How To Take Notes In Medical School Domain_10

When I was studying medicine I took loads of notes on my old gen i iPad and too made a ton of handwritten notes as I'm pretty quondam schoolhouse. Having something digital that could be used in lectures, on the wards and at home to centralise notes and studying was really helpful but the early iPad models had their limitations pregnant I never really used them as much as I'd like. Fast forward to today where we accept the apple pencil, M1 chips, XDR screens and millions of keen learning apps and it'south a completely different story but it can exist catchy figuring out a workflow that works for y'all which is why I wanted to share mine.

Why I Employ The iPad Pro 12.9 For Taking Notes

So if we suspension things down there are really two means of making notes. You tin paw-write your notes using pen and newspaper and utilize things like colours and spider diagrams or you can type the notes upwards using anything from Give-and-take to note-taking apps like Evernote. From a personal perspective I can of dip in and out of both these methods of notation-taking as they both have pros and cons so let's wait at what these are.

Pros and Cons of Mitt-Written Notes

If you pushed me my preference is probably for handwriting notes. Handwriting is good because there'south a lot of evidence that if you handwrite your notes that increases retentiveness of knowledge and actually aids understanding of topics. A 2014 written report published in Psychological Science by researchers Pam Mueller of Princeton and Daniel Oppenheimer of UCLA found that when people type their notes, they accept a trend to try to take verbatim notes and write down as much of the lecture as they can word for word. The students who were taking longhand notes in the studies were forced to be more selective — because you can't write as fast as you can type. And that actress processing of the material that they were doing led to amend conceptual understanding of the topic.

When you handwrite your notes you categorize the topic into spider diagrams; y'all can employ different colors; you lot can depict arrows or circle things and yous tin practice all these things that mean that you lot're processing more than of the lecture or whatever you're taking notes on and distilling it into the important $.25 in your handwritten notes. The fact that handwriting is quite slow means you lot have to be selective in what y'all put down which means you're more inclined to distill and actually employ your brain to make the notes.

The main disadvantage of handwriting notes is that I used to finish upwards with lots of disorganised pieces of paper and they were hard to organise and search through compared to digital notes with a ctrl-f observe part. Also if you're like me and a doctor your handwriting is probably pretty bad and it can take a minute to figure out what you lot've written.

The Pros and Cons of Typing Notes

Typing your notes solves the problem of organization and quickly finding things every bit everything is synced and in the deject. Typing also ensures that the information is clear and ordered logically with links to other resource where appropriate to aid understanding of a topic. The principal trouble with typing as mentioned in the previous report there is a tendency to just transcribe what the lecturer is saying and you're quite passive and non really taking much in. My typing speed is pretty fast so I vicious into this trap on occasion before opting to bullet point notes and create active recall questions as I've mentioned in other posts and in my weekly newsletter that goes out every Sunday.

In the Psychological Scientific discipline Report into note taking researchers Mueller and Oppenheimer cited that note-taking can be categorized 2 ways: generative and non-generative. Generative note-taking pertains to "summarizing, paraphrasing, concept mapping," while non-generative note-taking involves copying something verbatim.

And there are 2 hypotheses to why note-taking is beneficial in the offset place. The offset idea is all about encoding and says that when a person is taking notes, "the processing that occurs" will better "learning and retentiveness." The 2nd, called the external-storage hypothesis, is that you learn by being able to look back at your notes, or even the notes of other people.

Because people can type faster than they write, using a laptop will brand people more likely to try to transcribe everything they're hearing and have readable notes for external storage and returning to just they are not engaging with or understanding the textile.

The Best Way To Take Notes

Now moving forward to why I now apply the iPad Pro and Apple pencil it's because this method combines the advantages of both handwriting and typing notes and eliminates the disadvantages.

I utilize EverNote and yous also have all the search and sync functionalities that make typing notes actually effective. With the but real disadvantage of the iPad Pro being that it's pretty expensive fifty-fifty on the education discount pricing. This is the latest iPad Pro with the Apple tree Pencil 2.0 but I've also got a 2018 Pro and Apple Pencil 1 which is much cheaper so is worth considering if you're a educatee on a tight budget. Now that beingness said if the price isn't a blocker and you're thinking of getting an iPad or if y'all've already got an iPad and then yous'll want to watch the rest of this video considering I'll be giving you some tips on how I use Evernote the new OS and other tools to take notes in different scenarios.

