How To Take Good Notes In My Math Classes?
npat...@hotmail.com
Thanks.
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Marcus Bezeck
npat...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
> Thanks.
Read the material your prof is going to cover before class....
Marcus
Jim
attention to what's going on. Before you do your homework, copy whatever
formulas you need to know into your notebook in red pen so you can find them
easily.
<npat...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7eau4b$435$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
> Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math
classes?
> Thanks.
>
Richard Carr
:<npat...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
:news:7eau4b$435$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
: Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math
:classes?
: Thanks.
:
: -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
: http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Write down everything. If the lecturer is good they will not make mistakes
and what they write will be useful. If your understanding is good you
should be able to follow it in the lecture and your taking notes will fix
it in your long term memory. You will not necessarily need to look at the
notes again. Writing it down the once should be good enough. If it is
tricky you can always read through them later on. This is especially
useful if the course is not following a text book as is often the case.
Richard Carr
:Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 22:35:49 -0400
:From: Richard Carr <ca...@math.columbia.edu>
:Newsgroups: sci.math
:Subject: Re: How To Take Good Notes In My Math Classes?
:
:
::<npat...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
:
I apologize for just scribbling this down without putting any commas in
it.
ph...@interpac.net
Mega-Dittos to that!
The first most important thing to do is to be prepared for that
class period. Read ahead in your text, even though you may not
entirely understand what you're reading.
Then, give your full attention to your instructor. Your teacher
is leading and guiding you forward, and he or she expects to find
in your eyes either understanding or confusion. Teachers are not
robots, they are acutely aware of their role as facilitators.
/ph
- - - - - - - -
> It's too distracting. Just pay
> attention to what's going on. Before you do your homework, copy whatever
> formulas you need to know into your notebook in red pen so you can find them
> easily.
>
Clive Tooth
> On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Richard Carr wrote:
>
> :Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 22:35:49 -0400
> :From: Richard Carr <ca...@math.columbia.edu>
> :Newsgroups: sci.math
> :Subject: Re: How To Take Good Notes In My Math Classes?
> :
> :
> ::<npat...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> ::news:7eau4b$435$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
> :: Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math
> ::classes?
> :: Thanks.
> ::
> :: -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
> :: http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
> ::
> :
> :Write down everything. If the lecturer is good they will not make mistakes
> :and what they write will be useful. If your understanding is good you
> :should be able to follow it in the lecture and your taking notes will fix
> :it in your long term memory. You will not necessarily need to look at the
> :notes again. Writing it down the once should be good enough. If it is
> :tricky you can always read through them later on. This is especially
> :useful if the course is not following a text book as is often the case.
> :
>
> I apologize for just scribbling this down without putting any commas in
> it.
Hmmm...
When I first read your post it did not strike me that any commas were
missing, and I still adhere to that view. Some of the sentences are
short, but I find that style of writing very good for expressing ideas
clearly.
--
Clive
http://www.pisquaredoversix.force9.co.uk/
End of document
Douglas W Bass
: Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
: Thanks.
: -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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Amen to the other responders!
If you can understand how each step was obtained in your pre-class
reading, you will do well. However, you may get to a point where it's not
at all obvious how the authors got from one step to another. At this
point, make a mental or written note to ask the instructor about this when
it's presented in class. Don't worry about slowing down the instructor's
presentation, because if you don't understand something in the book, it's
very likely that a number of other students don't understand it either.
Hope this helps,
Douglas Bass
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas Bass
Ph.D Student, Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas
Phone: (972)-883-6444
email: db...@utdallas.edu
URL: http://www.utdallas.edu/~dbass
The opinions expressed are strictly my own, and are not necessarily those
of the faculty or administration of the University of Texas at Dallas.
Donald T. Davis
: Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
some responders have said, "write everything down."
other responders have said, "read the text, so you
won't need to write notes."
which advice to follow depends on whether your
teacher is following a single textbook very closely,
and on whether that text is clear and easy-to-follow.
in my experience as a student, i found that:
* grad students teach straight from the text;
* junior faculty teach from their own notes, and
hop around from one text to another;
* well-known mathematicians are more likely to teach
from their own notes, even when they're senior;
* senior faculty are more likely to teach from a
single text, especially for basic courses.
the rule-of-thumb is:
if your teacher is an aggressive research mathematician,
copy everything he writes or says.
if the teacher is very young or very old, read the book.
