3 in 1 Notes

Decision

The most important part of almost any class is the lecture. About 90% of all classes primary source of information is the lecture; however, it is not always easy to retain all of the material covered from lectures. This is why people take notes. Note taking is something that everyone does, yet only a handful do effectively. Note taking has an art to it just like anything else. This week I choose to use the 3 in 1 note taking style. I am in the majority of people who take notes but do not really quite take effective notes, so a new approach sounded like a good idea. I used this strategy in my Rel 101 and EDU 200 classes.

Prep and application

The strategy itself mandates that the user split their paper into three separate sections. First splitting the paper horizontally into two thirds/one third sections and then the same thing vertically. The column on the left is used to document key ideas or facts of a certain class. The column on the right is used to organize key terms and their definitions. Lastly, the section on the bottom is used to create possible questions that the teacher might ask in the future similarly to the jeopardy questions strategy. To maximize the effectiveness of this strategy I made three in one note skeletons for next five pages to give myself a comfortable amount to work with without having to worry about possibly running out. This note taking style forces one to pay attention more in class, because it focuses the information being recited into two possible categories: key facts and key terms.

LAME

This strategy was actually very effective. Instead of making a futile effort to record all of the information being passed on by the professor, I could focus on key bits of information rather than trying to decipher the entire lecture. Being a kinesthetic learner, note taking is a very important part of my learning process; however, if I do not create some sort of critical lens to funnel the main source material appropriately. There is very little action required to complete this style of note taking, just a few brief minutes before and after class. If this strategy is combined with the twenty-minute test prep, i.e. making the questions afterwards and creating flash cards with the key terms, it can make any evaluation fairly stress free.

Ranking Priorities

This week I used the ranking priorities strategy to use in my WRT 105 class as well as my CLS 105 class. The ranking priorities strategy works by creating a list of all the work that needs to get done in a certain class, and then placing the letters A, B, or C next to them to signify the importance. A being absolutely essential, B being important, and C being optional. After determining the importance of each assignment, one rearranges the assignments in each letter category according to the priority of each assignment.

My writing 105 class has a lot of weekly assignments that often feel like busy work, so the ranking priorities strategy is actually quite effective for this class. Each week we are given a readings and a assignment based around that. We also had a worksheet due that week, but an essay was also assigned for the near future. To me the most obvious way to prioritize the assignments for this class was by the due date itself. The weekly assignments as well as the worksheet were categorized as absolutely essential simply because they were do in two days. The essay, on the other hand, I listed as important because it was not do for two weeks or so and as much as I would have liked to get a start on it there was no real sense of urgency surrounding it. I combined the Ranking priorities strategy with the ten minute technique with writing 105 because the work is very monotonous. It includes defining vocabulary words and other things that make me want to get up and go do something else, so the ten minute technique proved to be beneficial because it helped me power through the work I needed to do. Combined with the ranking priorities, which helped me visualize my goals, I finished under 40 minutes.

The ranking priorities actually helped less with my CLS class, simply because, the homework I needed to get done was all absolutely essential, so it was hard to really make a list and understand what truly needed to get done because it all needed to get done.

I picked the ranking priorities strategy because it is a great tool for me to use because I always find myself jumping from task to task and accomplishing a lot less in a small period of time rather than just getting all my work done at once. The ranking priorities strategy gave me a clear trajectory for accomplishment

D's Due and Don't Organizer

This week I used the D's Due and Do Organizer for my classes EDU 200 and WRT 105. I found the D's Organizer to be helpful especially for my EDU 200 class because I had a project due this week. The D's organizer helps you visualize the amount of work you have to do each day and what work is actually due in class during the week to help you prioritize. In conjunction with the fritter finder the D's organizer can be very helpful because you can find times during the day in which you have small pockets of time to do lower priority work. The only drawback of the D's organizer is that it leaves you a bit short sighted for longer projects such as the faculty interview project for CLS 105. The D's organizer should probably be used with a monthly calendar as well to be truly effective otherwise one could easily lose track of the long term.

I chose this strategy because I am a forgetful person. If I don't plan out my week and get my assignments out on paper so that they are all clearly visible something will definitely fall through the cracks. I think that the D's organizer could be used by anyone; however, I do not think it should be used on its own otherwise more challenging assignments could be procrastinated upon and become more difficult than needs to be.