Class Notes and Homework

1. Take 10 minutes to review your notes. Skim the notes and put a question mark next to anything you do not understand at first reading. Draw stars next to topics that warrant special emphasis. Try to place the material in context: What has been going on in the course for the past few weeks? How does today’s class fit in?
2. Do a warm-up exercise for your homework. Before doing the assignment, look through your notes again. Use a separate sheet of paper to rework examples, problems, or exercises. If there is related assigned material in the textbook, review it. Go back to the examples. Cover the solution and attempt to answer each question or complete each problem. Look at the author’s work only after you have made a serious effort to remember it. Keep in mind that it can help to go back through your course notes, reorganize them, highlight the essential items, and thus create new notes that let you connect with the material one more time. In fact, these new notes could be better than the originals.
3. Do any assigned problems and answer any assigned questions. When you start doing your homework, read each question or problem and ask: What am I supposed to find or find out? What is essential, and what is extraneous? Read each problem several times and state it in your own words. Work the problem without referring to your notes or the text, as though you were taking a test. In this way you will test your knowledge and know when you are prepared for exams.

   YOUR TURN

   Discuss

   Now that you’ve read these suggestions about taking notes and studying for class, which ideas will you implement in your own note taking? Come to class ready to explain which ideas appeal to you most and why.

4. Persevere. Don’t give up too soon. When you encounter a problem or question that you cannot readily handle, move on only after a reasonable effort. After you have completed the entire assignment, go back to any items that stumped you. Try once more and then take a break. You might need to mull over a particularly difficult problem for several days. Let your unconscious mind have a chance. Inspiration might come when you are waiting at a stoplight or just before you fall asleep.
5. Complete your work. When you finish an assignment, talk to yourself about what you learned from it. Think about how the problems and questions were different from one another, which strategies were successful, and what form the answers took. Be sure to review any material you have not mastered. Seek assistance from the instructor, a classmate, a study group, the campus learning assistance center, or a tutor to learn how to answer questions that stumped you.