- don davis, boston
-
Anthony Buckland
>
> Don't waste your time taking notes. It's too distracting. Just pay
> attention to what's going on. Before you do your homework, copy whatever
> formulas you need to know into your notebook in red pen so you can find them
> easily.
>
> classes?
It depends a lot on the class and the lecturer. One of my
third-year classes started out as a race between the clock,
the lecturer's speed in putting proofs on the board, and
our speed in taking notes, and essentially never let up
for months. It would have taken a gold-plated genius (of
which we had maybe two, definitely not including me) to
comprehend the material at the speed at which it had to be
presented to cover it in the scheduled lecture hours. The
rest of us needed time alone or in pairs to figure out what
we'd seen. Not taking notes would have been fatal: missing
lectures due to sickness etc. would have left holes in the
development of the subject that would have been very
difficult indeed to fill from the literature.
Nico Benschop
>
> Read the material your prof is going to cover before class....
Moreover, which has not touched upon by the other replies:
There are essentially three kinds of memory:
auditive, visual, motoric.
Even *with* a good textbook or syllabus, people with a motoric memory
will benefit from writing notes, in addition to the visual & auditive
presentation. Strange but true! And: writing forces you to abstract
the essence on-the-fly (at least for lazy/slow writers;-) which again
helps to 'internalize' the matter, cq know what you must rehearse...
--
Ciao, Nico Benschop -- http://www.iae.nl/users/benschop
Don Redmond
This has probably been touched on before, but my server is not always
so kind as to give me all of a thread so I'll pretend that it hasn't
been. After you take all of these notes rewrite them into good form so
that they make sense. This may entail some rearranging, but that is a
good thing. Basically pretend like you're making up lecture notes for
your own lectures. When you find yourself faced with chicken scratch
notes studying becomes a litle harder.
Still, in class one of the best things to do is listen more and note
less. If you get worried about copying everything on the blackboard
and never rewrite, your notes can be rather meaningless. This is the
reason for reading ahead of where the class is: then you can listen more.
Of course, there is no one method that works best for everyone, which
is why you'll get lots of advice.
Have fun,
Don
Marcus Bezeck
Nico Benschop wrote:
> Marcus Bezeck wrote:
> >
> > npat...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes
> > > in my math classes? -- Thanks.
> >
> > Read the material your prof is going to cover before class....
> > -- Marcus
>
> Moreover, which has not touched upon by the other replies:
> There are essentially three kinds of memory:
> auditive, visual, motoric.
>
> Even *with* a good textbook or syllabus, people with a motoric memory
> will benefit from writing notes, in addition to the visual & auditive
> presentation. Strange but true! And: writing forces you to abstract
> the essence on-the-fly (at least for lazy/slow writers;-) which again
> helps to 'internalize' the matter, cq know what you must rehearse...
>
> --
> Ciao, Nico Benschop -- http://www.iae.nl/users/benschop
Good point.
It is obviously difficult to answer such a general question in an
absolutely correct manner, especially about something as personal as
learning styles. One point you make though that I think is very
worthwhile is to consider and take over what is known from educational
psychology. Sometimes the experts in a field don't understand how to
reach the non-experts and help students maximize their strengths in order
to learn material that is tough for them. I try to find useful material
about teaching math constantly, and your little gem reminded me of
something that I had forgotten, so thanks. In the end though, all I can
say is what works for me, and if it helps somebody else or resonates with
them, good, and if not, ... well the advice _was_ free ;>)
Marcus
bwe...@my-dejanews.com
npat...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
>
My math classes usually had a lot of equations on the board. Write them down!
They're probably testable.
Also listen for main points & write those too.
bw
Gerold Lee Gorman
npat...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
> Thanks.
I did notice a few profs who followed the text closely most of the time; close
enough in fact that I learned to take almost no notes at all. Instead of taking
endless notes, I simply kept the book open right in front of me and placed little
check marks and other notes into the margins, i.e., "in class 4/1, know this, etc."
Of course there were plenty of times that a one liner in the book "It can readilly
be shown that for some fee^fie-foe*fum = 0 there exists ... " which therefore
spawned about 7 blackboards covered with all of the iinfinetesimal details.
When that happens, better start asking questions and copying down everything.
goodyear
>Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
>Thanks.
>
>-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
>http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
That will to a large degree depend on the style of the teacher. If the
presentation is well prepared, if the teacher knows how to write on
the blackboard (in the most elementary sense, that is in questions of
legibility, organization of the material etc) and if the teacher
actually wants you to copy (to what extent this is the case will be
more or less obvious) then it is a good idea to take careful notes.
