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

and I took very good notes.

My teachers really appreciated that.

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

You look at these notes and you say to yourself

"This is great.

This student is clearly paying attention in my class."

That's what it looks like.

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,

and so I would get a different reaction.

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

if my hand was doing something,

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

and see me in the back 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 they'd make me stop

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:

"Rachel, you're such a good student,

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

Guess what I do for a living now?

Any guesses?

25 years later,

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 take notes.

Those notes look something like this.

This is called graphic recording.

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.

This helps the group in several ways:

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

through a multi-day meeting

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,

and that's my contribution.

I make the group's work visible.

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.

They're just ready for me to use.

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

I've had a lot more practice.

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

and clean up because I've been drawing.

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.

That's how learning occurs.

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

When you take notes, it's very possible

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

and not understand any of it.

Has that happened to any of you?

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 listen to what's being said,

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.

Visual note-taking opens the door

for more playful connections between information,

for students to use their imaginations

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.

And when a student takes visual notes,

what they're doing is making that story visible.

When taking visual notes,

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 —

then you've lost track of what's going on, you've fallen behind,

and what you need to do is stop, leave a space,

move on and keep up with the speaker.

When I was taking the notes here,

the speaker that I was listening to, Chris Schunn,

was talking about the difference between low-success teams and high-success teams,

and you can see that in the lower portion of the slide here.

And I had this image of how I wanted

to represent his description, of what those two teams were like,

but I didn't have time while he was talking to work it out

because I hadn't had those postures of the people that you see here.

That wasn't in my image library already.

So I left a space and I went on with him,

which is good, because if I hadn't,

if I'd tried to work out that drawing right then,

I would've ended up missing the take-home points of the lecture

which is the important thing,

this is what the speaker wants you to walk away with.

So I waited until he was finished

and when the talk was over, I went back and I worked out the drawings

the way that I want them.

Now when I look at them, they remind me of the descriptions that he used

because this is the image that came to my mind when he was saying that.

I'm not saying this is the only way to take notes, or the best way,

I'm just saying it's another way to take notes, another option,

and for some people it can be very, very helpful.

Some people have a very hard time writing words while they're hearing words;

for some reason, it's very hard.

Other people naturally think of images as they're listening.

For other people, like me, it's easier to focus and listen closely

when you're doing something with your hands.

We like to think that school has changed in 30 years, gotten better, improved.

I want to tell you a little story about my niece, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is 13 years old, she going into 8th grade this year.

And Elizabeth is a really good student, most of the time.

Last year in school,

she got caught drawing in class.

Astonishingly, she got in trouble.

I can't believe this is still happening, but it is.

So, she got called up after class to the teacher

and he was going to assign her a detention,

but before he could say anything,

Elizabeth, who is much sharper at 13 than I was,

showed him her paper and she said,

"I wasn't just drawing in class."

This is what she showed him.

She said: "I was taking notes in your class, I was paying attention."

She went over this paper with him, point by point,

and she used her words and her images

to recall the story that he had told in his lecture.

She captured all the key points.

It was clear that she had been paying attention,

and that she could read her notes.

When she was finished, her teacher said:

"That's really good.

If you want to keep taking notes like that in my class, you go right ahead."

So, some things have changed.

And she continued to do it all through the semester.

As you can see, her notes got better.

She got better at organizing the information.

She got better at choosing which images to use.

In the end, she was able to demonstrate that these notes could help her study

so she was able to do it in other classes as well.

I talked to her recently and I said:

"Elizabeth, how was this experience for you, this visual note-taking in class?

What was the experience like?"

And this is what she said to me:

"It helped me remember better

because I could place the information with a picture that's relevant."

And that's what it's all about.

But the key point here

is that the picture and the information

are not just connected in Elizabeth's notebook.

The picture and the information are connected in Elizabeth's mind,

that's why visual note-taking works.

What do you think is the most common objection I get

when I start to teach people how to do visual note-taking?

Any ideas? Here, I'll show you.

OK. Say it with me, "But I can't draw." (Audience) "But I can't draw."

I get that all the time.

The good news is it's not about drawing, it's not about making beautiful pictures.

It's not about making detailed images.

It's not about accurately drawing a person, or a car, or a light bulb.

It's not even about doing something

that's recognizable to anybody other than yourself.

The thing that you need to do with visual note-taking

is capture what you're hearing in a way that's memorable for you.

It's a personal experience

that needs to be personally relevant and connect with what you heard,

and that's all.

So, let's say that you're convinced and you want to try this yourself,

or, if you're a teacher, let your students try it.

We'll go over three simple steps

that will get you set on this road, get you started.

The first one is to choose a tool that works for you,

the second one is to start building up that mental library of images I mentioned,

and the third one is to really practice listening and capturing the key points.

After that, it's just practice; that's all you need to know and then just practice.

Let's go over these one by one. Choose a tool that works for you.

This can be anything at all,

it can be paper, a pen or pencil, a tablet computer or an iPad.

You can use lots and lots of colors, just a few colors, just one color,

whatever you like.

It just has to be something that you're absolutely comfortable with.

Whatever's happening, the tool cannot get in the way of you taking your notes.

It can't get between you and capturing that information.

If your tool is too confusing, or if you're not familiar with it,

it's not going to be helpful to you.

Whatever you choose, you should practice with that tool

before you record a lecture, or a class, or a meeting that's very important

because you want the tool to be seamless not in your way at all.

By the way, the sketch notes here have been done by Mike Rohde,

and he's a fantastic inspiration

if you're going to begin doing visual note-taking,

So I really recommend looking at his books and his pictures.

Second thing is actually your most important tool.

The tool that you write with is important,

but the most important tool is your internal library of mental imagery.

You start with one or two icons;