Notes and

Creative
Learning
Introduct
ion
A change is noticed over time from the student who tries to
write down everything and the new student who may write
down nothing at all in a lecture. Neither of these strategies
is necessarily very helpful to the student. Recent research
(Sutherland et al.2002) indicates that while students will
make notes to help them pass exams, many do not reflect
on their notes or use them to seed their research.
Similarly, while we believe that notes should be an active
and creative part of a student's learning process, we feel
that this does not necessarily happen.

To address this, here we look at note-making as part of the

active learning process, and we also link it to other creative
learning techniques such as Brainstorming and Question
Matrixing.
It is usually stressed that:
• students have to prepare to make notes.
• students should endeavour to make active
and creative notes.
• students must do something with their notes
once they have made them.
It is found that this prompts the student to engage
more with their material and, by utilising an active
revision cycle, to take steps to learn that which is
important.
Before moving on to consider how to cover note-
making properly, we shall briefly consider here
some of the arguments that are put to students
when encouraging them to employ creative
techniques in their learning.
Why be
creative?
Buzan's argument for adopting creative techniques is that "we
need to encourage whole- rather than half-brain learning.
To put at its most basic , Buzan argues that we need to utilise both,
the logical left and the creative right sides of the brain when we
engage in an active learning activity.
Traditional linear types of note-making strategies, he argues, only
utilise the logical left side of the brain and consequently are
passive and monotonous, actually militating against active learning.
Key word notes that are mapped out non-hierarchically in a pattern
of some sort allow more space for the student's active engagement.
If this is coupled with the building of mnemonic triggers into notes
and combined with an ongoing revision process, the student is
likely to learn more.
Referring to Graham Gibbs and the notion that knowledge means to
have sport with ideas - to be able to play with them. As academics, I
think that we can see that engaging with possibly new and
challenging information in a playful way actually requires a maturity
and confidence that many of students may lack.
It is found that encouraging a pattern note-making system can inject
an element of play into the learning process as a way of initiating the
process of having sport with ideas. Further, as students are
rearranging the data that they gather to create their own note
patterns, they are being encouraged to rework data and take control
of it for themselves rather than remaining trapped by the way that
data has been presented to them.
Finally, we stress the common sense argument that if they only
give back to the tutor that which the tutor have to them they will
never move beyond the attainment of an average grade. In this
way, even if their whole approach to learning is utilitarian, they will
benefit from being creative in their learning for it will improve their
chances of getting a good grade for their work. Thus even the
most assessment-driven and pragmatic student can be encouraged
to more actively and creatively engage with their learning - and in
process shift from surface to deep learning practices.
 Significant Learning
Drawing on the work of Carl Rogers and the facilitation of
significant learning, we also stress students that if they
want to learn, they must be reaching out for what they
want and need from a course in general - and specifically
from their lectures and reading. Students are encouraged
to gain an awareness of the overall aims and outcomes of
a particular unit, module or programe - and then stress
that they use this awareness to generate the questions
that they ask of lectures and texts. That is , we encourage
students to see lectures and texts as sources of this
information, and to understand that they can usefully
excavate this information once they know what they are
looking for. This in turn makes their note-making more
How we do it:
• In this section we are going to cover how we in learning development
tackle note-making with our students. It is found that these activities
work best with groups of students -from 12 to 30 in number - rather
than with individuals.

• Preliminary Activities
• Structured Brainstorm
• Discussion of linear and non- linear notes
• Discussion of the charactrristics of successful notes
Structured
Brainstorm
 Before moving into note- making, we normally engage
in a structured brainstorm on note-making with the
class. This models the good practice that we emphasise
throughout this text: "that students need to prepare for
study".
A brainstorm allows students to recall what they know
on a topic and encourages them to identify gaps in their
knowledge, hence indicating what they want and need
from their efforts. Further, such a brainstorm helps the
student to tune into and focus on their work.
Thank
Yo u u !