace your notes. Rather, it is intended to be a supplement so that you don’t feel that you have to write down everything.
Second, you should know that the best learning happens when you reflect on the most important points, and take notes on those. It is, of course, sometimes difficult to identify the most important points, particularly when lots of ideas are being raised during class. I recommend that you review materials (the reading, the lab, your quick notes, and your instructor’s notes) after class, and see if you can pick out a few most important points, which you then record. You might, for example, record details of some of the more complex procedures you wrote.
Third, you need to consider how to organize your notes for efficient access. While taking notes will help you remember things, at some point you will need to look things up. How can you organize your material to make that easier?
As Stephen Bloch of Adelphi University notes, introductory computer science expects that you will need to master a wide variety of levels of knowledge in order to succeed in the class.
SamR’s maladaption of Bloch’s example goes as follows: This course is a bit like one in which you have to write a fifteen-page paper on Napoloeon’s invasion of Russia (new domain knowledge), focusing on the economic impacts of that invasion (using a new disciplinary lens), in Icelandic (in a language that you don’t currently know), in a manner appropriate for publication in a literary magazine (incorporating stylistic issues in this language that you don’t know), using a quill pen (with a technology that is not normally one that you use).
What does that mean for note taking? It means that you have to pay attention to the different levels of what you are learning. At times, you are learning basic technical skills. At others, you are learning a language and some vocabulary in that language. At others, you are learning how to write well in that language. At others, you are learning a new way of thinking. And so on and so forth. I’ll try to point out some of the particular levels of thinking, but I won’t always do so.
As suggested above, we recommend that you take notes during class. You may just want to scribble down a few high points (or low points). But you should record enough that you can look at your notes to start to recall what happened.
WE also recommend that you regularly create summaries. A summary will draw upon your notes, my notes, your answers to labs or homework assignments, and so on and so forth. At times, I may incentivize summaries, such as by allowing you to bring a page of summary notes to a quiz or test. Evidence suggests that you should first summarize without looking at the reading and then go back and update your summary.
Many students find it useful to take notes while reading. Some of us will admit that we have not been good at marking up the texts I read, even though we do “read actively”. But we see many very successful students printing out readings and taking notes as they go. In CSC 151, it’s also helpful to try code while reading. Most of our readings introduce new ways of expressing ideas in code. You understand the code much better when you try it (and then take notes on what you observe). Taking notes on readings also allows you to develop questions that you can ask in class.
Because you are learning a new language, you might follow some of the strategies that people commonly use for studying languages. In particular, we suggest that you take notes on flash cards. We provide you with a variety of colors of flash cards; you can decide how to use the colors. For example, you might have one color (probably white) for vocabulary, another for syntax, another for stylistic issues, and so on and so forth. One distinct advantage of flash cards is that you can also rearrange them quickly. That means that you can use your flash cards to quickly look up vocabulary, as well as to quiz yourself on that vocabulary.
TL;DR: Take notes. Realize that there are different ways to take notes. Explore options, and see what works best for you. But take notes.