The final two skills your students should be practicing in high school (and middle school) are absolutely essential for success in college, Note Taking and Time Management. Each will be discussed in a separate post because of the attention that should be given to each.
4. Note Taking
Note taking is another skill that most high school students do not really know how to do 
because the level of their work has not necessitated development of this. I see it with my own son when he struggles to summarize and delineate the important points of something or to understand the mechanics of an outline. They often do not know what is important and what is not important.
Why it is important for college: Obviously, this is vitally important to know as they sit through a college lecture. Students that learn to take notes do a better job of listening while in class. Taking notes helps students organize the material covered and points out areas of weakness. In high school, the teacher may have handed out notes, so all you needed to do was highlight a few items and scribble in the margins. By contrast, professors rarely provide notes to students, instead giving information only via lecture. Ultimately, the amount of material they will be covering is much greater than anything they may have been used to in high school and the only practical way to review this material for exams is through effective notes.
What can you do:
1. Make sure the student is prepared and goes to class with all the material needed to take good notes. Things needed are your books, pencils, and paper. Be sure they take notes on full size paper because it is too hard to develop a good system on smaller paper.
2. Many people believe the most effective way to take notes is known as the Cornell system (t-bone system) which can be found here – it is simple and common sense.
DURING CLASS:
*Use only one side of lined paper and draw a vertical line down th
e left side and a horizontal line a few inches from the bottom.
*Take notes in the central part of the paper focusing on main ideas and concepts
*Use standard abbreviations
*Skip lines when going from one concept to another and leave blanks when missing words or ideas that can be filled in later
*Use the left margin for question marks indicating additional research to be done later
AFTER CLASS:
*Review notes the same day to remember material
*Fill in the blanks and do the additional research needed
*Use the bottom space to summarize the notes
3. Make them practice now taking notes in class, go over them at home for completeness as well as brevity. Have them rewrite the notes, adding what they may have missed and deleting the unimportant parts.
Important – this should be done without the use of a computer or tablet, yes that means longhand. A friend of mine who is a professor at SUNY Binghamton prohibits her students from using laptops in class for a variety of reasons, as do her colleagues. She also includes this particular article in her syllabus at the beginning of the semester… (http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/taking-notes-by-hand-benefits-recall-researchers-find/51411)
Incorporate and practice the 5 R’s of note taking:
Record
Reduce
Recite
Reflect
Review
Our last discussion will be on Time Management – I have saved the best and most important for last.
Countdown to College 