Note Taking

I saw a tweet recently claiming that note taking isn't good for learning. That's mostly correct, but it misses some nuance.

Note taking really only has two benefits when you break it down:

  1. Physically engaging with something makes you more likely to remember it. The act of handwriting notes, even if you never look at them again, is better than just passively consuming information.
  2. Revisiting information over intervals of time is huge for learning. Note taking itself isn't what helps you learn, but if you revisit knowledge in any capacity (and notes make this easier), that's where the magic happens.

But here's the thing: both of these can be achieved without notes. You can do practice problems to get the same benefit as the first point, and you can just rewatch something a week later for the second benefit.

The key insight is that it's not the notes themselves that matter. It's the process of making them and revisiting them. If you're taking notes just for the sake of taking notes, you're missing the point entirely.

I'm personally guilty of this too. I've written plenty of notes that I never looked at again. But even those "wasted" notes weren't completely useless because of that first benefit. The act of writing them down helped me engage with the material in real time.

Cornell Notes

In K-12, teachers heavily push Cornell notes, and this is where students (and sometimes teachers) miss what actually makes them work. They focus on the literal format of the note when the real benefit comes from doing the summary section about a week after the lecture.

What actually happens? Students complete the whole thing in one sitting, get their points, and move on. They're following the format but skipping the delayed processing that makes Cornell notes effective in the first place.

Cheat Sheets

I tutor kids, and sometimes they're allowed a cheat sheet for tests. I always tell them that making the sheet is the studying. If I made it for them, it wouldn't help at all. It's not the sheet that aces the test. The process of creating it forces them to revisit material, condense concepts, and actively engage with what they've learned.