Which would be the best note taking skills for this certain school subject?

Question

I am an incoming junior high school student and is willing to know this!

what note taking skills would best be for these subjects?

Mathematics

Language Arts

History (Social Science)

Science

I know that Cornell note taking skill doesnt work for me...

Uh/// anyway, what kind of note taking skills would YOU chose to use during the period? Thanks.

Answer 1

I just graduated high school (2008). Let me just say right off the bat that some note-taking systems work for some people and not for others. Here's what I did.

First of all, get a seperate notebook for each class if your teacher is OK with it. Buy highlighters - at least 5 in different colors.

For all classes, listen to what the teacher is saying and watch what they write on the board. Ignore any unnecessary phrases. I'm in a summer college math class right now and my teacher writes complete sentences on the board. This is not necessary! Get the guts of what they're trying to say. Most people think what the teacher writes is more important than what they say. It's backwards: They write to reinforce what they're saying. Listen to what they say like it's a conversation between you both. Write what you get from what they say, and if they write anything on the board get it as well.

Math: Go by the concepts. Write what the concept is on the top line. Highlight it. Listen and don't write until you hear a definition. Write it. Draw the examples. Think about it as you take notes. What does it remind you of? Can you use this with anything you've learned recently?

Typical math notes:

Pythagorean Theorem

a^2+b^2=c^2

(picture of a right triangle labeled a, b, and c)

Might have some notes on Pythagoras or that a, b, and c are sides of the triangle.

Ex: (sample problem teacher gives, solved)

Language Arts:

The notes will be given in a paragraphy form. Bullets all the way. Just listen/watch the teacher, write everything you hear or see (you will get better at this), abbreviate as much as possible. Later, go back and highlight the important parts of the section. Make timelines for authors or time periods, include little examples of author's work, etc.

Typical notes:

Ray Bradbury (19whatever - Present)

Sci fi/fantasy

Fahrenheit 451 - most famous: Montag fireman sets fires instead of fighting them. Burn books, prevent spread of knowledge.

Short stories - A Sound of Thunder (time travel to hunt dinosaurs), There Will Come Soft Rains (house after nuclear war)

Here you can write things like what works you will be studying by the author and things the teacher says they will test you on.

History:

This was hardest for me to take notes in. I could never really find a style that worked for me. It could be because I never liked history.

One thing I tried that seemed to work was using my six highlighters to represent different things. Take notes, bulleted, with whatever the teacher says, per usual. When you go back to read them and study, analyze each historical thing. Try to make it fit one of these categories:

Political

Economic

Religious

Social

Intellectual

A...I can't remember what the A is for. Analytical? It's been too long.

Anyway, that helped me a lot. Drawing pictures of what happened helped too. When we learned about Abe Lincoln I drew an elaborate cartoon of him with his hat and the slaves and the cabin where he grew up and all that.

You can also try making up weird phrases. Once I knew we would have to know the order things happened from World War I - II, so I made up the little thing "Franz Wilon - something something, Dee Dee blew up his gnat. Oh!" which helped me remember:

Franz - Franz Ferdinand's assasination

Wi - WWI

Lon - League of Nations

Dee Dee - D-Day

Blew up - Atom bombs

gnat. Oh! - NATO

Science:

Eerily similar to math, only more things to memorize. Use that format and go back and highlight.

Hope this helps. I'm an insane note-taker. =)

Answer 2

for math you should probably copy down diagrams that your teacher puts on the board cuz that works well for me i know. you should also write down the important facts of what they say.

language arts also copy down whats on the board and facts that stick out to you. use a highlighter

history use your textbooks and also what the teacher says to get your notes

science use your textbook and study the vocabulary! the teacher might know the most though

you should ask your teacher after class about methods their previous students used to take notes