Why your terrible note-taking is ruining your grades (how to take better notes) 

Yeah I’ve never understood why my teachers always force us to take notes when we have everything that they’re saying in a textbook and then you’re so busy taking notes that you don’t pay attention to what they’re saying and then you miss the explanations and end up confused for an entire hour

What I took from this video: be focussed on the action of learning, thinking and engaging with the content instead of focused on taking notes. If you take notes (afterwards), they must be concise, straight to the point and useful for active learning. Some options are flashcards, mind-maps, flow charts and the Feynmann method.

As a nursing student who had her first clinicals, i also made the mistake of bringing the 9 page assessment form and trying to write down everything the patient was saying word for word. I ended up asking repetitive questions and taking such a long time. Second rotation i just spoke with the client and wrote what i heard afterwards. And its true, you can and will be able to remember everything.

This is exactly why lecturers/teachers should all provide the notes/slides before class, so students can just focus and add notes for comprehension or fill in digestible gaps, 60 minutes of transcribing equations, diagrams or dense text never helped anyone!

Mike and Matty. You are the reason i've gotten great grades recently. You are covering soo many aspects of what it means to be a student. When i am at rock-bottom in my studies, your content honestly really gelps. I am greatful! I dig your new style of content aswell 🤟

When someone speaks of note-taking as dangerous, me, being my 'aesthetic' self, cannot process such information.

So I have ADHD and our biggest struggle is working memory. And being able to find the brain file we filed away after learning a new concept. If I didn't take notes I would have no clue what class was about. Even if I'm fully paying attention. It's my biggest struggle.

Spot on. Having this issue right now in 3rd year biochemistry. Very complex small details and im just scrambling to write everything down because the class is so fast paced. Then it came time to study for the exam and I literally learned it for the first time from my notes, I never really learned in class, I just copied notes.

I love the humor and creativity of your videos. They also explain useful information in a more digestible way. Your storytelling skills have improved too. Great job guys

I've been taking notes for three years now, and the first thing you said about making comprehensive notes is *vital* , i've gotten quite good at it, to the point where i can break down what my teacher's saying mid lecture and actually make it easier to understand my notes later, not have them feel like big, fancy, and unnecessary word vomits, doing this has allowed me to halve definitions while still retaining the core essentials that make it up. now, with that said: screw teachers that want the definition word-for-word.

This is some truly simple yet amazing advice I needed to hear, thank you!!

I struggle a lot with this because I've recently learned I might have ADHD (still need to get tested but it's very likely), and writing things down does help. I just recently discovered your videos and I enjoy the content you create. My problem here is the part about not taking notes. I can't sit there and listen in a lecture because as hard as I try to focus my mind will wander off whether I want it to or not. I don't think writing notes from the textbook is bad. It's honestly helped me a lot and reading through them helps as well because it's a lot more difficult for it to stick. The colored notes help me remember what is important. I think your video about notes is great but, and this is just my opinion and I don't know what other people think so I could be wrong correct me if I am please, I feel there should be mention for those of us who have a harder than normal time focusing. If y'all have a video on this I haven't seen it yet so I'm going in a little blind here, please forgive me. If y'all have any tips or videos or recommendations for someone like me I would be glad to take a look at those!

Always appreciate it when you take your time to explain matters to us rookies, captain !

Intense! But good advice, haha. Thanks for sharing Mike and Matty. Good luck to all my fellow students out here!

Your advice is always practical and easy to follow. Keep up the great work!

This is SO TRUE! Thank you so much for making this video and giving us this advice

I tend to focus most of my notes on examples and I copy these down so that when I do my homework I can reference similar problems to know I’m doing it right. I think it’s pretty helpful but maybe just cause I’m an engineer major. Edit: also going through the guided examples seemed to stick more than just reading it off my textbook.

Kind of not related to the video but I am just so appreciative of this universe and community you guys built with Cajun Koi Academy. I love the lessons and the people I meet. It's so useful and immersive and honestly even though I love our still sorta small (but growing) community I will be so disappointed if you guys don't blow up because of how amazing this all is! That's all have a good day and keep working hard, I'm a huge fan

I randomly found this vid in the midst of a desperate search for note taking advice since I'm back in the classroom for the first time in 5ish years and have always struggled with taking good notes... and @0:27 I had already subbed. The vibe is impeccable and after sifting through countless "aesthetic note taking" vids, your A1 advice was just what I needed!

