Learning Strategies:

Teaching Students How to Learn

Teaching students how to learn is an important responsibility. It is all about giving students strategies to help them learn better and prepare them for a lifetime of learning. Our assignments have been written to enable students to become better readers and, thus, successful students. Becoming a better reader means greater comprehension and understanding. These are the building blocks to successful students.

The most important strategy we can give to our students to become successful students is the development of good notetaking skills. An excellent format for notetaking is the Cornell Method. The Cornell Method was designed by Walter Pauk, emeritus, at Cornell University. To use this system you will need a large loose-leaf notebook. This allows you to rearrange notes easily, or remove notes to spread them out and study.

Notes are a skeletal representation which must be dealt with correctly to keep the whole picture in correct context. Cornell Notetaking requires students to rank the importance of various elements contained in the reading. If the reader recognizes a main idea and contributing points from which the theme is generated, he or she can judge how much detail to record in the light of the assigned or expected outcome of the reading. In this way, the student gains control and becomes more efficient in the learning process.

Good notetaking forces interaction with the text; therefore, of necessity, it moves the student from being a passive reader to one actively involved with print. The result is long-term learning and the student becoming a better reader.

Studies show that students consider notetaking to be an essential learning skill for success in high school and college. Other research indicates that a good set of notes is a significant contributor to academic success.

The distinguishing feature of the Cornell system is the layout of the page on which you take your notes. The page layout includes large margins on the left and bottom of the page. A picture of this layout (not to scale), with dimensions, is shown on the right. The three main areas are:

Note Taking Area: As you read through the assignment, record what you deem as important information in an abreviated format, but as meaningfully as possible. Use shorthand and abbreviations.

Cue Column: As you're taking notes, keep the cue column empty. After you've read the assignment and taken your notes, reduce your notes to concise jottings as clues for Reciting, Reviewing, and Reflecting.

Summaries: Sum up each page of your notes in a sentence or two.

This format provides the perfect opportunity for following through with the 5 R's of note-taking:

1. Record

   During the reading assignment, record in the main column as many meaningful facts and ideas as you can. Write legibly but in abbreviated format.

2. Reduce

   As soon after as possible, summarize these facts and ideas concisely in the Cue Column. Summarizing clarifies meanings and relationships, reinforces continuity, and strengthens memory.

3. Recite

   Cover the Note Taking Area, using only your jottings in the Cue Column, say over the facts and ideas of the assignment as fully as you can, not mechanically, but in your own words. Then, verify what you have said.

4. Reflect

   Draw out opinions from your notes and use them as a starting point for your own reflections on the assignment and how it relates to your other courses. Reflection will help prevent ideas from being soon forgotten.

For further research, Click here.

HINT: Instead of drawing lines on your paper, consider using a free online template to create your Cornell pages. Just Click Here to print the necessary pages. OR, you can download this pdf version of the Cornell page.

The Cornell Method, even after 40 years, has proven to be a highly effective way to study. There are many websites which give excellent ways to improve study skills. We recommend that all our students, along with their parents, fine the most effective strategy which results in success for the student. Below are some websites to consider:

http://www.west.net/~ger/notetaking.html