During a lecture, do you find yourself confused on what to do? Do you write everything down or just listen?
Taking good notes can vary from person to person, and from one class to another, find what works for you for each course! 
Try this out for a course you are having difficulties with:

Before class: 

• Know what the lesson will be about
• ​Look at your syllabus and see what topics will be covered this class
• If there are readings, skim through them and get an idea of topics that might be covered, graphs/diagrams, and practice problems 

During Class: 

• If your instructor provides powerpoint slides ahead of the lesson, use the powerpoint slides to take notes. This will save you a lot of effort from writing everything down:

How to take notes on powerpoint slides:

• If material is repeated in lecture from the textbook, they will likely be tested so take note of them 
• ​Make note of examples provided in the lecture, case studies, models, diagrams, and test questions

After class

• If you have assigned readings go them and add notes to your lecture notes. You can try the SQR4 method 
• Condense your notes! Make simplified notes for studying. 

Template for note taking or creating simplified notes:

After a test/ midterm:

• Reflect on what you did well on and what you did not do well on
• Do you need to change your note taking style? Focus more on terms? Or more on concepts?
• Adjust your note taking style for the rest of the course to prepare you for the finals