Watching this video;

really made me think about how effect my note taking is during lectures and then what I do with them when I come away from the lectures.

I wrote out a mind map based on this video which I have now been using for the past week when studying or coming out of a lecture.  It’s worked amazingly!  Before there were many things which I was doing that is one this sheet; re-writing my notes, having a word bank of words which came up in lectures that I didn’t understand, organising my lecture notes, I phone my mum every day at some point and explain to her what I’ve learned or what my lecture was about, I phone my siblings or boyfriend on days when I found the lecture difficult and discussed it with them, I related subjects to one another and I picked out the parts which I found were the most important.  However as you can see there are many things which I wasn’t doing; taking notes when reading (which is now helping me significantly as it keeps me involved in the book), questioning myself on different parts of a topic (which is also helping me as it highlights where I’m struggling the most), quizzing myself where i have questions and write down my answers (I’ve done this once or twice but not sure if it’s beneficial to me) and space repetition which i know realise is the most important aspect of studying.  I found myself caught up in my emotions of moving away from home for the first time and being out my comfort zone that I let myself slip where yes I would take notes and re-write them but for the first couple of weeks I hadn’t gone back over my notes at all.  This has really highlighted to me how important it is to do so therefore I’ve started from the very beginning and I’m going through each powerpoint re-writing and re-reading.  Taking new notes, adapting them from the old ones, refreshing and learning the topics from before and it’s felt great!  Getting focused and using these techniques I’m managing to keep up to date with the current work and topics we’re doing in class but also go back over the ones from before.  I know work my way found this mind map when studying assuring I’m learning effectively and actively.