Advice for Notetakers

SJCSue

SJCSue

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What advice would you give a voluntary notetaker?
 
If you aren't willing to take notes the way a student needs them taken, don't volunteer for the assignment. Notetaking is much, much more than just taking notes for your own use. If the deaf studnet can't make sense of your abbreviations, ect. then the notes are of no use. I personally think that professional notetakers should always be used.
 
SJCSue said:
What advice would you give a voluntary notetaker?
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1) Please learn how to take proper notes.

2) Please be fucking prompt with your notes. Do not wait until the day before a quiz or test, or the day of the test to turn in your notes to be copied. (this is my biggest pet peeve!) You should turn in your notes RIGHT AFTER CLASS or at least sometime during that day (no later than that!) to be copied so that us who depend on notetakers will have the time to study them!

3) Make sure your notes are not incomplete. Make sure it has ALL the important info needed to pass a quiz or test.

4) Please learn how to spell!

5) Work on your shitty handwriting! If we cannot read your writing, your notes are useless to us!

6) If you cannot commit yourself to attend EVERY class session, then do not bother to volunteer for notetaking. If you are not there, you can't take notes, and we miss out on a LOT because of your absence.

7) If your grammar or spelling are horrible, do NOT bother to volunteer to be a notetaker. If we cannot understand your writing, your notes are USELESS!

There are more, but I can't think of them at the moment.
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
5) Work on your shitty handwriting! If we cannot read your writing, your notes are useless to us!
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To get around this problem you might consider asking your notetaker to transcribe notes on a computer and send them to you by e-mail. I use student notetakers and this is the arrangement I've used (since I can't access handwritten material).
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
1) Please learn how to take proper notes.

2) Please be prompt with your notes. Do not wait until the day before a quiz or test, or the day of the test to turn in your notes to be copied.

3) Make sure your notes are not incomplete. Make sure it has ALL the important info needed to pass a quiz or test.

4) Please learn how to spell!

5) Work on your handwriting! If we cannot read your writing, your notes are useless to us!

6) If you cannot commit yourself to attend EVERY class session, then do not bother to volunteer for notetaking.

7) If your grammar or spelling is horrible, do NOT bother to volunteer to be a notetaker.
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I concur. However, I edited you, LuciaDisturbed, because you don't need to use profanity to make your points. Trash in, trash out. Get to the point, dear. :)
 
pek1 said:
I concur. However, I edited you, LuciaDisturbed, because you don't need to use profanity to make your points. Trash in, trash out. Get to the point, dear. :)
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LOL Good one there Pek1....
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
Fuck notetakers, they ALWAYS suck!

You'd be better off with CART.
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Ahhhhhhh, Lucia--you wounded me!:tears: I have been serving as a notetaker for a deaf student for a couple of quarters now, but on a professional basis, not as a volunteer. In fact, I have spent the last six months revamping notetaking services for the college I work at (and attend) because the volunteer services were so freaking lousy. We now have a class that has to be taken, the notetaker is expected to adhere to the same guidelines ethically as interpreters, they must have expertise in the class for which they are taking notes, they can't be a student in the class, and if they have had the class, they must have gotten an A or a B. Also, they must be capable of facilitating communication, and we recommend that all notes be taken on a laptop, and then downloaded onto the student's jump drive immediately after class. They are also required to meet with the student once a week to clarify anything in the notes that the student doesn't understand. They are evaluated twice a quarter by the student, the faculty, and someone from disability services. Our students have the final word--if a notetaker isn't working out for a particular student, we get another one to replace her/him.

Granted, volunteer notetakers are not the proper way to provide services, and all schools should be using professional notetakers. Unfortunately, that is something that needs to be pushed for. I agree with you in that volunteer notetaking services usually suck, but some of us are really trying to provide quality services.
 
Reba said:
I agree.

Sadly, that's not what the students always get. :(
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Too true. I already stated this in my reply to Lucia, but I have been revising the notetaking services at the college I work for (and attend as a grad student) because the notetakers were doing such a lousy job as volunteers that it was extremely questionable whether they were meeting the "qualified" clause in the ADA. I complained and complained until the Assoc. Dean told me to fix it. We now have mandatory training, and the only volunteer notetakers (as in unpaid) are the students in the last year of their Deaf Studies/Interpreting degree that use some notetaker hours as part of their internship. Notetakers are evaluated by three different people (student, faculty, and disbility services coordinator). Not perfect yet, but we are working on improving the system. Unfortunately, the services had functioned with nothing but volunteer notetakers for several years, and it took someone familiar with the educational problems of a deaf student to stand up and say, "Wait a minute--this is wrong!" Unfortunately, the disability services coordinator has no idea what services are effective, or how to design the program and simply takes the easiest route. And the students loose out.
 
jillio said:
Ahhhhhhh, Lucia--you wounded me!:tears: I have been serving as a notetaker for a deaf student for a couple of quarters now, but on a professional basis, not as a volunteer. In fact, I have spent the last six months revamping notetaking services for the college I work at (and attend) because the volunteer services were so freaking lousy. We now have a class that has to be taken, the notetaker is expected to adhere to the same guidelines ethically as interpreters, they must have expertise in the class for which they are taking notes, they can't be a student in the class, and if they have had the class, they must have gotten an A or a B. Also, they must be capable of facilitating communication, and we recommend that all notes be taken on a laptop, and then downloaded onto the student's jump drive immediately after class. They are also required to meet with the student once a week to clarify anything in the notes that the student doesn't understand. They are evaluated twice a quarter by the student, the faculty, and someone from disability services. Our students have the final word--if a notetaker isn't working out for a particular student, we get another one to replace her/him.

Granted, volunteer notetakers are not the proper way to provide services, and all schools should be using professional notetakers. Unfortunately, that is something that needs to be pushed for. I agree with you in that volunteer notetaking services usually suck, but some of us are really trying to provide quality services.
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I'm glad you're the exception to what we usually get. My old college (Saint Cloud State University) does not provide professional notetakers, and back then, I did not even know that such a thing as CART existed, so I thought I had to make do with student notetakers. My grades suffered because of that! :(

It seems like you are doing a great job with the notetaking services at your college, and I commend you for that!
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
I'm glad you're the exception to what we usually get. My old college (Saint Cloud State University) does not provide professional notetakers, and back then, I did not even know that such a thing as CART existed, so I thought I had to make do with student notetakers. My grades suffered because of that! :(

It seems like you are doing a great job with the notetaking services at your college, and I commend you for that!
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Unfortunately, I know exactly what you are talking about. I'm dealing with a student right now who ended up wwith an Incomplete becasue the volunteer notetaker wasn't getting the info down about assignments and such for her. That's one of the reasons I finally blew up about the lousy services. Since my son is deaf, I feel obligated to point out problems with services when I see them. No deaf studnet should ever have to worry that hteir grades don't accurately reflect the work they are capable of just because another student failed to take proper notes, or because the notes didn't get to the deaf student in time to complete an assignment. Makes me furious when I see shit like that happen!
 
To get around this problem you might consider asking your notetaker to transcribe notes on a computer and send them to you by e-mail.
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I was gonna say this.........My best friend was in the same class as me, and she's dealt with dumbass notetakers before, so she typed up my notes and sent them to me. SO much easier then trying to decipher handwriting.
 
Oh and pek1, I know that Lucia might have seemed rather strong........BUT, trust me........it is damn frustrating dealing with dumbass notetakers!
 
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