What's the Best Way to Write Notes? @KoiAcademy

Discussing note-taking with CajunKoiAcademy.

Every week, I distil what really works for improving results, memory, depth of understanding, and knowledge application from over a decade of coaching into bite-sized emails.

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=== Timestamps ===

0:00 Note-taking
0:16 How to take notes for a new class
0:59 What actually happens when you take notes
1:23 What good note taking looks like
2:30 Good note-taking allows for deep processing
4:20 Intuitive vs logical
7:23 Should I type or handwrite my notes?
12:48 How do you transition to freehand notes?
17:31 How can you tell if your notes are effective?
20:26 Getting questions right doesn't matter

=== About Dr Justin Sung ===

Dr. Justin Sung is a world-renowned expert in self-regulated learning, certified teacher, research author, and former medical doctor. He has guest lectured on learning skills at Monash University for Master’s and PhD students in Education and Medicine. Over the past decade, he has empowered tens of thousands of learners worldwide to dramatically improve their academic performance, learning efficiency, and motivation.

[JustinSung]

Every week, I distil what really works for improving results, memory, depth of understanding, and knowledge application from over a decade of coaching into bite-sized emails.

[DerangedFocus]

My notes/conclusions from this:

1) Minimum viable notes: In lectures, you should write/draw as little as necessary such that you have all of the concepts and crucial details noted but you're also letting your brain do some of the heavy lifting too (by asking questions, critically thinking during the lecture, interacting etc.)

2) Structuring stage: When processing and refining your notes, you work from your domain of knowledge (your schema level) such that all the structures, concept groups and notes written/drawn down are intuitive and drop dead obvious.

3) Relationships between concepts: Zettlekasten is amazing for being creative and having insights into how your domain of knowledge can be used but for the purpose of exams, you don't want everything linked together. Thus, critically think about which relationships have utility, prioritise them, and fully represent what that relationship is in your notes (as opposed to just an arrow, for example).

4) Free-hand intuitive diagrams is king

5) See your learning progression by testing yourself with difficult questions
5a) With difficult questions, pick out the conceptual variables and change them around, switch them out to see how that affects the way you answer that question and it's difficulty.

6) Emotion has a close link with your knowledge. If you are being tested but don't feel confident, it doesn't matter because there can a lack of intuitiveness with the information or a logical gap, we can't know for sure. On the other hand, if you did feel confident but you got a question wrong, the information was intuitive but there was simply a piece of information, perspective or logical link that you missed that you need to look over and fix.

[thatonedog]

I have not had an English class in almost 9 years and I still think he gave a better explanation on how to analyze a book than any of my English teachers

[JustinSung]

How do you take notes?

Who's switching from typed to freehand here? Let me know down below 👇

[dr.rosiekim]

“Knowledge is nonlinear and it’s relational inherently so everything will end up being related to everything “-dr Justin sign
This is making so much sense it explains why I wasn’t able to get into notion or obsidian when trying to use it for making connections that I wanted to remember . Those things work for what you don’t want to remember and want to offload the relations eg HR management schedules etc. glad I could relieve myself of this worry lol.

[neuronswag]

Notes should be intuitive- easier to predict what the next info should be
- Notes should not be linear
- create meaningful relationships (place info relations in a specific order using infinite canvas)
- Think about multiple relationships. For eg. How is C linked with B and if C is removed - how will it effect B?

[AmIWhatIAm]

Wow I can't believe this 😂 I watched their videos the day before about studying too and I was like "it would be cool if they collaborated with Justin Sung" and this happened 😱

[yohaizilber]

The secret to a GOOD note taking habit is anchoring what you have learned to your own subjective reality.

[fastmushroom]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:

00:00 📚 Note-taking aligns information with thinking processes.
01:07 🧠 Good notes reduce mental load and deepen thinking.
02:14 📝 Balance note quantity for effective learning.
03:52 🧠 Higher-order thinking connects concepts.
06:11 🧩 Prioritize meaningful information grouping.
09:35 🖋️ Freehand note-taking aids thought representation.
13:08 💻 Engage higher-level thinking when typing notes.
15:42 👣 Transition consciously to freehand for deeper learning.
17:02 🔍 Evaluate notes for retention and comfort.
20:21 📚 Quality notes blend comfort and manipulation.
21:01 🧐 Gaps in confident answers indicate understanding gaps.
21:42 📚 Overconfidence can lead to missed perspectives.
21:56 🕵️‍♂️ Lack of perspective despite confidence shows thinking gap.
22:38 🤯 Thinking methods are transferable across concepts.
23:05 🔍 Testing reveals thinking methods, not just answers.
23:19 🧩 Missing variables can result from poor information structure.
23:46 🧠 Logical thinking aids in avoiding missing perspectives.

