Essentials in Higher Education

Time management, note taking, reading and

reflecting

©The Learning Quality Support Unit, 2013

Time Management

• What time have I got?• Utilisation• study schedule

– Long term – Short term– Immediate

(Monash University, 2009)

Intermediate extended schedule

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun a.m.

Comments/ follow up actions

Lunch

p.m.

Comments/ follow up actions

Taking Notes in Lectures

• Get a good loose-leaf notebook  • Familiarise yourself with the lecture • Use ‘The Cornell Note-taking System’

(Pauk, 2001):

Record* Questions* Recite* Reflect* Review*

Notes from written material • Note key ideas, facts or statistics• Mark the pages (not in pen!)• What has the author ‘found’?• What method of data collection has

been used; how as the data been analysed?

Efficient reading skills•Purposeful•Interactive

• Circumtextual framing (info from the source).

• Intratextual framing (cues from the text)

• Extratextual framing (background knowledge and experience).

• Intertextual framing (connections with other texts)

What is reflection and why do I need to use it?

• Links theory and practice• Defined variously:

Utilising learning from past experiences/events to improve

future practice.• Schön (1983) and Gibbs(1988)

Schön (1983)• Reflection-in-action: ‘action present’

–“When someone reflects-in-action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories or established theory and technique, but constructs a new theory of the unique case” (Schön, 1983, p.68).

Schön (1983)

• Reflection-on-action: change –“We reflect on action, thinking

back on what we have done in order to discover how our knowing-in-action may have contributed to an unexpected outcome”

(Schön, 1983, p. 26).Steps:

Steps for reflecting-on-action1. Choose an incident.2. Think about what the situation was

like before your intervention and what it was like afterwards.

3. Consider the thinking process that you used to bridge the gap between the ‘before and after’.

4. Summarise

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988)

References• Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A Guide to

Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford: Oxford Further Education Unit

• Monash University (2009). Study Methods. Retrieved from http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/quickrefs/02-study-methods.xml

• Pauk, W. (2001). The Cornell Note-taking System. Retrieved from http://lsc.cornell.edu/LSC_Resources/cornellsystem.pdf

• Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith