As tomorrow is the start of a new week, I have decided to share a helpful tip for students to try out and see if it makes a difference to how you study. It's only the start of the new term, so there is no point in discussing exam techniques with you just yet, let's start at the beginning.

The first thing that I can't stress highly enough, go and get yourself a planner/diary/some-form-of-tracking-device that will allow you to keep everything you need to do in one place. Honestly, the amount of people that I have seen trailing scrumpled bits of paper out of the bottom of their bags with gum attached to it and a little bit of last weeks lunch - it's so not good.

My planner is my baby, it keeps everything that I have to do, key dates, key contacts and extra little notes all in a safe place. There's also a built in pencil case, ruler and timetable sheets - I really can keep track of everything.

I bought it for £10 at Paperchase, which may seem like a big investment to those that are a little bit less willing to spend money on school or college but you can buy refills for everything inside at around £1-£2 so it's a worthwhile investment knowing that you can keep it for a number of years.



I also bought stickers to help me keep track, and stars to highlight key aspects that I'm excited for or happy about.


Now that I have stressed the importance of a planner, I have something else that will help you.
If there is one thing that most of us tend to struggle with, it's note taking. Many people fire loads of information onto a page, add a few arrows here and there, maybe change the pen colour and by the end you have a giant page of 'kjbweofhouehfnq'. It gets to the point where you can't pick out the information that is fully relevant and you don't really know what you have learned.

Does that ring any bells? With some of you, it might very well do. With others, you might have some form of organisation within your notes which is great - keep it up!
I, thankfully, am one of the people that isn't too bad at taking notes - I can arrange, highlight key points and have my own system that allows me to know where I am.

So, when my tutor of Understanding Television and Film started class by introducing a note taking technique, I was rather reluctant - mainly because I already know what works for me and what doesn't; usually when someone tells me how to write my notes, it doesn't work and I end up frustrated more than anything.

However, the technique he taught us actually turned out to be pretty darn effective, check this out:



The Cornell note taking technique.

It's basically taking an A4 page and splitting it into 3 parts; key points, detailed notes and personal summary.


In the key points section you can put titles, key names, key dates etc and in the detailed notes section you explain and elaborate on your key points - at the end of the lesson you use your notes to write out a summary paragraph - if you can't do that, you know you don't understand your notes or what you have learned that day, allowing you to then ask for help on what you don't understand - this is the main bit that I love.

It's very handy to yourself to know when you have learned something thoroughly or if you're a bit weary on a certain element. I will definitely be keeping this section, if not the whole system.


You can download your own personalised sheets from here. You enter your name, date, class name and choose the layout, and then print as many copies as you need.



See what you think, have a go and let me know what you think of the process.

Look out for follow up posts where I will be going over folders, essay techniques, handy apps to download and other ideas that will make your term time easier.

Much love,