They’re useless for me, regardless of what teacher claims they do. Teachers claim that Cornell Notes are supposed to help me remember information by rewriting it many different ways (the soft notes, hard notes and reflection) and force me to formulate possible test questions.

Unfortunately, I wish teachers would realize that not everyone learns in the same manner. Some do better by taking notes and rewriting the textbook in their own words; others do better by orally rewording the contents of the textbook in their mind. Still others prefer to underline the important points in the textbook as they read and draw arrows across the page to indicate connections.

In history, for instance, we are made to take Cornell Notes for every section we read. This was supposedly meant to prepare us for a quiz we would take on the section soon afterwards. However, I found no need to take Cornell Notes–reading the section like a story turned out to be far more interesting and allowed me to absorb more facts anyway. I saw no difference in the amount of facts I remembered by reading the section once and taking Cornell Notes. The note-taking, for me, was both a waste of time and paper.

The soft notes, where I’m supposed to make up potential test questions, are of little to no help. I tend to ask myself these questions mentally anyway (I make mental notes as to what to focus on as I scan each section), so what’s the point of writing them down? Writing it down merely takes up more of my time when I could be mentally asking myself more questions or focusing on understanding the material.

Moreover, there are some sections where it’s difficult to come up with truly meaningful questions, and I end up writing contrived crap just to satisfy the teacher’s demands. Besides, when I do have a meaningful question, I prefer to exercise my Google-fu and look for the answer rather than simply jotting it down and waiting. Who am I waiting for anyway? The teacher to answer it? What’s a better use of my time–writing down my questions or actively searching for answers to them?

Are they worried I will forget both my question and my newly-found answer? Well, if the question was truly interesting, I probably wouldn’t forget it for a reasonable time frame. And who really periodically reviews their year-old notes to find questions they asked but never thought twice about?

Then there is that reflective summary. While I do agree that it may be an interesting exercise in writing, I doubt it is any more useful beyond that. If it is meant to make me truly understand the material, it’s not helping. When I write reflective summaries in history, they’re usually quite easy as I understand the events mentioned in the textbook. However, because of their ease, they’re also a waste of time–if I already understand the material thoroughly, I might as well learn something new.

In physics, on the other hand, I usually haven’t understood the section by the time it comes down to reflection-writing, which means that I would be better off spending that time trying to understand. I instead am forced to spend my time filling in lines on paper with chicken scratch. Now if this were accurately labeled as a writing exercise, I’d be inclined to agree that it is a good one–it really does test your understanding, but it certainly doesn’t aid in furthering your understanding.

I would much prefer if note-taking were optional in certain classes (though if it were in physics…my grade would probably plunge ), or if we could take notes in a way that helps us. I’ve already discovered that scribbling over the text and rereading helps me far more than copying “important” chunks to lined paper. I also benefit by reading the same material from several sources–which I do quite often in physics, thanks to the Internet.