Cornell Notes
Cornell Notes are a proven focused note-taking method. When used appropriately, students are guaranteed to increase their knowledge and raise their grades in any given class! Cornell Notes are taken during class lectures, class power points, class readings, or movies in which students are responsible for the information. Cornell notes from content area classes are due for an AVID grade each week. This ensures students are practicing good study skills in class and allows them to get credit in two classes for one set of notes!
In order to receive full credit for the weekly Cornell Notes grade, students must have all the required parts of the notes:
- Full heading
- Specific topic
- Notes in the right side highlighted with key words or phrases
- Main ideas and high level questions in the left column
- A summary at the end of the notes
Students may take Cornell Notes in a spiral notebook or on notebook paper as required by the content area teachers, however, students are expected to use the Cornell Note format and repetition strategies and review notes regularly.
Watch the video above for step-by-step instructions on how to write and use Cornell notes!
This example of Cornell notes would definitely score a 4. Each step of the Cornell way is clearly evidenced in this note set and the notes are neat and easy to read. Best of all, this students has obviously been using and interacting with the initial notes that were taken! Highlighting, circling, adding in notes, writing study questions, and completing the summary are all proof that when this students goes to take a test on the material, he or she is likely to remember all the information needed!
Parents!
Want to help your kid improve a score in class? Make them study their notes! And by study, we don't mean just stare at them. Interacting with their notes means circling, highlighting, underlining and chunking important information. It also means quizzing themselves by answering their questions and recalling material.
You can be a huge help by asking them the questions they've written in the margins and seeing if they know they answer. See if they can retell the parts of their summary. And if they don't have notes to study...that may be why they have low scores! All teachers require some form of note taking at Calapooia. Feel free to email your student's teacher or AVID elective teacher if you have questions.
Additional Resources
Cornell Notes Format.pdf10-24-7 Strategies.pdfCNPaperLinedPrintable.pdf