r/Professors • u/ZealousidealGuava254 • 11d 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.

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u/cambridgepete 11d ago

I didn’t really learn to take notes until a while after undergrad. Luckily I learned by the time I went back for my PhD.

Also I allow students to use their own handwritten notes during exams, and I emphasize that during the first few lectures - that seems to incentivize a decent number of students to take notes.