Study Skills - Note Taking

 
Active Participation

Actively participating in the lecture (or at least staying awake) will help you get much more information from your classes.  It will also generally increase your performance in class, on assignments, and on exams. Here are some tips to improve your active participation skills.

• Have good attendance. Obviously, you will get much more out of class if you are there than if you are not. Try to arrive early and stay a little late. You don’t want to miss the beginning or end of the lecture which is when the professor might introduce or summarize important information or make important announcements.
   
• Sit in front. This way you will have fewer distracters between you and the professor. Many professors have found that students who sit either in the front rows or up the direct middle of the classroom (the T-section—see below) are often the same students who get the A’s and the B’s in the class

• Pretend it is just you and the professor having a conversation. Sit up straight and make eye contact with the professor. Behave as though the success of the conversation depended on you being a good listener. Nod when you agree with something, ask a question if you are confused about something. Paying attention to your attending skills will improve your concentration and let the professor know you are interested in the class.
   
• Oxygenate yourself. Sit up straight and take deep breaths. Not getting enough oxygen will make you sleepy.
   

• Work on concentration and eliminate daydreaming. If you are concerned about something, write it down on a separate piece of paper so you can put it out of your mind and deal with it later. Make a conscious effort to concentrate on the material at hand. If you catch yourself daydreaming, calmly bring yourself back to attention

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