Teaching students how to effectively take notes

Note-taking is believed to create cues for the noted information. Note-taking leads to small improvements on higher-order performance tests, possibly because note-taking alone does not lead to new insights. Notes taken using the electronic devices typically contain more verbatim transcriptions of the content we teach. Longhand notes are more likely to include visuospatial content and to invite students to paraphrase information based on their understanding of the learned content. The advantages that long-hand notes hold over digital notes are inconsistent in nature. Longhand note-takers perform better than laptop note-takers if students can review their notes before being tested. Matrix notes use a table-like format to organize linear content in a way that stresses similarities and differences between different topics, groups, theories, or other types of content.