The iPad Pro 12.9 vs Other iPads For Note Taking

So let'south talk about about which iPad I'd recommend for note-taking whether you are a pupil or a professional. I opted for the iPad Pro but there are lots of other options out here at the fourth dimension of this video including the iPad Air and normal iPad both of which too have apple tree pencil support and there is fifty-fifty the iPad mini. I've put the prices over hither every bit price is ofttimes the main limiting factor. The standard iPad is about one-half the price of the Pro version and for most people who are merely using an iPad for notation-taking with pencil back up this is a peachy entry choice to go for where the mini is a fleck too pocket-size. I picked upward the 12.9 inch Pro version when information technology was released as I also use information technology for video and since it has the M1 chip it is actually bully for this higher-end function and allows me to apply information technology more similar I would a MacBook. I opted for the largest screen size possible as it allows me to take multiple tabs open up at once which, as we'll run into in a 2nd, is actually central for taking notes. The iPad Bone allows for the iPad screen to be used as a 2d screen or to mirror the screen of your Mac besides using Apple's Sidecar tool.

You only click this one push button and it volition immediately make your iPad a second screen and I honestly cannot enlarge how valuable having a big screen has been for me it improves my productivity and my efficiency so much as you can accept an essay or blog that y'all're writing open on 1 screen and then all of the internet enquiry that you're doing on the other. That extra screen real manor is really important. Similarly the iPadOS comes with multitasking and allows you to take multiple tabs open adjacent to each other on screen. This is once more a game-changer when taking notes or researching things or practising active recollect questions as I tin chop-chop jump between taps and compare.

The screen on the 12.9 Pro is also an XDR display which not fifty-fifty the xi inch Pro comes with and it makes a noticeable divergence in image quality over the other iPads which have apple's liquid retina screen. In terms of how it feels to write on screen with the apple pencil it's the nearest feeling to writing on paper I've experience. I also picked up the magic keyboard for the Pro which is really dainty and allows me to basically utilize the iPad Pro like I would a Mac. The only drawback here is the iPad operating organization and file management which is nowhere near as robust as the MacOS so the Pro hasn't fully replaced my Macbook Pro yet.

My takeaway here is that if you can afford the larger screen size y'all definitely won't regret it but if you lot're on a budget the smaller screens are however great for note-taking basics.

The Acme iPad Note-Taking Apps

So what apps do I apply for taking notes? Well for me I use Evernote across all my Apple tree devices every bit it's pretty streamlined and I'm not a fan of spending huge amounts of time highlighting things or making them expect pretty with Apple Pencil art and find information technology quick to use. I have also used Notability and Goodnotes which are more than stylised and once more if you'd like a full comparison of the best apps let me know in the comments below.

Both Evernote and Notability accept some key features like existence able to import PDFs and images to annotate and the ability to browse documents which is great if you are making notes about a book or want to screengrab a lecture slide. Both likewise permit yous import a range of files from cloud storage apps like Gdrive or Dropbox to then comment which is really helpful especially for PDFs. When using the Apple Pencil Evernote will catechumen my handwriting into text pretty consistently and the sketch tool allows for more artistic drawing. Notability is probably a little better here in terms of pencil and drawing options and it has some more aesthetic notebook layouts. Simply I'1000 pretty bones and adopt the ability of Evernote to become me direct into taking notes across all my devices. Evernote likewise allows for audio note and creating tasks from notes both of which I find really useful if I'm on the move or accept an idea and desire to record something or prepare a chore reminder for later. I also use Evernotes's clipping tool to store spider web manufactures and links across devices to create this centralised noesis storage system or second brain.

Whichever note-taking app you cull the key is choosing something that is like shooting fish in a barrel enough to continue you consistent to build upwards your cognition base.

How I Take Notes on iPad

At present I want to talk you through some of the utilize cases that I find and how I use Evernote to take notes in those use cases so let'south beginning with lectures

Online Lectures and Courses

Equally a founder and CEO and but a massive learning nerd I'm always diving into online courses, webinars and remote training and for pretty much every university course there are now online lecture elements. If I'thousand watching a live webinar or pre-recorded course I'll use the iPadOS multitask characteristic to have two tabs open side by side with the stream in one and Evernote in the other. I'll then accept down key notes with my Apple Pencil or make some active recall questions if I'm learning something and so I'll add in a link to the recording to that annotation so I can refer back as needed. I'll oftentimes add in timestamps here to help notice things later and I'll grab screenshots add them to the notes and annotate them to help illustrate points more clearly. This is where Evernotes handwriting recognition characteristic comes into its own as I tin can stay engaged writing down notes every bit I would on paper then it converts this into nice legible text blocks.

