Week three » Effective Listening & Notetaking
Effective Listening & Notetaking
Learning Outcomes
· Increase your understanding of the importance of acquiring and improving listening skills to increase academic learning and employability.
· Be able to effectively take notes in lectures and from readings.
· Be able to use contrasting strategies and methods for note taking to suit different learning styles, teaching methods and the knowledge requirements of specific subjects.
Week three » Introduction
Introduction
Listening skills are an important component of the art of communication, that is the process by which we are able to transfer meaningful information between each other , and allows us to share information, ideas and feelings. Where no meaning is transferred, no communication has taken place. Many of us have experienced the frustration of asking for something or providing information to someone who completely misunderstands what was asked or stated. Asking questions about why communication did not work is the best way to improve communication skills.
Effective communication involves the ability to listen, ask questions, critically evaluate, work with others, be able to write in a variety of styles, remember and recall information, speak in public and present an argument. All of these are involved in academic study and were referred to in Week 2 - Personal, Academic and Transferable Skills' .
Look back to Week2 when you completed the various self assessment exercises. You can revisit your completed exercises by clicking on 'View' and selecting 'my assets'. Choose the relevant exercise from your list and select either 'edit this asset'or 'view this asset'.
How effective did you rate yourself in terms of the following communication sub-skills?
• Reading complicated texts
• listening
• ask questions
• critically evaluate
• work with others
• be able to write in a variety of styles
• remember and recall information
• speak in public
• present an argument.
Using the 'Blog' feature in your PebblePad L&E-folio make a note of what you feel are your communication strengths and weaknesses? To create a blog go to 'Create New,' 'More' and select 'Blog.' TIP:Make sure you give your Blog an appropriate 'Title', such as 'My L&E-folio'. You will be expected to and directed to this area many times over the coming weeks. Your first blog entry/post needs a title which reflects this exerise such as 'Communication Skills.'
We spend a large percentage of our time communicating using different modes of communication with a diverse range of people, no where more so than at University. You need to send messages and provide information to a variety of recipients, including lecturers, peers, friends, family, administrative and technical staff and individuals and groups external to the University.
We express our academic ideas and demonstrate subject knowledge through a variety of channels and media such as presentations, conversations, seminar discussions, tutorials, assignments, essays and exams.
Effective communication is much more than using words and getting good marks for your assessment, it is critical to your professional and personal success. In many of the exchanges we have we want to influence what people think and often get them to take action on the basis of our communication with them . Employers put a high premium on effective communication - they will expect you to be able to demonstrate and evidence this in your application form, and at interview. If recruited, success, opportunities and promotion could be determined by your reputation for being a ' good communicator’.
Initially we will focus on the communication sub skills of;
· Listening skills
· Note taking
· Academic Writing
The aim is to introduce you to some good practice in these sub skills, encourage you to evaluate and assess your current competencies and provide some advice and guidance on how to develop these skills.
Week three » Listening skills
Listening skills
"Your mind has capacity to listen think write and ponder at the same time but it takes practice."
Are you an Effective Listener?
What did you understand from this week's lecture?
It is important to note that at the end of a ten minute lecture most students will have retained only a small proportion of what was said, and within forty eight hours they will have forgotten half of what they did remember.
Poor Listeners do the following;-
Dismiss most lectures/presentations as dull and irrelevant and quickly turn off
Get distracted and focus in on specific things about lecturer's appearance, speech and/or manner of delivery.
Stop listening to the lecturer and start listening to themselves and their own views, often demanding (to themselves) the lack of 'hard core facts' rather than considering any wider concepts or theories.
Let their minds wander and drift back and forth between the lecture and thoughts about other things.
When encountering a complex or challenging subject, give up and stop trying to follow what is being said.
Did you find yourself doing any of the above?
Listening is a vital skill, it is important to prepare yourself for listening and develop a series of , techniques and tools to enable you to deal with different styles of presentation and most crucially identify the important information from what are often detailed and complex discourses.
Regardless of the difference in lecturers' styles and methods of presentation, lectures are consistent in that they are made up of several uniform parts;-
An introduction - the opening statements, outlining what will be covered.
Presentation of thesis or major discourses - this often constitutes main body of information statement and includes key topics and areas to be covered.
Additional information - further information to be learned and associated theories and ideas and how they relate, support or even contradict the theory or perspective.
Some possible irrelevancies - filler or 'off the topic' material.
Summary and conclusion - a summation and précis of what has been covered in lecture.
The beginnings and the ends of a lecture are particularly important for gathering important information, key themes and debates. Verbal cues and signposts are important such as;
It is crucial that you are aware of the differing styles of lecturers, the challenge for you is to become familiar with these differing styles, knowing how individual lecturers structure information and stress important content will aid your concentration.
In this weeks lecture hopefully you will have been introduced to a range of styles, how were they diffferent and which one did you find the most easiest to understand?
