When you "learn" something, you actually create it all. Or recreate it, anyway. Teachers may help, but ultimately the responsibility belongs to you to receive what is said and to process it into the knowledge you retain and can use. What follows is based on the premise that it is not by being passive that you meet your responsibilities in this area but by being an active and a social learner.

A. Before Lectures (before-lecture prep can be very important to your learning!):

1. Read assignments and text material to be covered in the lecture.
2. In courses like Math, try the end-of-chapter problems before going to class.  Your successes and your failures should tell you what you need to listen for and what questions you should be prepared to ask.  In courses like English or History, spend some time figuring ways to make sense, understand general issues and noting examples, find repeated (and variations on) themes, etc.  This process will confirm your skills in things you have figured out how to do and alert you to others you need to learn.
3. List questions and pose answers you expect in lecture.  If you do this in writing you need not take notes on what you have already.  Rather you mark points of emphasis and note new material or variations.
4. Review previous class(es).
5. Come rested.
6. Sit front and center: profs take cues from those they can see so they will slow down or explain things as they see confusion or anxiety on the faces in front of them.  Sitting front and center gives you the chance to personalize the presentation.
7. Clarify your intention, collect and focus self. Note how you anticipate today's lecture will fit into the class as a whole (see syllabus & text introduction[s]) and into your personal learning needs.
8. Bring right materials: pen, notebook and text (with your name, address and phone number in both).

B. In lecture:

1. Resist distractions by refocusing on the presentation.  Getting annoyed at distractions is another distraction.
2. Accept lecture as addressed to yourself.
3. Note environment, use it.  Get near good lighting and where you can hear clearly.
4. Postpone debate, note problems but resist urge for any distracting internal rebuttal.
5. Adjust to style and mannerisms; be not distracted.
6. Engage and participate.  Volunteer.  At least, do not be afraid to let confusion or puzzlement register on your face.
7. Focus attention by reminding yourself of how class relates to goals.
8. If you can, take advantage of the chance to ask questions.  In doing so you personalize the class environment and get recognized as an interested learner.  

C.    Watch for cues:

1. Introductory or orientational remarks.
2. Key statements, frame statements, indications of transition (to or from examples, e.g., or topics) conclusions, pump-priming questions, summaries.
3. Kinds of talk: defining, naming, describing, reporting, classifying, comparing or contrasting, qualifying, inferring (if...then), evaluating, posing alternative views, generating possibilities to be sorted or assessed, etc.
4. Note how instructor uses the board: only for important matters? to collect possibilities? other?  If there is a significant pattern use it to focus attention and to do exam prep.
5. Watch instructor's eyes: a precisely worded statement is important (test item?).
6. Record and take to heart advice such as "THIS IS IMPORTANT."
7. Mark ebb and flow of instructor's interest level.
8. Notice Repetition.  

D. Notes:

1. Cornell method: leave left hand 1 1/2 inches on each page for your notes about notes: marking key concepts or passages, questions, reflections, objections, etc.
2. Leave space between the notes for different classes for: missed items, corrections, adjustments to be made after you exchange notes with others, qualifications from instructor's responses to questions in class or conference, etc.
3. Various formats for notes:
   1. Map lecture, showing connections with arrows, boxes, etc.
   2. Outline lecture, noting connections.
   3. Note apparent paragraph structures; these are subject to later reassessment  (See E & F below).
4. Note key words, both concepts & connectives.
5. Use pictures and diagrams: copy them (or note those in book and annotate them) or create them.
6. Copy appropriate board material.
7. Use three ring binder for removable paper, or 3x5 cards for pocket reference, or flip over pads (if left handed, e.g.).
8. Use one side only of each sheet: that way, several sheets can be looked at together and in the process leaves room for your notes.
9. Date each entry, number each page for later assembly.
10. Distinguish your thoughts from instructor's.
11. Use a symbol "?" or "[. . .]" to mark attention lapse.
12. Use standard abbreviations and symbols  (v.=see); c {or w}=with; p=after;  ?=therefore; line over word makes it negative, so ? over c=without; mb=must be; etc,<, >, &, %, etc. List your own invented abbrevs. and smbls. in notebook.
13. Use or create graphic signals to show relationships, e.g.: circle or bracket connected material; * flags significance; use arrows to show flow; ??shows contrasting features; ?=congruence in mathematics, it can be used in another field for 'like', etc.
14. Use complete sentences and the appropriate technical language for important material, esp. where precision is necessary.  If you are confused or annoyed by technical language or 'jargon,' find precise definitions and note what each element contributes to the concept.  (What happens if one or another gets left out?)
15. Make notes no fuller than necessary. Stay alert for what is new or strange to you; you need not copy what you know full well.  

E.    After class:

1. Actively review and revise your notes from lecture within 24 hrs: doing so arrests the 60-80% loss in movement from short-term to long-term memory.
2. Renew effort to see material in larger contexts.
3. Edit: fix illegibles, extend one-time abbreviations, etc.
4. Use left margin: this is where much of your creation or re-creation occurs.
5. Organize w. signals.
6. Recreate complex material in alternative form.
7. Use key words noted in left margin to test recall.
8. Use notes for preclass review; review series briefly each week.
9. Use notes to identify questions for next class.  If you cannot bring yourself to ask a question in class, visit the prof during office hours (office hours are often dull when no one comes).  Using office hours set aside for you again personalizes your education, marks you as an interested student and so makes you a person more than a number in the prof's eyes--all good outcomes. 

F. Collaborate with one or several students:

1. Note your classmates. Notice those who come regularly, sit front and center, take notes, and ask good questions. These are the folks among whom to seek mutual support.  Exchange phone numbers; call them when you have to miss class or when you note they have: share information as to what went on in class.
2. Agree to help each other, even to keep each other awake if need be.
3. Use them to generate and discuss material needing clarification.
4. Share notes (or photocopies of them) to fill each other's gaps, to clarify misperceptions, to provoke discussion of difficult matters, to determine or refine structures of information presented, to see areas where you need instructor's help, to get that help, etc.

* * * * * * * *

*Information compiled by James McShane from his own reflections, from Ellis, Becoming a Master Student; McKeachie, Teaching Tips; Brown, Lecturing and Explaining; Norman Dennis, a visiting resource person in UNL's Teaching and Learning Center; more generally it comes from work with Del Wright's UNL Teaching and Learning Ctr., Ted Pardy of our School of Biological Sciences, the UNL ADAPT & UFP staffs and, especially, UNL students.