Taking Notes vs. Making Notes…

…what’s the difference?

Hello all. Welcome to the 177th edition of TEPS Weekly!

Notebooks are an important part of every school-going student’s life. In many classrooms, they become the main source of revision before an examination. Teachers dictate important points and likely questions, students carefully write them down, and later try to memorise the answers.

But a notebook can do more than store dictated points and answers. Students can use it to put an idea into their own words, connect one concept to another, compare examples, work out why something happens, note questions and summarise what they have understood. In this way, the notebook becomes part of the learning process, not just a record to revise later. To understand how best to use the notebook, let’s first see what students are actually doing when they are writing notes.

Scenario 1: 

During a Grade 6 Science lesson, the teacher dictates five points on the causes of soil erosion. Students listen carefully and write down the points as accurately as possible, trying to keep up with the teacher.

Scenario 2: 

After discussing the causes of soil erosion, the teacher asks students to organise the ideas under three headings: cause, what happens, and how it can be prevented. Students use short phrases and arrows to show the connections.

These two scenarios show two different ways in which students may use their notebooks. In the first, students are mainly taking notes by recording information given by the teacher. In the second, they are making notes by working with the information and organising it to show their understanding. 

Aspect	Scenario 1: Note-TAKING	Scenario 2: Note-MAKING
What the student is doing	Capturing information from the teacher, board, textbook or discussion	Working with the information to make sense of it
Main mental process	Listening, identifying and recording	Selecting, interpreting, organising and connecting
Attention is focused on	Keeping up with the information being presented	Understanding what the information means
Role of working memory	The student must listen, hold information in mind and write at the same time	The student has more time to process ideas and reduce the pressure on working memory
Decision-making involved	Deciding quickly what to write down	Deciding what is important, how ideas relate and how best to organise them
Use of prior knowledge	May be limited because the student is focused on recording	The student connects new ideas to what they already know
Language used	Often close to the teacher’s or textbook’s words	Usually rewritten in the student’s own words or represented through symbols, tables or diagrams
Depth of processing	Can remain surface-level, especially when it becomes copying or transcription	Involves deeper processing because the student transforms the information
When it usually happens	During the explanation or discussion	During a pause, after the explanation or during review
What it supports	Creates a record for later use	Builds understanding, recall, transfer and problem-solving
Main risk	The student may write a lot without fully understanding	The student may struggle if they are not given enough time or scaffolding

Since the purpose of any lesson is for students to make sense of it, gain conceptual clarity and be able to apply the knowledge in different ways, ideally we would want students to be making notes in addition to taking notes because the former is a more active process. 

The different ways by which students can make notes in class:

1. The Cornell Method:

The Cornell method divides a page into three sections: a narrow cue column on the left, a wider note-taking column on the right, and a summary area at the bottom. During the lesson, students use the right-hand column to record key details using short phrases, keywords and symbols. Soon after the lesson, they review these notes and add important concepts, prompts or potential exam questions in the left-hand column. They then write a brief summary in their own words at the bottom. This moves students from note-taking in the right-hand column to reviewing and making sense of it (note-making) at the bottom.

Example: During a Grade 6 lesson on soil erosion, students use the right-hand column to note brief points such as heavy rainfall, deforestation, loss of topsoil and planting trees. Since it may be difficult for school students to decide what to record while also listening to the explanation, the teacher can pause at key points, highlight the main idea and tell them what to write or give prompts such as, “Write down one cause of soil erosion” or “Note what happens when trees are cut.” After the explanation, students should be given time to review these notes, and they add questions in the left-hand column, such as ‘What are the causes of soil erosion?’ and ‘How does erosion affect farming?’ The teacher can support them by modelling one question or suggesting question starters.  Finally, they write a short summary explaining how soil erosion happens, what its effects are and how it can be reduced.

2. Notes Parking Lot:

At the start of the lesson, the teacher writes the learning outcome at the top of a visible space on the board and then demarcates another area on the board called the ‘Parking Lot.’ As the lesson progresses, the teacher adds three to five key topics or big ideas to this “parking lot”. Students keep their notebooks closed during the main teaching so they can focus on listening, discussing and participating. At the end of the lesson, they use the listed topics to recall the learning and create their notes, in small groups. By discussing what they remember, they can fill gaps in one another’s understanding, correct misconceptions and build a more complete set of notes together. 

Example: For a Grade 6 lesson, the learning outcome could be: Students will be able to explain how soil erosion happens and suggest ways to reduce it. As the lesson progresses, the teacher adds key prompts to the Parking Lot, such as ‘What holds soil in place?’, ‘What happens when trees are cut?’ and ‘Why is topsoil important for farming?’ At the end, students work in small groups to use these prompts to recreate the main ideas from the lesson.

Board work by the teacher

Student work

3. Mind Mapping and Concept Schematics: Students place the main idea at the centre or top of the page and connect related ideas using branches, boxes and arrows. This helps them see how concepts are linked rather than viewing them as separate points. It is especially useful for cycles, systems, causes and effects.

   
   

   Example: After the main discussion on soil erosion, the teacher gives students five to seven minutes to create a mind map. They write Soil Erosion at the centre and add branches for causes, effects, where it is seen and prevention. They then add examples under each branch and draw links, such as connecting deforestation to fewer roots holding the soil and then to loss of topsoil. This helps students pull together the lesson and see how the ideas fit.

4. Tabular models: Tables are useful when students need to compare concepts, classify information or identify patterns.

   
   

   Example: After the discussion, students compare three causes of soil erosion—heavy rainfall, deforestation and overgrazing—using the headings: What happens to the soil?, Where might this be seen? and What could reduce it? Through the table, they notice that all three can lead to the loss of topsoil, but in different ways. This helps students choose a suitable solution for each situation rather than treating all soil erosion in the same way.

5. Guided notes and Skeletal Outlines: The teacher prepares a partly completed note sheet before the lesson. It may already include the lesson title, main headings, a diagram, a table or the steps in a process, with a few important spaces left blank. Students fill in only the missing information during or after the explanation. This gives students a clear structure to follow, reduces the pressure of writing quickly and helps them focus on the meaning of the lesson. The teacher can gradually remove some of the support as students become more confident and independent.

   
   

   Example: The teacher gives students a diagram showing rain falling on a bare slope, with arrows already drawn but some labels missing. During the lesson, the teacher pauses at points and lets students add terms such as run-off, loose soil and loss of topsoil to the diagram. At the end of the lesson, they summarise how the process happens.

The way students make notes should change as they grow. Younger students need more structured and visual support because writing, attention and working memory are still developing. In middle school, teachers can gradually build skills such as identifying key ideas, shortening information and organising it clearly. By secondary school, students should be able to combine information from different sources and create notes that support revision and self-testing.

A notebook should not just be a record of what the teacher said. It should help students to make sense of their learning, connect them to what they already know and use them later for recall, revision and application.

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Edition: 5.32