Name: 【TEDx】Drawing in class: Rachel Smith at TEDxUFM
Uploaded: 2017-12-20T19:27:48.000Z
Duration: 18 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Translator: Carmen Costina Reviewer: Denise RQ

Past simple

When I was in high school I was a pretty good student

My notes looked a lot like this most of the time.

You look at these notes and you say to yourself

This student is clearly paying attention in my class."

The trouble is that sometimes, my notes looked a little more like this.

And this was a little hard, a little more problematic,

because to the teachers it looked like I was drawing in class,

But for me, it was just as easy to listen closely to what the teacher was saying

if I was drawing images as it was if I was writing words.

Sometimes, it was actually easier for me to listen and pay attention

and it didn't matter if the images that were coming out

had anything to do with what I was hearing.

It was just easier for me to focus if I was drawing.

But teachers would stand in the front of the room

because my last name started with an S and so I was always in the back,

and they would say, "She's drawing in class again."

and stand up in front of the class and recite some exercises

to induce me to pay attention better next time.

Maybe, after class, I'd have to stay and clean off the blackboard

and I'd always get the same lecture which went something like this:

but if you don't pay attention, you're not going to do well."

it turns out that what I do for a living is pay attention.

I get up in front of a group and the group talks,

and while they're doing that, I pay attention.

I pay attention totally, and completely, and with everything that I am.

While I'm paying attention to what the group is saying,

I use huge sheets of paper on the wall, I use big markers,

I listen to the group's conversation and I record it, using words and images.

Sometimes there are more words and sometimes there are more images,

but usually the notes come out looking something like this.

It lets them see what they're doing, it lets them see their work

in a way that's not normally possible in a meeting or a conversation.

It lets them see the big picture together.

They can make connections between pieces of information

that come up at different times in the meeting.

They can follow the thread of a conversation

because it's all around them on the walls, all the time.

It really helps the group to see what they're accomplishing as they do it,

I also use visual note-taking to take my own personal notes,

when I'm listening to speeches, or lectures, or meetings, what have you.

A couple of things are different than when I was in high school.

I'm using different tools, so my notes look a little different.

I draw on an internal library of images that I've developed over the years

and that I carry with me so I can draw very quickly when I need them.

I've gotten better at pulling out the key points that speakers are making,

I've stopped worrying that people will make me stay after the meeting

Any type of note-taking is designed to help the student take what they're hearing

and hook it to their internal frame of reference.

You take new information and hook it to old information you already had.

to write down word for word exactly what the teacher's saying

I know it's happened to me; where I have no clue what's going on,

so I just write it all down and hope I can figure it out later.

When you're using visual note-taking though,

you have to really hear it, and you have to understand it,

because that's the only way you're going to come up with an image

that connects what you're hearing with what you already know in your mind.

for more playful connections between information,

in an activity that can often be very passive: note-taking.

It also helps students to create a personal visual memory aid

that they can study from later, look at, and tell themselves the story again.

When a teacher is teaching, what they're doing, really,

is telling a story about something they're passionate about.

what they're doing is making that story visible.

the critical thing is that your images are very quick and easy to draw,

and that they're relevant to the content that's being said.

If you find yourself doing a really, really detailed image,

and it has nothing to do with what the speaker's currently saying,

— this happens to every visual note-taker at some point —

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TEDx】Drawing in class: Rachel Smith at TEDxUFM

relevant

mental

context

concept