1. Writing down the lecture's PowerPoint presentation during class:
All of my professors have PowerPoint presentation to go along with their lectures. So for my first semester of uni, I would try to write them down word for word during the lecture. That was possible since our professors provide the slides to us before class actually starts. But since I couldn't write as fast as my professors would talk, oftentimes I would be on different slides than they were talking about. In order for me to learn something, I have to write it down in my own handwriting. In that way, the method was useful to me. But after a while I realized that I was writing down way too much information and I was never going to be able to remember it all for the exams. Plus, I was also writing down a lot of information that wasn't even relevant.
2. Summarizing the PowerPoint presentation by hand after class:
After the first semester I realized that the above mentioned method was not working out for me. For one, I was not paying attention to what the professor was saying during class. And secondly, my summaries were way too detailed. The next method I tried was taking short notes during classes. Those notes were usually annotations to the professors' PowerPoint presentation taken by hand on a piece of paper. In front of the note I would write down the slide the notes were referring to. After class, I would then sit down and summarize the entire presentation with the help of my notes. But I would soon come to find that this method wasn't working out for me either. I was investing a lot of time after classes to create this summarize. But my biggest problem was that a lot of time I wasn't able to remember what exact part of the slide my notes were referring to.
3. Taking notes during class and summarizing afterwards on a laptop:
The next method I tried, was bringing my laptop to classes. I would open up the professors' PowerPoint slides on the computer and would then go ahead and annotate those during class. Annotating with a laptop gave me the ability to put the notes next to the points on the slides they were referring to. After class I would then sit down and summarize the topic on my laptop. I was saving time typing and I was able to paste pictures and graphs into my summary. This method was good for me since I was able to always have all my notes of all classes with me at all times. But it once again let to me writing down too much information because I was quicker typing rather than writing ti down by hand. And I also realized while I was then studying with the summaries that I need my notes to be written down by hand in order for me to memorize them more easily.
4. Using an iPad to take notes during class and summarize afterwards:
Which is how I got to the method that I'm using currently. During classes I use a tablet on which I open the lecture slides and a note-taking app. With the help of an Apple Pencil I'm able to handwrite notes onto the lecture slides as I please. It also give me the ability to add little doodles or arrows to my notes which I was not able to do with my laptop. For every topic I then create a summary on the note-taking app that is never longer than one page. That way I can guarantee that I'm not taking down too much information, my notes are handwritten and if I can't find important information I can then check in the notes I took on the lecture slides.
That being said I would like to emphasize that just because that way works best for me doesn't mean that it will work for you. Maybe you might learn better with one of the other methods I mentioned or you might even have a totally different style of learning. So please see these different steps in my learning process as tips and tricks to try out. I would love to hear from you, how you work and study best.
Love, Svenja