“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you want.”

Are you an effective listener? Want to do better than that? Then, use effective listening techniques. Here are the Top ten ways to listen to boring lectures

1. Choose to find the subject useful.
   • Poor listeners dismiss most lectures as dull and irrelevant. They turn off quickly.
   • Effective listeners separate the wheat from the chaff. They choose to listen to discover new knowledge.
2. Concentrate on the words and message, not on the professor’s looks, clothes or delivery.
   • Poor listeners notice faults in a lecturer’s appearance or delivery.
   • Effective listeners strive to pick every professor’s brain for self-gain.
3. …more

3. Picture it written on their forehead: Franklin Roosevelt continually amazed his staff by remembering the names of nearly everyone he met. His secret? He used to imagine seeing the name written across the person’s forehead. This is a particularly powerful technique if you visualize the name written in your favorite color of Magic Marker.
– Tricks to remembering names

How to Remember Names

The ability to remember the names of people you meet will always serve you well in social situations.

• Pay attention when you are introduced to someone. A few minutes after you meet the person, say his or her name to yourself again. If you have forgotten it, talk to the person again and ask for the name.
  
  
• Write down the new name three times while picturing the person’s face; do this as soon as possible after meeting someone.
  
  
• Ask how to spell a difficult name, or glance at the spelling on the person’s business card, if it’s offered. If you know the spelling of a word and can picture it in your mind, you’ll remember it better.
  
  
• … more

… if you can learn to recognize the particular way in which you got stuck, or the particular kind of trouble you’re in, that diagnosis can suggest more appropriate ways to think. Here are a few examples of these from chapter 7 of The Emotion Machine.

• If a problem seems familiar, try reasoning by Analogy. If you solved a similar one in the past, and can adapt to the differences, you may be able to re-use that solution.
• If the problem still seems too hard, divide it into several parts. Every difference you recognize may suggest a separate subproblem to solve.
• If it seems unfamiliar, change how you’re describing it. Find a different description that highlights more relevant information.
• If you get too many ideas, then focus on a more specific example—but if you don’t get enough ideas, make the description more general.
• If a problem is too complex, make a simpler version of it. Solving a simpler instance may suggest how to solve the original problem.
• Reflection. Asking what makes a problem seem hard may suggest another approach—or a better way to spend your time.
• Impersonation. When your ideas seem inadequate, remember someone more expert at this, and imagine what that person would do.
• Resignation. Whenever you find yourself totally stuck, stop whatever you’re doing now and let the rest of your mind find alternatives.
• Knowing How: The best way to solve a problem is to already know how to solve it—if you can manage to retrieve that knowledge.
• If none of these methods work, you can ask another person else for help.

– Thinking about Thinking about Ways to Think

Nice overview of several note taking strategies. I have seen these before, but having them all in one place is helpful to pass along to students.

Note Taking Systems
Student Academic Services - Study Skills Library, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Other online tutorials available…

On-Line Study Skills Improvement Information

• Listening
• Memorization
• Lecture Note Taking
• Procrastination
• Essay Test Preparation
• Post Test Analysis
• Time Management Strategies
• Time Saving Tips

GoBinder note-taking software was discussed in an article - new to me, but sounded interesting. They include tutorials for students, including a Note Taking Tutorial