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Note taking in relation to the Social Sciences

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Note taking in relation to the Social Sciences

Introduction

This course will help you identify the value and best ways of note taking. It is based on listening to an audio file that contains a discussion between teaching team members of D218 Social Policy: Welfare, Power and Diversity, a current Open University course. It was originally 23 minutes in length and was recorded in 1998.

This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 1 study in Sociology.

Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

  • identify the value and best way of note taking.

1 Social Policy

1.1 Note taking in this context

Although the audio file included in this course was designed to compliment the D218 Social Policy: Welfare, Power and Diversity Open University course its contents are still relevant to anyone wishing to improve their understanding of note taking. The audio file, however, uses specific examples associated with the Social Sciences.

The audio file was recorded in 1998. John Clarke discusses the value and best ways of note taking with OU colleagues Esther Saraga and Gerry Mooney.

Participants in the discussion were:

  • John Clarke Professor of Social Policy at The Open University;

  • Esther Saraga Social Sciences Staff Tutor in The Open University's London region;

  • Gerry Mooney Staff Tutor in The Open University’s Scotland region.

Activity 1

Listen to the audio file. You may find it helpful to listen to the recording a second time and take some notes using the techniques that are described by the OU tutors.

Note: You will hear references to TMAs. This is an acronym for Tutor Marked Assignments. These are formal assessments associated with Open University courses.

Note taking part 1 (10 minutes 4.7 MB)

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Note taking part 2 (13 minutes 6 MB)

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Conclusion

This free course provided an introduction to studying Sociology. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.

Acknowledgements

The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence

Course image: g4ll4is in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence.

This extract is taken from D218: Social policy: welfare, power and diversity, produced by the BBC on behalf of the Open University.

© 2007 The Open University.

Ton Zijlstra: Flickr.com [Details correct as of 7th December 2007]

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