In-Person Lectures and Events

For in-person lectures or events equally I've covered in my how I take no notes video I will usually pre-read any lecture notes or the slides to become a general overview of the topic being covered and with Evernote I'll upload any online materials or just link to them as function of my pre-lecture prep. When in the lecture itself I'll use the iPad camera and either screenshot or record slides that are important and will actually write active recall questions as I'grand listening into Evernote. Equally an example I was actually at an in-person event last calendar month where I noted downwardly key concept just likewise used the apple pencil and Evernote sketch function to describe a spider diagram around a primal topic and and then organised the note by the field of study under a notebook in a logical order.

Whether online or in-person I notice that writing down notes with the pencil and creating active questions keeps me engaged and makes me think about topics rather than just typing down a dictated lecture or simply not taking notes and arresting things passively. I can then come up dorsum to these notes anytime or add to them as needed.

Books and Handouts

If I'k learning from a book or I've been given a handout in a modest group educational activity setting I'll ordinarily utilise Evernote'south scanning tech to scan in a paragraph and direct create a notation that I tin comment or edit. This is hugely helpful when creating a noesis banking company of book notes to recollect everything that I read and I'll oftentimes tag books by their category such as finance, business, self-development to help me discover things really speedily. Equally if I'g in a small group education session and I'm working off a handout, workbook or do sail for something like a roleplay exercise for soft-skills I'll utilise the same scanning role to browse in the relevant pages of the paper materials and so comment on my iPad. Before doing this I lost loads of useful paper handouts or they just got crumpled up in my purse.

Real World Learning

When working as a surgeon and on the wards if I was doing simulation training, role-play or whatever kind of applied training in that location would often be times when I'd need to take notes so wait things up later. With the iPad I tin quite quickly notation downward something that has come up as a learning betoken and then use mutlitasking split screen to google for farther info and actually sympathise the topic. Now that I run a number of ed-tech companies I'll often utilize the iPad for taking down customer learning points from research workshops or for things like noting downward employee coaching sessions. If you are a medical pupil and are observing in a clinical setting y'all tin can quickly take google search open adjacent to your notes or the kindle version of your medical text volume and quickly expect things upwards that yous don't know. Patients and doctors are way more used to seeing students with iPads taking notes iPads are less conspicuous than laptops and easier to send while being more than professional than taking notes on your phone where people might think y'all are just on TikTok.

Twenty-four hour period To Twenty-four hour period NoteTaking

Finally I'll use my iPad, Apple Pencil and Evernote for doing pretty much anything creative. If I'one thousand planning out a YouTube video I'll construction a note so jot downwards ideas, highlight sections for calculation in B-Curlicue and map out what I'm going to talk about. If I'one thousand researching something for work or thinking almost a new business concern thought the apple pencil and magic keyboard allow me to use the iPad Pro as a light-weight laptop that I can grab from my desk and spend some creative time planning things out. Every bit if I'g talking with my team on slack or using collaborative tools like Miro to whiteboard and collaborate on ideas I might catch a screenshot of something comment it or circumvolve an important area and then rapidly share it with the team. This has been a existent game changer for me as sometimes it can be way quicker to explain something by annotating a screenshot or drawing a diagram by mitt rather than explain things by typing.

So those were some of the ways that I use my iPad Pro 12.9 along with Evernote to take notes. I hope you plant that useful. To summarise we've talked about why I apply the iPad Pro for annotation-taking over writing notes down on paper or typing them up and some of the evidence comparing those two note-taking methods. Nosotros've talked virtually the Apple tree Pencil and electric current iPad line and their pros and cons and we've dived into the apps that I apply like Evernote and some of the use cases for taking notes with the iPad from my own experience.

Source: https://blog.alexanderfyoung.com/how-i-take-notes-on-my-ipad-pro-note-taking-in-medical-school-and-work-2022/

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