Effective Note Taking Techniqures

Note Taking
The practice of writing down pieces of information in a systematic way is known as Note Taking. A common method used for recording ideas that you have learned from a lecture, referring to a book.

                       Platinum.lambton (2012)

Importance of Note Taking
According to  Canyons (2012), the note taking is valuable for everybody as this makes the person active in learning and listening the lectures while paying the attention. And also helpful for before the exam to achieve success (Canyons, 2012)


According too the author;s point of view Note Taking is important to save time, easy to remember as it's written in own words, can see a link between different points of view and easy to read before the exam. This means that even before FIVE minutes or day before the exam can have a look for the notes.
This video describe the note taking tips which is important before reading the below part of the post.

 cdiemand (2007)

Effective note-taking requires the following:

• recognizing the main idea
• identifying the sub or supportive ideas 
• Reducing to writing downing the information in shrt forms like mind mapping etc
• put information in own words.
• develop the skill of argumentation and reading
• leave blank spaces to add more information later 

One Place For All Your Notes

The most effective way to keep the notes organized is to have a single place for the note-taking. When a student need to retrieve the note can do it by going to one place
23-03-2012
Tips for note-taking:

ak-main-blog.andrewkelsalldes.netdna-cdn (2012)

• Have a Single Notebook – When anybody taking the notes use a Moleskine notebook which is shown in the right hand side image.  If anybody use this kind of notebook it will be helpful to keep the notes in an organized manner (Timemanagementninja, 2012).
• Keep the notes with you - This is useful to anyone when if its with he/she. So that the person can have a look for the notes in any time  (timemanagementninja, 2012).
• Review the notes daily or weekly - Fresh the memory and have a look for the notes and understand them correctly (timemanagementninja, 2012).
• Refer to the additional resources like books, journals for more knowledge.
• Use only one side of a piece of paper and number and date all notes. 

Note taking Techniques
1.Cornell System 

Write questions in this area	Take notes in this area
	Summarize your notes here as you review them

Montgomerycollege  (2012)

 2. Five R's Note taking 

Professor Walter Pauk of the Study Center at Cornell University describes five essential aspects of note taking. 

Nefe.danielsfund  (2012)

The five R’s of note taking are as follows: Record, Reduce, Recite, Reflect, and Review.  

1.   Record - Write down the main ideas, key words and facts  (Trcc.commnet , 2012)

2.  Reduce - In order to reduce the notes use the method called summarizing. This is used for quick studying and  before the preparation of tests                                                             (Nefe.danielsfund , 2012)

3.   Recite - After the class or meeting  review the notes as soon as                    possible. Do this using the own words where you can understand                                                                     (Audiblox2000,2012).

     4.   Reflect - It’s easy to fall into the trap of reciting and memorizing them                                                                            (Wvup,2012) 

     5.   Review - Periodically review your notes to keep the information fresh in your mind. Here this is changing by different people as there are secrets for note taking reviewing (Nefe.danielsfund , 2012).

Trcc.commnet (2012)

Brighton.ac (2008)

When should students need to take notes

•          During lectures
• 
  
•          During tutorials
• 
  
•          While reading textbooks, journals etc.
• 
  
•          During class discussions
• 
  
•          During study group sessions
• 
  
•          While reviewing previously taken notes
• 
  
•          Any time you encounter relevant information

Slc.berkeley (2012)

Note taking methods for text books

         A versatile study strategy is known as SQ4R reading method as it engages the reader during e reading process.Monitor the comprehension as the   summarize and  evaluate the comprehension through REVIEW.

        SQ4R STUDY READING METHOD 

          -  S  =  Survey

          -  Q  =  Question

          -  R  =  Read

          -  R  =  Recite

          -  R  =  Rite 
          -  R =   Review

2.bp (2011)

According to Fastol (2012),
Survey :
· The title, headings, and subheadings.
· Captions under pictures, charts, graphs or maps.
· Review questions or teacher-made study guides.
· Introductory and concluding paragraphs.



