Subj : Re: Good examples of programming course lecture notes
To   : comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer
From : Chris Uppal
Date : Mon Sep 19 2005 02:51 pm

Patricia Shanahan wrote:

> On the other hand, taking notes in class just doesn't work for me. I
> don't write fast, and whenever I'm writing I'm not listening and
> thinking. A class that tries to force note taking leaves me with a
> difficult choice between two unsatisfactory alternatives:
>
> 1. Go for notes. Don't actually learn anything in class. Try to get all
> the information down, and read it over afterwards to try to understand
> it. This makes the class, at best, equivalent to learning from a book.
>
> 2. Go for understanding. Try to listen and absorb the material in class,
> without taking notes. Because of the deliberate gaps in the distributed
> materials, anything I don't get in class or forget is lost data.

I'm exactly the same.  If the material is "easy" enough that I can spend most
of my time listening, and jot down just the occasional note to aid memory
later, then I end up with perhaps a page of notes per lecture, and good
understanding.  If the material gets just a /little/ more difficult, so that I
can't follow everything (or nearly everything) then I have to start making
notes in earnest.  I cannot then listen, so I have to copy down /everything/.
Result many more notes, poorly written notes, and /much/ lower comprehension.
(And these days I'd hope I'd have enough sense to stop wasting my time by
attending those lectures and spend the time with a book instead).

The only ways out of this dilemma are EITHER for the lecturer to provide (in
some way) sufficiently comprehensive notes that I can just mark the stuff that
didn't make sense the first time around, OR for the lecturer to stop dead for
long periods of time (say half the lecture) so that I have a chance to both
write /and/ think.


> Whatever you do in the way of notes should be designed to allow for a
> range of learning styles and strategies, not just for the people who
> learn by writing.

Yup!

    -- chris

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