Improving Cornell Notes With Sketchnoting Techniques

in this video we're going to explore how to merge two different processes for taking notes the Cornell method and sketchnoting let's get into it welcome to verbal to visual video I am your host Doug Neil and I'm excited to dive into this specific topic today because I get questions from students in high school or college but also teachers about how to bring visual note-taking into the classroom and I wanted to explore how we could start with a note-taking system that students might already be familiar with the Cornell method and add into the Cornell method more visual tools more sketchnoting elements to make it an even more powerful combination so if you are a student my goal for you is that you can use this technique and take better notes during class and if you're a teacher I hope this gives you some ideas about how you as an instructor can help your students take better notes let's start with what standard Cornell notes look like with this note-taking process you divide the page into these four different sections up top you have the space for the topic your name the date those types of details then in the bigger section to the right you take top to bottom in the moment notes so these are the notes that you're taking during the lecture or while you're watching a video or reading a textbook then after the fact you use the section on the left to pull out the key ideas that are contained within those in the moment notes that's an opportunity for you to pull out the most important pieces and highlight them there on the left so that they're easier to reference in the future then in the bottom section you add a one to two-sentence summary of the ideas contained on this single page the power of this note-taking style is that when you go to review these notes you know where to look to get the most important ideas it'll mostly be that smaller section on the left and the summary on the bottom that's what you'll study and then if you need to dig into you're in the moment no to find more details you can do that but only when you have to so that's the Cornell method a specific process for taking notes that has a structure regarding layout how you're going to organize ideas on the page and even has some process elements in terms of what you're doing while the information is first coming in and then things you can do after the fact to reinforce the most important ideas that you just learned it's not by default overly visual though so let's see what happens when we build some sketchnoting elements into this Cornell method within that top section you might consider adding a topical sketch something related to the subject matter that you're about to take notes on you might even add a calendar date to make that stand out a bit more than write a large title with then maybe your name and some other info below it adding just a few visuals there to that top portion of your notes not only will that make for nice quick references when you're reviewing these notes later it can also help get your brain in your hand warmed up to doing something more visual which will continue doing throughout the rest of these notes within that section for in the moment notes you have a lot of flexibility if you'd like you can start off primarily using just text for your notes then maybe consider using dividers to break up the page a little bit as you move from one idea to the next and as you move down the page or feel free to build in other elements when appropriate like maybe adding an image or a diagram in addition to some text or capture some details using a bulleted list and if you come across a hierarchy you could use a numbered list since that section is where you are capturing you're in the moment notes you might not always have a ton of time to do anything that's real detailed in terms of imagery but even just giving yourself the option to do a quick sketch or diagram when you're able that adds a little bit more dynamics and flexibility to you're in the moment notes and I think even just having the option of doing something more visual in your mind it triggers a different type of processing power so that you're more active in the way that you're responding to the ideas you're not just passively taking in information and on a laptop typing it word for word you are actively processing that information getting down as much of it as you can in a way that makes sense to you in your words and in your images then within that section to the left still pull out the key ideas of each of those sections of your notes but consider adding icons for quick reference like a star when you're capturing a key idea or a little profile icon if you want to mention an important person you could make these up as you go but I think it's also worth spending some time developing your own custom set of icons icons that have a particular meaning to you that you can reuse that way when you're flipping back through these notes it's easier to quickly find the particular piece of information that you're looking for I think that this idea of creating your own custom set of icons works really well on the individual level if you're a student and you want to try that out and I also think it could be a powerful thing for a teacher to do as a group within your classroom come up with a subject specific set of icons that you and your students can reuse as you are working through a particular topic I've heard from teachers that have done this that when they develop a visual vocabulary specific to their subject matter they'll often see in the margins of students tests those same icons that help connect a particular idea they're able to use and demonstrate with in an actual exam environment and that's pretty awesome and if you have stories of something similar please share them in a comment below I'd love to hear about it and finally within the bottom section still use that to summarize but use a scene or diagram to do it try to connect the most important ideas either with kind of a mind map like this or try to imagine some sort of situation a quick scene that you can draw that is representative of the most important ideas because when you make that summary section and the key ideas on the left when you make that more visual it just will be easier to review and easier for you to remember those ideas whenever you need to put them to use this is of course not the only way to add in more visual elements into the Cornell method of notetaking but I hope it gives you some ideas on how you might do it and I encourage you to experiment and put these to the test yourself try out some of the ideas that I shared here add in your own to find what process works best for your style for example you could add some color to this which I didn't use at all maybe with two different colors or three different colors of pens or going back through after the fact with a highlighter let's take a look now at this merged note-taking style in action here are some notes that I took while reading of the book how to live nowhere by Blake Bowles I'm about to head out on a month-long road trip in a van that I'm turning into a mobile-home slash work art studio so this topic of living a nomadic life to some degree is really interesting to me which is why I decided to take notes on it I ended up using an open book icon with either a Roman numeral or a number to distinguish between the different sections chapters of this book and as I was reading it I had the luxury of being able to pause whenever I wanted to figure out which ideas I wanted to capture in the moment and how I wanted to capture them so you'll see here quite a bit of text some process diagrams some less some mind maps and a fairly heavy dependence on words but trying to do with something at least a little bit dynamic with those words and you can see that I didn't fill the top section other on the first page and that I haven't yet used the bottom section either I do like the breathing room that that provides on the page as I review them now but I think I would like to go back through and use at least the bottom section to pull out the ideas that I most want to act on I also like the idea of using a highlighter to go back through these notes and emphasize the ideas that were the newest to me some of these ideas I was already fairly from the you're with but there were definitely some nuggets of wisdom that I want to pull out and particular frameworks for thinking about a nomadic lifestyle that really intrigued me I hope that those specific examples give you a clearer picture of how you might add more visual nough stew your Cornell style notes good luck as you put these ideas into practice yourself we'll see you next time I got to say you guys it was pretty fun breaking out notebook paper college-ruled and using that this is the format for this video today I do hope that you enjoyed it as well if you would like to share with me what you thought of it your ideas how you are customizing this process for yourself please do let me know here's where you can find me on Instagram on Twitter and on Facebook and if you're newer to the general idea of visual note-taking then I have a lot of resources for you at verbal - visual comm other videos like this one as well as some full-fledged courses that will give you a solid foundation for developing these visual note-taking skills and putting them to use in a meaningful way my first course and introduction to visual note-taking will give you a very solid overview and then the course that I'm working on now is actually about how to make it this style of sketch noted video which if you're an instructor if you're a teacher you might be interested in this so if you'd like to see the full behind the scenes of how I recorded this exact video right here then check out that course because I currently have a second camera right over there filming me while I'm filming this and I share everything about how this video was made thank you once again for watching bye for now

Channel: Verbal to Visual

Views: 961,071

Keywords: visual thinking, visual note-taking, sketchnoting, graphic recording, whiteboard animation, verbal to visual, doug neill, cornell, cornell method, blake boles, how to live nowhere, college rule, students, teachers, school, taking notes in school

Id: pZgMpjjgCRA

Length: 10min 27sec (627 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 20 2016