Question :  
· Turn the title, headings, and/or subheadings into questions.
· Read questions at the end of the chapters or after each subheading.
· Ask yourself, "What did my instructor say about this chapter or subject when it was assigned?"
· Ask yourself, "What do I already know about this subject?"


Read : 
· Look for answers to the questions you first raised.
· Answer questions at the beginning or end of chapters or study guides.
· Note all the underlined, italicized, bold printed words or phrases.
· Study graphic aids.
· Stop and reread parts which are not clear.

Recite :
· Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read and/or summarize, in your own words, what you read.
· Take notes from the text but write the information in your own words.
· Underline/highlight important points you've just read.

Cte. Uwaterloo (2012)

· Use the method of recitation which best suits your particular learning style.
· Remember to look for answers as you read and to recite or take notes before moving on.
Rite : 
· It is easier to remember ideas that are personally meaningful.
· When you study a chapter, try to link new facts, terms, and concepts with information you already know.

Review : 
· When you’re done reading, skim back over the chapter, or read your notes. Then check your memory by reciting and quizzing yourself again.
· Make frequent review a key part of your study habits.

Personal Profile and Portfolio

Personal Profile
Profile is a document which gives a clear description about the person's interest, achievements, certificates, recommendations(bscw ,2012). And also this shows the plan for particular time period with the experience of doing certain things in the life (bscw ,2012).

Personal Portfolio

S3images.coroflot (2012)

Purposes of the Portfolio
- Demonstrate the professional knowledge and skill.
- Emphasize the reflections on your entries.
- Gives a self-evaluation and personal development.


Iups (2008)
Components of a Portfolio

Authors work (2012)

PERSONAL STATEMENT OF THE AUTHOR

•          "Knowledge and creativity helps to succeed the life ..... "

To view author's Portfolio click this link:-

•            http://yuganthijayasinghe.weebly.com  
•            http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=129881556&trk=tab_pro 

Action Plan

A  process which will help to focus ideas and to decide what steps need to take to 

achieve particular goals. It is a statement of what you want to achieve over a given period of 

time. Preparing an action plan is a good way to reach objectives in life.

Summary of the current strengths, skills and qualities what author has achieved so far;

•        Ability to get on with people from different backgrounds
•        Ability to understand the others point of view.
•        Problem solving and getting decisions.
•        Creativity to design new things.
•        Courage to speak against injustice.
•        Managing the deadlines and setting the goals. 
•        Ability to take actions/ responsibility for the work.
•        Writing skills for essay writing and report writing. 
•         Read different kinds of books.
•         Drawing and painting skills.

Summary of what author need to work on, develop/ improve;

•        Compare different options and decide what are the best.
•        Being able to argue the points by providing the reasons.
•        Use different methods to improve the reading ability.
•        Develop critical and analytic thinking skills.
•        Improve the memory strategies.

What is the author going to do,when, how? 

•         Within this year (2012) author is going to develop the above which is need to work on doing that.
•         Next the main  aim is to complete the Bsc. BIT Degree in 2014 (next 2 1/2 years) by passing all the exams in the 1st attempt. 
•         To do the Msc. BIT Degree in 2016 (next 2 years after the Bsc.).
•         To do a job in a well reputed company in 2014-2015 to get experience. 
•         To build a house using the own money in 2017.
•         To get a vehicle and start driving   and get the license in 2012.

Authors work (2012)

Transferable and soft employment skills

Transferable Skills
The skills that you  have gathered through while acting in the  various roles of the job during the life (Careerplanning.about, 2012). These are important to graduates who can quickly fit to the companies in order to achieve success for both parties. Mainly useful for employers.
Everyone has transferable skills and they are acquired all through a person’s life from infant and school  to college for courses, personal reading, social activities, professional activities and life.