Yes! Someone who defends this idea! Thank you! I hate to take a lot of notes. I cannot not to think about the grammar and orthography and making notes somewhat nice so I can comprehend it later. And "write by hand to memorise better" theory... No, dear teachers, I remember the information because I studied with proper technics AFTER the class, definetly not during intesive hand-painfull scribling. Conclusion: focus on comprehension during the class, write down what is lacking in already existing material, highlight what is absolutely necessary for exam (always specified by normal teachers).

"Do you have sex with men, women, or both?" "What does that have to do with getting stabbed in the eye?" 👌🤣

I have mindmaps but i m not able to review in active way

I love your videos so much! totally agree with the point of how you should first understand the concept and then write it down. I use the feynman technique and flow charts very often and they are super helpful so it's good to know that I'm doing the right thing. however, I should probably use flashcards too! taking that advice from this video. good work guys!

Once I've read another article where they claimed that you should take notes. Honestly I feel like taking notes forces me to pay more attention on the lecture. If I just listen my brain just starts to think about other stuff then I realize "shit I didn't listen". But sometimes I feel like I would like to take notes, but I have so much difficulty to understand what the prof is telling, its Impossible without stopping to understand.

This is actually make sense! I am medical student and a huge note taker nerd. It felt incomplete if im not jotting down every word from my lecturer or my patient during practical. In the end, im not reviewing my notes at all because it's messy. Then i tried to take history from my patient without scribbling anything. Be more present in the conversation and suprisingly, i was able to remember the details. I guess this video explains it. Thank you! By the way, i wish i discovered this channel sooner as im in my final year of medschool. But it's never too late to change i guess. wish me luck

Your presentation skills are top-notch, really engaging .

Love this explanation so much it made so much sense🥳+ Love the role-playing🤣

I believe you should take notes after the professor or the person in front of you has completed explaining a topic or speaking about their issue. It's best to stay focused while they are teaching and write down what you have learned as soon as the professor completes the topic (on the same day). I do not recommend taking notes while the professor is speaking, as you'll stay unfocused and won't learn anything.

Really changed my mindset! Thanks you guys

I really love that I found your videos in humorous way which makes learning fun and interesting at the same time🥰🥰

My problem is many of my lecturers will say information that isn’t on the slides they’ve given us, which would mean I’d have to go back to the reference and that has a lot of extra information that it feels like a waste of time. One of my classes doesn’t even have a reference, so i have to make sure to write down what is said in the lecture. Also, I realized that I tend to zone out really easily if I’m not taking notes. Especially if the lecture is boring (and most of them are). But I agree that we should focus on taking more comprehensive and useful notes rather than just transcribing what is being said. I’ll try to take your advice on that.

I’m a business student online getting my BBA, since it is online and I have 3 children it’s super hard for me to focus completely so I take my notes and when they are asleep I read them and try to focus like this but I’m still so worried about my children waking up and Im afraid to loose my focus.

Great help Thanks

I want to try to type questions during class instead of actually writing the answers so that I can later answer them. I've found it useful to only write down what I actually understand so that I can have a written record of how I processed the info instead of the info itself, but at the same time I don't want to forget important things said or seen during class, so that's why I feel like writing questions is the way to go

This video has literally made me review the way I take notes especially since start 2nd year of University. Cheers for this video it has helped.

THANK U FOR THE VIDEO❤ im from brazil and this realy helped me to improve my learning skills.

Loving these new videos!

I am more likely to focus on every word, after watching this vid I realize that I can read the book and write the main points or anything I want. That also helps with note-taking skills. Thank you a lot.