Made with HARPA AI

[leonardlorbonde]

The thing you said about intuitive and logical spoke what i couldn't say. I realized I've been relying on the lectures prof give us and not making relationships or making it logical. I will practice this thing from now on. Thanks for that. 谢谢

[ninapeterson]

This was so mind opening! I’m starting school soon after an 6/7yr break. I’m going to watch all of Justin’s videos before I start. This type of thinking and knowledge is exactly what I’ve seen searching for.

[thestudier]

I watch everything from you two😊
For academic research and writing, i use excell sheets; it allows me to see 20 papers summerised and in chronological order on one screen. This helps me connect the time and thought processes behind randomised studies.
I cannot read my handwriting😅 Every mindmap i make endsup un-reviewable.
Thank you for these advices.

[ShebaPearlUnavailableName]

I'm trying to help my sibling learn how to take notes in classes that are not standard - I'm already convinced Sung has got this down to the core of learning process and recall, and that it can work for what I need. I'm going to be sticking around here.

[UnsolicitedThoughtsOfARose]

Very helpful tips! I struggle a lot with notetaking, especially in chem classes. I am physically disabled and cannot hold a writing utensil to take notes. I used to love handwriting my notes and it seemed so much more effective. Now, I am going through any software I can try to hopefully recreate that feeling.

[bronzong]

Justin I was quite critical of your last video. I think you are more articulate and convincing here. The idea that your training should reflect the exam. I totally agree. At uni I only took a few notes and got a first. I was doing all your techniques without realizing. Now I am a teacher which is the most fantastic way to learn anything and I will be starting my 7 year olds with some note taking skills soon. To me, learning is about making the connections in our knowledge meaningful to us as individuals. The more intense the experience the better the learning. Thr experience can be artificially augmented through effective note taking. So notetaking should be experiential or noteworthy! Haha! So thats what that means. In theory one could make an exam that simply tested a kids knowledge by making them map out their knowledge of thr subject and then assessing the notes!

[brittanniadias]

hey guys, ever since i've started watching you guys, I've got to say, I feel like I've improved on learning but note-taking overall is still a hard skill to acquire but I'm trying my best :)

[TheInternetFan]

15:10 15:55
#1 start with typed note-taking (while you think critically about the information); don't transcribe, apply higher-order thinking
#2 start framing concepts on a piece of paper.

[DannyHatcherTech]

Thoughts while watching:
What does learning a new class mean? pass the test, depth of understanding, applying to practice...
Who decideds what is unneccesary?
what does deeper processing mean? - what is processing?
bypass learning or consumption of information?
Higher order learning is what in practice?
Obvious doesn't mean correct, so how do you know what grouping is accurate relative to the question?
Writing helps with a process - how do you know if it is or isn't helping?
Purposesless for how to take notes - agreed!
Relational apps - why pick Notion 😆Obsidian, Remnote, Logseq, Roam....
more words less understanding - if the note taker isn't aware of affordances and constraints of their knowledge
why move from typing to handwriting? why not improve their ability to capture information (become a better notetaker)
feedback awareness from parctice - seems like that could apply to handwritten or typed notetaking
retrieval practice YES not active recall...
higher level of learning - or deeper understanding?
confidence conversations seems to be shallow overlooking metaignorance

Great conversation, would love to have been in that call 😆

[BenjaminLStewart]

11:06 "... if you are typing something verbatim..." - agreed. But one could also paraphrase (taking typed notes) which slows down the process as well. I'm thinking of a combination of taking typed, paraphrased notes with embedded relational links, flash cards (along with other cognitive & social strategies), a knowledge graph, multimodal references from audio, video, & images (as inputs), and multimodal notes (also audio, video, & images) (as outputs) collectively would contribute to one's ability to recall information, IMHO.

[biscuitsofdeath]

lol, I love the "Just record it with a voice recorder". Totally! I've started really thinking about why am I writing things down. Even by hand, why? I'm either writing things down because I don't want to remember it, or I'm trying consolidate all the info I just heard and picking out the important bits ( but that happens after the lecture or meeting).