How you should take the Notes whose scans you submit for extra credit


The reason that I encourage you -- by offering extra credit -- to take "notes on my notes" is that I want to address a specific concern that came up in past semester's course evaluations. Namely, a number of students said that they wished that I had been writing notes on the whiteboard in real time, as opposed to talking about notes that had already been written. I agree that it is easier for the students to absorb the new material at the slower pace, when instructor writes in real time. However, this option also has a significant drawback, as described below. Therefore, I will not "go back" to writing notes in real time.

The main drawback of writing in real time stems from the same fact as its advantage: the slower pace. When I used to write in real time, I had little to no time for answering students' questions and clarifying points that people (this semester it is you) seeing the material for the first time may be (rightfully) confused about. I think it is much more efficient for me to explain the main ideas using existing notes, refer you to read on your own about minor technical details, and spend the rest of class time going over your questions.

Therefore, I will give extra credit for submitted scanned notes only when they reflect comments that I have made in class on top of what is already written in my posted lecture notes. I will not be striving for perfection. All of you are different and will find a different number of comments worth jotting down during the lecture. Some of you will only find three such comments, and some may make over ten. My goal is not to make you jot down as many comments as possible -- this would have been plain stupid on my part. Rather, I want to see that you have marked at least some of the points that I stressed during the lecture as being important.

You can certainly take your own notes (before class) and mark on them, if taking notes helps you absorb the material. However, if you find yourself spending too much time on that, I recommend either printing the posted notes before class, or saving their pdf file on your computer, and marking on that copy during the lecture. If you have neither access to a printer nor a device to write on a file, I would like to recommend that you consider buying a small Wacom writing tablet; it will allow you to write on files (ask me how to mark on a pdf if you don't know). Small Wacom tablets cost around $80 to $90; there are cheaper imitations of them (I use one for all my teaching) that sell for around $50. Such a tablet will serve you well beyond the needs of this course.