Wish i had knew this 2 years ago, thanks for this vital information :)

I love the idea of being present in the moment, but I would suggest this is not a "one size fits all" solution. As an ADHD person with auditory processing issues, class where I don't take notes or doodle is basically a class I didn't attend - I end up distracted, or, if it is a teacher with "wall of text on slides and hours of endless talking" style of teaching, I will probably retrieve about 10% of information said during such class. For me (handwritten) note taking is a way for me to structure the topic in my brain and I found out I learn best from my own handwriting - I tend to remember how the topic was structured in my notebook visually. You could tell I need the sound-to-visual translation, and the only way for me to do that efficiently and learn stuff that was said during a lecture (and it's not in the textbook) is to take notes.

Thank you for this❤️

how would you apply this with math? or physics? both those subjects use tons of formulas

Insane video thank you!

I learnt the double edged sword of notemaking the hard way. The way I make notes now is to get a personalized and detailed explanation of a topic. Using these detailed notes I make what I call short notes and memory cells. I focus on using these short notes and memory cells as active learning mechanisms by quizzing myself to see what I retain from the chapter. The short notes have minimal data so I also try remembering details to make sure my understanding is strong. Some times the concept is retention based, then I'll cram it by repetition in a Spaced manner and recalling what it was at random times.

YOUR STYLE!! IT FEELS LIKE IM IN A REAL ACADEMYYY ✨

The way of comprehending what you guys want us to understand is just awesome!

When it comes to college classes, remembering is more important than "learning." So notes are a must. When a professor says something in lecture and you don't take good notes, it won't matter if you learned 75% of it using the technique in the video because you forgot 25%. And you don't know to study that 25% because it wasn't written down or known to be covered.

thank you for your advice. i'm using these methods towards studying for an A+ certificate. :)

"Remain still and focused." loved this video.

I am using Cornell note taking mood is good i think. What you think bro?

At 2:15, the point made is directly associable with something which Andrew Huberman discusses which he calls [x] gaps (I can’t remember the name - the function was more important than it’s title, I focused on retention of the concept ok? Lol). Basically, a study was carried out where people were studying/reading about something, and every so often a buzzer/alarm would go off at which point they were instructed to just stop for 10-20 seconds and do nothing. Their learning retention was markedly higher because this stoppage allows information processing and storage to occur. I think he states that they found that not only does the brain replay and revise the information during this break, but it also does so at 20-times the speed _and_ both forwards and backwards too. Pretty crazy stuff, and a super powerful ability to be aware to.

i just can't focus unless i'm taking at least some notes -.- rip

Hi there. I wanted to ask, what about a case where the lecture is really long. How would you use your cognitive load without getting mentally fatigued. Thank you.

I take note in class for three reasons Sometimes the prof. Will say something that isn’t present in the lecture pdf Or i want a quick “preview” of the lecture that i can skim before diving into the actual lecture pdf ( wont lie I don’t review them later often ) Or simply being too sleepy and dont wanna lose my attention

That exactly what I needed!!!! 🤩

Thank you guys, for real 😄🖤

I don't know why I can't go out with the fix-idea I have to do notes although I know I lose time and I don't help myself much. In my notes I try to write down the way I understood something but when your professor is like "I will examine you on the material ONLY from the presentations., You have to know everything from this book,read only his book.,..." I struggle a lot. Hope I go out from this situation and enjoy more my medical journey :)

I wanted to learn new techniques for note taking since I'm a returning student for my Master's and this is a good start

bros... make a video about how kitsune, tora and kuma brain types should prefer different types of studymusic.. and which combination suits well.. the last one was quite vague but now you make more explicit suggestions for each specific type

I have a very tedious job where I need to listen to recordings of other people's conversations, and I have been taking notes during the llstening.. I find my notes are not very helpful. I will be trying this technique and see if I have improved recollection.

my chem teacher has printout notes that are just fill in the blanks from her presentations, this way i can write out the notes pre lecture and then focus on what the teacher is saying and dotting down any important information she says that isnt on the presentation! this method helps me understand concepts better and even when i dont study much for my chem exams i still get a high mark!

I love your videos and your imagine as its shown on the videos that’s cool

could you explain what's FREYMAN technique?

