How To Improve Student Note-Taking in 3 Smart Steps

When students take notes during a lesson, research shows they get just about 30 to 45 percent of the important information right on the first try.

High school teacher Benjamin Barbour discovered this disturbing problem after taking a quick peek at his students’ notes midway through whole-group instruction. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.

“While some students had terrific notes, others had a big list of facts from the lecture or from the book,” Barbour says. “There was no rhyme or reason. Maybe there was a date but no information attached. And I realized: My students can’t even use these notes.”

In this episode of School of Practice, we take a look at Barbour’s three-step process for teaching better note-taking and substantially improving study skills. Just a few minutes of practice each day, Barbour says, can yield big gains for student learning. Plus, he explains the brilliant strategy he uses to incentivize better note-taking and study habits in his classroom.

Related resources:

• Teaching Students What to Do With the Notes They Take
• How Testing Students Twice Can Improve Note-Taking Skills
• Neuroscientists Say Don’t Write Off Handwriting
• Research: Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis
• Research: The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults
• Research: Revising lecture notes: how revision, pauses, and partners affect note taking and achievement
• Research: The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking