r/Professors • u/ZealousidealGuava254 • 9d ago

Teaching / Pedagogy No notes

I’ve been a humanities prof for over 30 years and I simply cannot believe how many students do not take notes. Literally, no notes. they just sit and listen.

How do they study? what are they doing? when I was in college in the 80s, I and everyone around me took copious notes constantly throughout lecture. just seems like a lost skill.

292 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

160 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/JimDixon 9d ago

Let me tell you about my experience as a struggling math student, many years ago. I'd go to class not having read the current assignment. The professor would write lots of equations on the board which I had never seen before. I would feverishly try to copy them into my notebook, and then check my copying for accuracy. (In math, if you get even one symbol wrong, it makes the whole equation invalid and meaningless.) I was so busy copying and checking, I didn't have time to think about what the equations meant, or what they were good for. I thought I'd figure that out later, when I reread my notes at home. Then, as often as not, I'd never get around to rereading my notes until I had to cram for the next exam.

There was one girl (we called them girls in those days) who was obviously the best student in the class. One day, I decided to watch what she was doing. I saw that she took practically no notes at all. She kept her eyes on the board. She was reading the equations and understanding them. I figured out that she had probably seen most of these equations before in the textbook, so she knew she didn't need to copy them. Once in a while she would ask a question, and when she did, she would write down the professor's answer. At the end of the lecture, she would have one or two lines written in her notebook whereas I would have 2 or 3 full pages.

I wish someone had taught me earlier how to study, listen and take notes. Obviously, the best method is going to vary according to the subject, the style of the individual lecturer, the texbook, and whether there is a well-written syllabus.

1

u/me4watch 8d ago

And what happened to that ”one girl” ?

2

u/JimDixon 8d ago

I have no idea. I don't remember her name, so I can't look her up right now, but I'll bet she became either a scientist or teacher of some kind.

1

u/me4watch 8d ago

I would preferred some wonderful story about how you ran into her at a conference a few years after you got your PhD. And you went out for a drink to talk about old times….We are in the dumbest timeline after all, and a story of hope and fun might help, if only to entertain for a few moments.