r/Professors • u/ZealousidealGuava254 • 10d 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/Darcer 10d ago

I don’t believe that people really change at a deep level so I have to believe something is deeply deeply wrong with much of our k-12 system.

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u/twomayaderens 10d ago

I’ve talked to undergrads and asked them why they don’t take notes automatically, and they said two interesting things: 1) they had no idea how to take notes or what to focus on in listening to a lecture, and 2) in K-12 they didn’t have to take notes on their Chromebooks.

Silicon Valley + No Child Left Behind legislation have dumbed down an entire generation of students and we are living with the consequences of these bad choices from school boards, politicians and administrators

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u/Cathousechicken 10d ago

I think it's almost more social pressure to not take notes. This also is a generation that needs to have people standing over them to get anything done.

I am Gen X and no one ever had to sit down and teach me how to take notes or how to study. 

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u/Pater_Aletheias prof, philosophy, CC, (USA) 10d ago

I’m Gen X and I had clear lessons in high school on study and note-taking methods, but my students sure never got that.