I decided that today, for my BDS, I would give the double sided notes a shot. I tend to over analyze the text and write notes about anything and everything, so more efficient note taking would be a big help when it comes to studying my notes later. I remembered how much I hated doing these in middle school but tastes change and are refined by age, right? So I started reading, trying to only write down the main points, things that seemed important about the text's overall concepts. Being a brief biography, I found myself writing down the influences and things that differentiated the subject from his peers, and then my personal reflections as to why these were important, how they fit into the bigger picture, or my own personal views on the subject's beliefs and unique traits.
The experience was a more involved, easier to remember way of writing notes. This killed two birds with one stone, making a personal connection with something is by far the easiest way to remember something in my experience. I feel like I don't need to rewrite my notes, as I usually do, to figure out what is and isn't important, and now I have a head start on remembering the more important points in the text without much effort.
That's awesome that these notes worked for you! In my field this past semester my host teacher had her students try out the two sided notes and they didn't like them at all! I think you're right that preferences might change with age! I am not a huge note taker when I read (I prefer to highlight) because I, too, find myself writing anything and everything down. I think I'm going to try the two sided notes and see if I like that better!
ReplyDelete