How to Teach Students to Use Cornell Notes
Students who have a hard time understanding their class notes and using them as study tools can benefit from learning a system called Cornell notes. The Cornell note-taking method was developed by Walter Pauk at Cornell University. It requires students to divide their paper into three major sections and fill in two of them after class to consolidate their understanding of the lecture material. Introduce the method to your students to help them get more out of your class lectures.
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Instructions
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Distribute lined notebook paper and rulers to the students. They should each provide a pen or pencil as well.
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Instruct students to measure 2 inches up from the bottom of the sheet of paper and go up to the nearest line. Have them set their rulers across that line and draw a dark line over it in pen or pencil to create the summary section at the bottom of the page.
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Instruct students to measure 2 1/2 inches in from the left side of the paper, orient the ruler vertically and draw a line from the top of the sheet to the first horizontal line. This divides the cue column from the note-taking column.
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Tell the students that the section they will use during a class lecture is the note-taking column that makes up the bulk of the page, in the upper-right portion.
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Explain that students should write down the meaning of what the teacher says in the note-taking section. They should use bullet points or single-line phrases to record the substance, not the exact words.
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Allow students to practice taking notes during a five-minute lecture that you are about to give. Talk for five minutes about any academic topic and include a variety of facts in your lecture so they have plenty of things to take notes on.
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Instruct the students to read through their notes and write the key term or a trigger question in the "cue column" on the left of the page. Each cue should be directly to the left of the notes about the topic. For example, if they have notes about dicots and monocots, they might write, "What are the types and characteristics of plants?" in the cue column.
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Instruct the students to write a summary of each page of notes in sentence form in the section across the bottom of the page. This summary forces students to make sense of the notes and write down what they learned, which solidifies the learning process.
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Explain to students that they will usually need to complete the cue column and summary section outside of class time. By reviewing the notes after school and creating cues and summaries, they will be able to consolidate what they learned and find information in their notes more easily when they are studying.
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Instruct students to cover the note-taking column with another sheet of paper and use the questions in the cue column as study cues. After seeing the cue, the student should be able to recall the information that is in the note-taking column to its right.
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Tips & Warnings
As an assignment, have students take notes during class on paper formatted for Cornell notes, complete the other two sections at home and turn them in the next day. If you find when grading the assignment that students do not understand some parts of the process, reiterate these in class.
References
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