How to be Creative in Taking Notes

I don’t know about you, but I love anything having to do with the medieval ages – knights, trebuchets, castles, and all. Huzzah! More importantly, I love using my imagination. As a kid, I would create whole worlds and could still tell you all the characters in them!

Ok, that’s cool but kinda weird. What does this have to do with me getting better grades?

EVERYTHING. Your imagination and emotions are the gateway to learning. Think about it. Almost everything in your life that has an emotional connection to it, from movies to relationships, you remember vividly. You can use this same principle to accelerate your learning and “get the A!” Try these 3 creative ways of taking notes next time you’re in class:

1) Draw Pictures: Pictures are a great, vivid way to remember things! What would Napoleon look like as he stormed into Russia? Draw that on top of the date. If a city were made of quadratic equations, what would it look like? Weird questions? Absolutely. But it works. Try it! See what crazy, imaginative pictures you can come up with.

2) Create Acronyms: If you’re not too inclined to pictures, try creating your own acronyms. You use them everyday already! ASAP, TTYL, PEMDAS, and all the rest. Alright, maybe I’m the only one who uses PEMDAS everyday but if you don’t know what it means then shame on you! From dates to science facts, it’s a great way to memorize all those pesky details. Super Silly Sentences Often Produce A Funny Simple Rule. That’s the anatomy of a regular flower – Stigma, Style, Ovary, Ovule, Petal, Antler, Filament, Sepal, and Receptacle.

3) Create Stories: Whether you’re the extrovert who loves to tell stories or the introvert who quietly creates them, stories have a way of living on indefinitely. While generally used best in story-intensive classes (History, geography, social sciences, etc), it can be applied to other realms like science. “In the kingdom of Hemoglobin, there was an annual battle between the white cells and a group known as ‘the virus’…” It’s fun, it’s easy, and, with practice, becomes pretty fast.

Stay Smart.

Dominick Cooper, Director and Lead Creative Tutor of Launch Academy, Winner of the Davinci Scholar Award, and University Guest Speaker