Workministry (2012)

The types of Transferable skills:

Communication Skills

• Effective speaking
• Effective writing
• Effective listening
• Explaining ideas
• Explaining feelings and emotions

Interpersonal Skills

• Team building
• Problem solving
• Motivating
• Leading

Personal Skills

• Time management                                                                (Channelcontent.dal, 2012)

Soft skills 

Decide how a person interacts with others, and are usually a definite part of one's personality (Businessdictionary, 2012).

The types of Soft skills:
Self Management Skills

• Self-awareness and self- confidence
• Emotion management
• Patience
• Stress management
• Persistence & perservance

Soft Skills – People Skills

• Communication skills
• Interviewing skills
• Skills in dealing with difficult situations
• Negotiation skills
• Self-promotion skills                                                            (Bemycareercoach, 2011)

The above discussed two types of skills are used in today's business world.

Cdp.mscmalaysia (2011)

Identify personal current skills

Skills are important to have a potential understand of the self-evaluation by identifying the strengths and 

weaknesses. And also how the weaknesses can be avoid like wise the skills can be used to get self 

-understanding of the own position.
According to the exercise of Academic Skills Author's self-rating is as follows.
The authors self-rating was good (5) for;

•         Managing deadlines.
•         Fill out information from different sources.
•         Writing things using own words.

The authors self-rating was average (4) for;

•          Being self-motivated.
•          Having confidence to express own ideas.
•          Being able to select what is relevant from what is irrelevant.
•          Being able to weigh up pros and cons.

 The authors self-rating was middle average (3) for;

•         Reading complicated texts.
•         Comparing different opinions and deciding what is best.
•         Being able to argue my point of view by giving reasons.

When and where author develop the skills?

·        Author has developed these skills until the current life. Managing deadlines was started from the college age. Still it's using while doing the assignments, projects as well as studying for the exams. And also expect to finish the degree in 2014 by the 1st attempt for all exams and projects. 

·    Author do the assignment by finding various kinds of resources like books, newspaper in order to collect more ideas to write in an efficient way using the own abilities.

·   When the author need something to know and make use of it author uses the complicated texts in the libraries or in book exhibitions. By doing this author had developed some kind of advanced knowledge in particular subject areas than other students. This was a great habit of the author from the childhood. 

·   If somebody say that, this is not relevant for this kind of situation and in these types of situations these are the best to follow. So that author has the brain to choose what to perform the task is applicable for. 

·   Sometimes can identify what is pros and cons under a topic.

·    After reading a book, newspaper author can write that in own words. This is an ability that the author had from the childhood in order to perform the tasks. This helps to understand in the later by reading the particular part. 

·    If there is a situation where people speak injustice to the author's work, author has the ability to tackle those situations by giving evidence too.

Authrs work (2012)

This graph evaluates that authors priorities are in the right upper quartile is the most and  an on is in the

right lower quartile. Here the performance of author is high while comparing to the importance. And it
represents the excellent of those skills but author needs to improve those qualities to achieve success in
the life. Aware of the strategies suite individually best for reading under different conditions should be
improved continuously by the author.

In order to stand in the life along without guardians or anybody every body needs to have self-
employment skills in the life.

The elements described in section as “21st century student outcomes” (represented by 
rainbow) are the skills, knowledge and expertise students should master to succeed in work and life in 
the 21st century.

schoollibrarymonthly(2011)

The following diagram illustrates that the differences between the classroom learning and the outside the classroom learning, and it occurred to me that we might use the district’s new meta-processes. This shows a interview conducted about the individual skills in a typical school day or assignment.  Then they were asked to rate each skill based on their gaming and social network activities outside of the school.

Davidwarlick (2008)

Creativity drives innovation

"Creativity is the engine that drives innovation."

Creativity of APIIT BIT Students
Students need to understand that there is usually multiple paths that lead to understanding. They should be encouraged seek out and experiment with new things or ideas.
Creative thinking is the ability to let your mind create thoughts. Creative thinking evolves around the idea of thinking beyond the scope of the norm. 