How did the lecturer use words, and mannerisms to stress the importance of a point or perspective?
Flexibility in being able to listen and adapt to differing styles of information presentation is highly transferable and crucial in the world of work. It simply is not an acceptable excuse to say to a future employer that you stopped listening to what was being said because you found the speaker boring or dull!
Week three » Tips and advice on becoming a good listener
Tips and advice on becoming a good listener
Be better prepared - If possible find out beforehand what will be included, so that you know exactly what you are hoping to gain. Check the syllabus and lecture outline so you are aware of area to be covered. By reading through lecture outline you will get a feel for the major themes and areas to be covered, and be better placed to pick up and hear important points.
Maintain eye contact with the lecturer - this keeps you focused and involved in the lecture.
Keep focused on content and not delivery - if you notice only personal affectations or mannerisms of lecturers then you are not listening to content!
Avoid emotional involvement - you should not be too emotionally involved when listening, try to remain objective and open minded.
Do not allow yourself to jump to conclusions, contradict or challenge the speaker (even if silently in your mind) before the lecturer has finished giving you all the information and presenting all perspectives.
Don't get distracted - don't let your mind wander or be distracted by other things going on next to you or in the room, block out noise and distractions by sitting where you know you will not be distracted.
Treat listening as a challenging mental task - it is important to concentrate on what is being said, remain focused and absorb material. If you do not find the topic interesting, see it as a challenge to make it interesting. Equally if material and subject is difficult, be determined to try and learn something, do not use this as an excuse to switch off and stop concentrating.
Do not see lectures as merely fact finding exercises - main ideas and themes are often more important, once you have grasped these the facts can be collected later and will be better remembered.
Stay active by asking mental questions - active listening keeps you on your toes - 'what key point is lecturer making here?', 'how does this fit in with what I know from previous lectures, reading and seminars?'
Learn to use the gap between rate of speech and thought - you think faster than the lecturer can talk, this is one reason why your mind may wander. Learn to increase your attention span by timing just how long you can last before you think of something else - when your mind does wander, write down the thought and set a time after the lecture when you will deal with it.
Take notes - this improves your concentration and helps you stay tuned in, write down a word or two to remind you of the main themes and theoretical debates covered. If the lecturer provides detailed lecture notes and handouts do not waste valuable listening time by taking additional notes, merely try to follow what is being said using the structure of the notes.
Student Activity
In your groups compare notes and discuss what you understood from this weeks lecture. Devise three questions to test the other groups' comprehension of the lecture, whilst still in groups put these questions to opposing groups.
Try to ask useful questions that you think will generate good discussion - avoid simplistic 'yes'/'no' questions or trivial material - your tutor will arbitrate and judge the relevance and pertinence of the questions to the content of the lecture.
Week three » Taking good notes
Taking notes helps you learn
The importance of note taking to academic study cannot be emphasised enough. Note taking is key to remembering and learning. Furthermore note taking is a key transferable skill, being able to flick back through your notes and quickly identify when and how a decision was arrived at will impress your future managers!
The three core academic study skills of listening, reading and note taking are interdependent and complementary - being an efficient reader and listener is pointless if you have no record of what you have read!
Taking notes forces you to concentrate on what the speaker or writer are saying and provides you with a record of what was discussed. Your notes are a personal record, if you borrow someone else's notes you will often find them hard to understand as they are a record of what they understood to be important and the learning unique to them.
A common problem experienced when attempting to take notes is to try and take down everything the speaker says or the author has written rather than just the main points, important arguments and essential examples. Note taking is an exercise in selection - it requires you to select and identify the major from the minor points. To do this you need to be able to concentrate, any lapses in concentration could mean you loosing the link between what is often inconsistent, challenging and conflicting information.
As with reading and listening when making notes you need to continually ask questions such as;
'What is the overall theme?'
'What are the arguments for and against?
'Is this a minor or major point?'
'Is this an important detail?'
'Will I understand the lecture without it?'
As when listening you need to watch and listen for signals, clues and signposts as to important points such as when the speaker says;
or
The key to becoming a skilled note taker is being able to precis and condense the spoken or written word into your own language, in doing so you are not only actively learning about the subject but you are increasing the likelihood of you retaining this information and knowledge.
Week three » Mechanics of note taking
Mechanics of note taking
Prepare yourself
Taking notes from lectures will be easier if you have some prior knowledge of the context and subject. This will necessitate you previewing and skimming the course outline and previous lecture notes to gain an overview of content and familiarity with concepts, key theories and debates.
Once you know the subject of the lecture you could undertake background reading beforehand - such as reading through notes of previous lecture in the series and any materials in a reading pack.
Pay close attention to the introduction where the lecturer may provide an outline or overview of lecture.
Listen effectively
See previous notes. Remember: do not attempt to write everything down - pages of continuous words are not helpful for revision or preparing for an essay and will not assist you in identifying what is important from what is not.