You will be provided with skeletal notes handouts for the course that you should print out and bring to class with you. These will provide the lecture outline, readings, figures, equations, and review suggestions, as well as space for your own notes. A rough lecture schedule is available. See below for important hints and tips on taking notes.
Since not everyone may have access to the portal section in time, the handouts for the first few lectures can be downloaded here:
Recording devices:
Students may record lectures provided that such recordings are solely for the student’s own use, and are not redistributed by any means. Students are advised not to treat recordings as an alternative to attendance and note-taking!
Additional Resources:
Students should make use of the on-line tutorial on Statistics, Calibration, & Regression, as well as the various Virtual Instrument Tours available on the AnalSci web site.
Hints and Tips:
- Read the relevant text material before the lecture.
- Print the handouts in landscape orientation, single-sided. Use the space to take notes during class
- Take notes, not dictation!
- Develop and use your own set of abbreviations to speed up note-taking
- Review and reorganize your notes promptly after the lecture. Supplement with additional notes from the text.
- Record any questions that arise to ask during the next lecture or tutorial.
According to various studies of note-taking in lectures:
- The average lecture contains 5,000 spoken words
- The average student records 500 of those words in notes
- Students who take notes record on average 40% of important ideas (range 11% to 75%)
- Only 33% of students take ‘decent’ notes
- One study reports a 45% grade point difference between the best and worst note-takers
Students who take notes in class:
- Have increased focus & attention
- Are more likely to identify key points
- Show increased understanding
- Show improved short and long tern recall
- Do better on factual tests
However, only those students who take notes and review and reorganize them promptly perform better on higher-order thinking tests!
Need Help?
If you have never learnt how to take notes and study, or need other assistance, U of T’s Learning Services provide many workshops and resources. A list of useful note-taking resources can be found at the web site for Essential Study Skills by Linda Wong (Houghton Mifflin)