Creative thinking is something you can train your mind to do. Some people are actually born with creative thinking abilities, while others have to really work to let themselves be a creative thinker. However, it is possible for anyone to become a great creative thinker whether they were naturally born or they have to work at it. 

20-03-2012
Start Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

T2.gstatic (2012)

T1.gstatic (2012)

Actually today was a very funny day for everybody as its the APIIT's Funny Day. And also the lecturer Mr. Rehan asked whether who bought the innovations of own as the lecturer said previously. Most of the students have bought up their creativity to the class and they represented the usage and materials needed to that creation. There are some innovations which the students had created.

Author (2012)

When the authors turn came, the author went front of the class and presented the ideas about the property which had created. Author's creativity is represents by the dessert cup which is shown in the above image. Author used the coconut mainly for the creation of the product. And cut that into two pieces as shown in the below diagram where one piece is larger than the other.

Author's work (2012)

Next the author cleaned the outer part of the two pieces of coconut and removed the kern of the two pieces (inner side) as shown in the below diagram.

Author's work (2012)

After that author pasted the heads of the pieces of coconut shell where one portion of the coconut shell on the top of the smaller one. The image below shows this situation clearly.

Author's work (2012)

Finally, author polished the dessert cup and now it look nice as shown in the below.

Author's work (2012)

Author had used the coconut shells which can be recycle and can make use to innovate a  new material. This is a circular process, like collecting waste things and converting it into new things. 


This is another object made by the author using the coconut branch, piece of slon tube and a piece of wood. This is a dust wiper to clean the dust in small instruments or anything. The diagram is as follows.

 First author took a piece of wood and shaped it as shown in the below diagram. And polished that too.

 Next took a piece of slon tube and fixed that to the shaped wood by using nuts.And then chopped the coconut branch which is known in sinhala language polpiththa. Then fixed that to the slon tube which is with the shapped wood. Now it looks as this way.

There are some other innovations done by the author for the topic "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" in the school and in the leisure time too. When there was an exhibition in the school author kept some of them and won the presents too. All appreciated my innovative quality and said that i can improve that in the life.


The following are some of the objects made by the students under the theme "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle". Most of the students have created small small things but some have done larger hardest work too. 

Let's Reduce, Reuse and Recycle 

Nedlands.wa (2012)

Authors work (2012)

This is a tortoise made by Susima Weerasooriya. This is actually a new innovation done by her using the coconut husks and coconut shells. The coconut husk was used to the legs and shell was used to the tortoise shell, face etc.This tortise is look like a live animal. So its very interesting. 

Authors work (2012)

This is a pencil case imade by Sashya De Silva. To create this used part of the bamboo tree and cut it according to a desired shape which look like the left side image.

Author's work (2012)

This is a bras-let made by Harshani Wijayagurusinghe. This looks nice as it is made using some type of seeds. The seeds have a hole in the center and a thread is put from that and made this bras-let.

Author's work (2012)

This is a spoon made by Dilshan. He took a piece of coconut shell as the blower part of the spoon and a wood for the handle. It not more creative than than  others.

Author's work (2012)

Hirushi De Silva made this creative thing using her talents. This is a flower basket made by magazine papers. There were approximately 200 paper folders which is in purple color.

Author's work (2012)

Lasanthi made this plate using papers. Pasted the papers in two sides of the plate and made this out. It was funny.

Authors work(2012)

This is the handwork done by Madara Hemerchandra. A draw in of a kingfisher is collage using dried tree leaves, coconut husks, old magazin papers etc.  And also framed it and looked nice.






At the end the lecturer Mr.Rehan appreciated all  of the students efforts whose products were bought to the class and also Mr. Rehan said that all of the students have the hidden ability of creativity. So all of the students can improve this skill throughout the life.