If not, read the book instead and try to regard the lectures as some
kind of entertainment.
One would perhaps believe that every teacher in mathematic is skilled
in preparing lectures and organize material, and in using the
blackboard. This is in fact very rarely the case! Many a time it is
actually quite impossible to make out what is going on in a lecture
and when you think things over later, with the help of a good book,
you can't believe that something so simple could be so badly messed
up.
Usually the trivial and easy parts are spelled out in detail, while
the important steps are skimmed over. This was called "snowing the
students" and is very common. If there are some trivial calculations
to be made be sure that these are tended to with every care, eg
finding the inverse of some idiotic polynom, calculating the
determinant of some ugly matrix etc. With the usual trial and error
process this might cover a good part of the available lecture time.
This is done, one suspect, in order to be able to skip explaining the
interesting things about e.g. determinants.
Observe also that the "punch line" is often implicit in the lecture,
it is regarded as bad taste to explain why something demonstrated
leads to the conclusion, the teacher maybe feels it would be to easy
if this was done. So in proving something be aware that the outlines
and the pivotal point of the proof are often kept below the surface
and in the lecture only a mass of seemingly (and sometimes really)
unrelated tricks are assembled.
Of course I can appreciate that teaching mathematics to moronic
undergraduates is not always regarded as a sacred mission, but
sometimes one get the feeling that without a conscious effort things
couldn't be as bad as they are....
So my question to the many mathematicians here are: Do you have a
secret code that you follow, in order to keep mathematics an esoteric
enterprise? It shouldn't be to easy, the student should be made to
think the material over, you do not want to give away, just like that,
what you yourself had to fight to acquire?
Virgil
>>Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math classes?
>>Thanks.
>>
>>-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
>>http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
As a retired Math Professor, I can give you one good hint:
Read the assignment carefully BEFORE the class session.
If you know what parts of the lecture are explained adequately in the
text, you will know better what parts of the lecture you need to take note
of.
Also, if you have questions about what is in the text, and they are not
answered in the lecture, you will know what you need to find out.
--
Virgil
vm...@frii.com
Richard Carr
:Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 09:07:21 +0100
:From: Clive Tooth <cl...@pisquaredoversix.force9.co.uk>
:Newsgroups: sci.math
:Subject: Re: How To Take Good Notes In My Math Classes?
:
:Richard Carr wrote:
:
:> On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Richard Carr wrote:
:>
:> :Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 22:35:49 -0400
:> :From: Richard Carr <ca...@math.columbia.edu>
:> :Newsgroups: sci.math
:> :Subject: Re: How To Take Good Notes In My Math Classes?
:> :
:> :
:> ::<npat...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
:> ::news:7eau4b$435$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
:> :: Hello can anyone please tell me how I can take good notes in my math
:> ::classes?
:> :: Thanks.
:> ::
:> :: -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
:> :: http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
:> ::
:> :
:> :Write down everything. If the lecturer is good they will not make mistakes
:> :and what they write will be useful. If your understanding is good you
:> :should be able to follow it in the lecture and your taking notes will fix
:> :it in your long term memory. You will not necessarily need to look at the
:> :notes again. Writing it down the once should be good enough. If it is
:> :tricky you can always read through them later on. This is especially
:> :useful if the course is not following a text book as is often the case.
:> :
:>
:> I apologize for just scribbling this down without putting any commas in
:> it.
:
:Hmmm...
:When I first read your post it did not strike me that any commas were
:missing, and I still adhere to that view. Some of the sentences are
:short, but I find that style of writing very good for expressing ideas
:clearly.
There's one missing in the last sentence before "as is often the
case". Also I missed one in the third sentence after "If your
understanding is good".
:
:--
:
:
Ted R Shoemaker
> So my question to the many mathematicians here are: Do you have a
> secret code that you follow, in order to keep mathematics an esoteric
> enterprise? It shouldn't be to easy, the student should be made to
> think the material over, you do not want to give away, just like that,
> what you yourself had to fight to acquire?
I'm not a professor, but I'll try to answer this one.
What are the students in school for? Do they need the prof to pour a
mass of facts into
"Empty heads, thick and hollow.
Ram it, cram it; more to follow",
or do they need a trainer to help them in the exercise of thinking?
If they need math facts only, then they can skip college altogether and
buy Mathematica. If they need thinking only, they can read and discuss
good books. Extremely few students are capable of getting to both the
facts and the thinking, without a teacher.
Ted Shoemaker
shoe...@uwec.edu