What ive always done is write down the keywords of what the teacher says or, if the teacher sucks at teaching, write down the key points on the slide. From there i draw boxes and connect points together which is really useful for when the teacher goes on tangents. Because i write down key words, it forces me to think back and remember what the teacher/textbook said about the key words.

amazing as always

I was recording and writing what my professor says like a psychopath. I was only trying to understand them before the exams. My exam notes were sometimes good and sometimes bad, even though I worked even a lot. I was not able to work every chapter as well because of restricted time. I decided to not to take notes. Only listening and trying to understand, learning everything at the moment it is teached. Notes will be short and at the second stage. This video overlaps with what I think and let's see how will my final exams' point be like.

I don't actually look at my notes that often, I just find that writing some stuff out helps with my memory.

Can you do some for specifically getting information from a textbook? Ik how to do it in class, mads especially, I look stuff up on my phone related to the lecture and my notes r very minimal, I write only formulas and special situations and rules. Although when it comes to any class that's not math. Well 😂

I’m used to ‘make’ notes to organise my thoughts and ‘memorise’ what I’ve learnt. After internalizing the content I don’t go back to the notes, or probably only go back when I need to reconfirm any information. My brain maps out information according to the contents or break down of my notes. Now that I’m working and I don’t have time to do the make notes process and my fingers hurt from writing. Halp. Mind maps never worked for me I don’t know why.

What an informative and fun video!

When I sit in lecture-lessons, I take notes of (important) things I didn't know + facts that I know I won't be able to remember. It's never a transcription - I can't write fast enough for that. I often feel that taking notes help me stay present and not zone out. I try to make some of into flashcards, but I find it takes a long time to make flashcards.

Love from India Your sense of humour amazyn Pls guide m How you edit your video Which Software?

very clear !!!

Hey, hey, a humble kitsune here, so, just to be clear, I'm gonna say what I gathered from a few of your vids and I'd appreciate it if you could tell me if I properly gathered the info on the study techniques So, when I'm in class, I should focus on the lecture 100%, make mental connections and filter out important details but take no notes. Then at the end of the day, read the source material. The next day or whenever I sit to review, I should read the source material and explain things to myself in the simplest ways possible and create mind maps with analogies that I should look at everyday or every other day to reinforce. Did I get that right? Honestly speaking, I've never been in the habit of taking notes or mind maps, it was all listening to lectures, reading books and solving past papers but in 11th and 12th grade, the book wasn't enough so I tried taking notes in class, which was ofc a wall of text that I couldn't make heads nor tails of and it all cascaded

Sometimes I'm just taking notes for the material that I don't find in the book or when I find inspiration during lectures. Thanks for the video btw.

I really thought that I was dumb for being the only one in my classroom who doesn't take notes at all during lectures. Instead, I would be asking the instructor questions and sharing my thoughts in order for my brain to find connections between the schema and the topic at hand, and therefore understand the material effectively.

I'm dyslexic and writing down the odd key word lodges it in my brain as important. It's hard to concentrate throughout a two-hour lecture without writing something down. My mind would wander off. RU-vidr Samuel Suresh has an excellent solution: he just writes down questions that occur to him throughout the lecture. And when he reviews them, he tries to answer them and understand.

If I don't take any notes and I need to reference the material later, how would I find that one bit I forgot without wasting a bunch of time trying to find it again? (re-watching lectures, if I can.. or maniacally scrolling Google)

I'm loving the new way you guys are creating content. Kajun Koi academy is really awesome and is helping me a lot, like you always did. #KitsuneClub

You guys are jus the best ❤

What do you think about taking notes on an ipad like notability or one note? It seems more useful than paper notes, but I have this thought the info won’t stick the same because it’s electronic. What do you think?

