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Visual Note Taking

Tags

Study Skills & Tools MS/HS/College Strategy

Skills

Auditory Processing Visual Memory Spatial Perception

Visual Note Taking

If your student has stronger visual skills and enjoys art

Instruction And Practice

  1. Objective: Students who learn more easily in a visual format will try visual note taking to help them understand, organize and remember information.
  2. In visual note taking, students draw or sketch information to show how ideas relate to each other and the relative importance of one idea over another. Each student will develop their own technique based on what helps them best. Some students benefit from sketching entirely and some from using a combination of words and drawings. Help students discover what works for them by modeling key pointers and watching some example videos below.
  3. Tips: a) Draw the key concept in the center of the page and then, with lines, connect to supporting ideas or concepts. b) Use different colors or shapes to signify connections, similarities and differences between ideas. c) Emphasize with students that the drawings can be rudimentary and quick, such as basic shapes, so the students isn't spending time on the mechanics of the drawing itself.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Notes taken in an organized fashion can help students more easily remember what they heard, and makes studying later much more efficient. Visual note taking can be incredibly effective because it requires students to synthesize their understanding as they write, rather than simply writing verbatim, which solidifies their understanding and retention as they write and draw.