Firstly, don’t forget that you can’t write down everything the teacher says! So don’t try to write down the lesson word for word, because *spoiler* you won’t succeed. Remember to look up from your notebook and put yourself in active listening mode. If you understand what’s being said during the lesson, you’ll be able to write down what’s important to remember.

And don’t forget, you’re not alone and that the students around you are facing the same difficulties! You can help each other and share your notes. Why not set up a small, trusted study group with whom you can share your notes? With the scribzee app, you can both share and receive lessons!

Getting actively involved in the course you’re taking can be a very good tip if you want to improve your note-taking. There are many advantages to getting involved: by asking questions and contributing to the discussion between the teacher and the students, you’ll have a better understanding of the subject, and your note-taking will be more coherent.

Your participation during the lesson is also essential to maintain your attention and reduce your cognitive load, i.e. the volume of mental resources needed to carry out a specific task or to process a given amount of information. In other words, you’ll be more focused and more effective at taking notes!

To be attentive, make sure you eliminate distractions: by taking handwritten notes, you can avoid being disturbed by constant notifications. What’s more, writing by hand involves physical effort and stimulates your kinaesthetic memory!

When the teacher is explaining the lesson and you have to take notes, you won’t be able to write down everything word for word. To write down the maximum amount of information, the first piece of advice we can give you is to use abbreviations and symbols, which you’ll get into the habit of using in every lesson. That way, you won’t be lost when you see these symbols when you reread your notes! Use this tip for words that come up a lot. In economics lessons, for example, you’ll probably hear the words work, globalisation, business, household, money… It’s up to you to associate them with abbreviations or symbols!

Using symbols in your notes also helps to make them clearer and more pleasant to read. As well as saving time, you’ll have a better grasp of the course. This will make it easier to memorise and revise later!

Your visual memory allows you to remember and process information such as images, colours, faces, symbols, and the environment in general. You can optimise your learning by using this memory.

Here, we suggest you focus on colours. Malaysian researchers have proved that “colour has the potential to increase the chances that environmental stimuli are successfully encoded, stored and recalled”.

To start with, you can colour-code the different categories of information you write down during note-taking. For example: headings, sub-headings, definitions, examples, quotations… It’s up to you! Of course, you don’t need to turn your notes into a rainbow – a simple 4-colour pen should do the trick. Mind you, you don’t need to colour-code when you’re taking notes, but rather when you’re copying everything out! Changing colours so regularly could take up too much of your time during the lesson.

But colour coding doesn’t just apply to pens or pencils! You can also use 2.0 revision cards, which are available in 12 different colours. So you can assign each colour to one of your subjects. The added extra: you can scan and revise your revision cards on the scribzee app!

Our last, but by no means least, piece of advice: re-reading and summarising. Because once you’ve taken notes in class, it doesn’t stop there! You’ve still got a bit of work to do. The best thing to do is to take the time the same day you took the notes (or at the very least during the week) to rewrite them.

First, reread them to remind yourself of the lesson. You can read actively, highlighting the parts you think are important to remember. Once you’ve done this, grab some paper or revision cards and move on to summarising. Here you can take the time to write neatly and use colour coding. Even if it seems long, if you make sure you copy out your notes as you go along, you’ll avoid being overwhelmed!

By writing your lessons on 2.0 revision cards, you’ll be able to scan them into the scribzee app and take them with you wherever you go, on your smartphone! So you can reread your notes between lessons, on the bus or before going to bed.

In short, there are several techniques you can use to optimise your note-taking: take part in class, rewrite your notes, apply a colour code, be selective or use symbols. As you’ll have realised, good note-taking also happens after the lesson, so grab your notebook and your pens! If you’re interested in this subject, read our article True or false: should you sort information during class ?