Could y'all perhaps factor in the variable of competitive exams and how can we tweak these methods to best adjust with them? I cone from South Asia and at the end of understanding it all and focusing, I still need to clear the license exams to get that Dr. Prefix. 🤷🏻‍♂️ So please consider factoring that in. 🙏🏻

What happen if I can't summarize what I read. I try not taking notes and focus on reading the book and then summarize what I understood from the reading, but it didn't work. I always had problems with writing, every time I need to write an essay or just reply an email my mind will go blank

Matt got me in the first half when he was writing “uncle” for sexual preference😂

So working memory capacity ~7 Instead of offloading some novel information into notes, you are saying to process it all, doesn't that overload the ~7 faster as your not offloading information? The chunks of information being used in a conversation are novel pieces of information being attached to the schema (environmental organizing and linking principle) so are not in 'traditional' working memory therefore wouldn't require notes unlike when learning novel information in your original scenario. Learning requires focus, but it is the transfer of information into long-term memory and if you don't have the capacity to do that, the learning doesn't happen so the notes allow for later learning of material that would otherwise be left out. Or am I missing something? My research into the Feynman technique found it is not evidenced and doesn't satisfy Feynman's ideas of learning either. The technique is oversimplified and overlooks basic natural learning architecture. Notes that are useful for review are extremely subjective and I would appreciate clarity in that you stated that it is opinion not evidence. Rereading can be both passive or active as it is down to the learner's choice in thought. What goes on in a learner's mind is more directly related to learning than the mediums or techniques used. Spaced repetition flashcards basically say practice remembering. There are lots of ways to practice and remember so I was expecting a much larger list. I recognize the sarcasm and light-heartedness of the video and do enjoy the videos but I would like to see educational science move forwards in conversations so wanted to leave some of my thoughts. 😁 PS. The information processing approach adopted by cognitive science is not my approach to perception and action in learning so I do bias away from the science you reference just to be open and clear.

can someone explain why he released the spiders in my room? and what am i supposed to focus on? i kept waiting till the end of the video but i still dont get it please help

Okay great! But how do you simultaneously focus and then make flashcards? Would be really helpful to show us how you guys approach that. Thank you so much! Great content btw, really need this

I have a problem where I take so many notes from the teacher's slides that I don't pay attention to what they're saying when they explain the topic since I'm writing it all down as fast as I can. I'm saving up for an iPad with the apple pencil so I can download the teacher's slides as a pdf I can annotate on so I can actually pay attention to them while going over the content portably wherever I want to study. Plus, this will save me money printing out all of the packets of slides for the semester.

Your real-world example (3:37) illustrated the difference between *"following procedures" and "being present".. To me, that isn't "taking notes", that's reducing your awareness by following guidelines. Personally, I can be way more present when I make notes and keep my cognitive load clear. It's like marking a map with pins: indicating "where we've been already" so we can make clear, deliberate progress. I do have a problem with "copying the bullets the teacher has on display" and I get how that could inhibit my learning, but I've noticed that I remember more in the long-term by having notes to refer to. Usually, all it takes is a quick glance and the entire lesson floods back into my mind. It could be worth noting that I've been out of school for about a decade and it took me about 3 years of independence to actually learn how to learn. I took a break after high school to gain sense of myself before enrolling myself entirely into the system, so my perspective here is likely an outlier.

This channel is precious.

this is why i started to audio record my lectures because otherwise i would waste all my time taking notes and not learning, so if then later on i had any doubt i just hear the lecture again

The problem I have is I don’t have time to think about the lesson fully. I struggle with comprehending all the information my teachers give me. They give us information after information, and I struggle with that.

That was such a beautiful information 🙂 At the end I was looking for spiders in room 😂😸 that means I was focused

I find it crazy how i just saw this video release after going through 500 remnote cards for my 3rd exam 🙃 appreciation for the future 😂

I absolutely love the background

its been an hour and the spiders still here. any idea how to get rid of them?

what if you use a voice recorder to take notes? well its not extremely usefull for learning, but it doesn't require transcribing

What do you guys think about Cornell notes? I'm curious🤔🐇🌸

Unfortunately as my mental health got worse, my memory also got worse to the point I really struggle (and was previously a "gifted kid"), where possible I prefer when my lectures are recorded cause they I can focus less on taking notes, but still be able to review the whole discussion, however depending on the lecturer a lot of mine didn't record. Where I had teachers who did record, I found myself doing better, so I end up transcribing the other lectures, then condensing them into notion with toggles so they work as flash cards for reviewing.

But I have add and severe selective hearing and it poses me off. Should I still not take notes