Note: This is the first part of a five-part series exploring how artificial intelligence tools might be effectively integrated into AVID’s focused note-taking process.
Focused note-taking helps students focus their learning, organize their thoughts, ask important questions, think critically, and increase retention. While these objectives remain largely unchanged, the proliferation of technology in classrooms has impacted what this process looks like.
In recent years, many classrooms have implemented one-to-one technology models, with each student having daily access to devices like Chromebooks or iPads. This trend has resulted in students accessing documents and academic content digitally. It has also meant that the note-taking process has been shifting to a digital environment.
In another technology-related wrinkle, artificial intelligence has begun showing up in classrooms, further impacting the note-taking process. While note-taking can still happen in a paper-and-pencil format, it’s worth considering how technology, and specifically AI, might be effectively integrated to enhance this process.
Key Considerations
When integrating technology into a lesson, it’s important that students are not offloading their critical thinking to a digital tool.
While technology can increase efficiency and make some tasks easier or more streamlined, the core learning process should always remain student-centered and student-driven. Integrating digital tools into the note-taking process should serve as a catalyst, not a replacement, for students’ critical thinking and analysis
Rather than being used to take notes for students, AI might be used to help students prepare to take their notes or process and think about the notes that they are taking. For example, AI could be used to help explain background concepts, offer formatting and organizational options, or help with identifying patterns in the notes that a student has taken.
Regardless of the role that AI plays in the note-taking process, the student needs to do the heavy lifting. They must actively engage with the AI feedback, determine the meaning of any AI-generated information, and determine why or if that information matters. Students should ask AI to notice or suggest, not explain or choose.
Students might say, “This is what AI noticed. Why does that matter?” or they may think, “These are some options posed by AI. Do any of these make sense for me, and if so, which ones?”
While AI is contributing ideas, again, students should remain in control of the note-taking thought process.
Taking Notes
In this step, students create a note-taking format and capture their notes.
The format is flexible. Some of the available options include Cornell notes, a Venn diagram, a multi-column organizer, or a concept map. The format choice should align with the learning goal and the way the content is presented.
Based on their format decision, students should set up their note-taking page, either on paper or digitally, and record the Essential Question for the lesson.
With the note-taking space prepared, students are ready to begin taking notes from the information source. This information source can vary and might appear in a variety of formats, including a lecture, a reading, a website, a video, or an audio recording.
As students review the source material, they decide what’s important and take notes based on those decisions. While doing this, they paraphrase ideas and arrange that information in a meaningful way on their note-taking page. All notes should be relevant to the lesson objective and connect back to the Essential Question.
Integrating AI
When integrating artificial intelligence tools into the note-taking process, students might use AI in a number of ways. They could use it to prepare their thinking, identify key vocabulary, and help them focus on big ideas or notice important concepts. AI should not be the note-taker, but it can serve as a guide and coach.
With this context in mind, here are seven ways that students can integrate AI into the first step of the AVID Focused Note-Taking Process.
1. Preview
AI can be used to generate a preview of the content to be explored. This can provide necessary context and mentally prepare students for the note-taking task at hand.
To create a preview of the content to be studied, students can use a tool like Google’s NotebookLM, which allows them to upload documents, links, multimedia, and other source content into a notebook. Once that content has been added to the notebook, students can ask questions about it. If students choose to use NotebookLM, that content remains in the notebook until it is intentionally deleted.
When using general AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, students upload or attach source content by clicking the plus icon in the query box. If students leave their AI chat thread, they will lose the context of the material they have uploaded, unless they are logged in during the interaction.
If the source content is a lecture, generating a preview will likely look different. In the case of a live class lecture, students won’t have the lecture content ahead of time, so they would need to inquire generally about the topic, rather than basing it on the specific content provided by the teacher. The exception to this would be if students have up-front access to an audio file, video file, or detailed slideshow presentation of the lecture. If available, these could be uploaded into the AI tool to provide context.
Once the content is uploaded, the students then prompt the chatbot to generate a note-taking preview.
Sample prompts include:
- “Convert the attached resources into a short preview summary to help me better understand what I’ll be [reading/viewing/consuming].”
- “Provide a checklist of things I should watch/listen for while taking notes on [insert topic]. Ask me to fill in the details myself rather than doing that work for me.”
2. Reading/Listening/Viewing Guides
Having the AI generate a reading, listening, or viewing guide can help students focus their attention on what matters most in relation to the lesson goals.
Sample prompts include:
- “The Essential Question is: [insert question]? What key ideas should I focus on when learning about this topic?”
- “Ask me questions that will help me identify the most important ideas in a lesson about [topic]. Don’t give answers.”
- “Provide a list of general topics that I should take notes on. Do not provide the notes, just the topics.”
3. Vocabulary
AI can be used to identify and define key terms before a student interacts with the content. This preloading of vocabulary can improve comprehension.
If you don’t want the chatbot to provide the actual definitions, you could phrase the prompt accordingly. With this approach, the AI would help identify the key terms, and the student would need to look up the definitions.
Sample prompts include:
- “Identify five terms or concepts that appear central to understanding the topic. Use simple language to explain those in a way that helps me understand this resource.”
- “Identify a few key terms or concepts that are most important for understanding this topic. Don’t define the words, just provide the list.”
Similarly, students can skim the content and identify unfamiliar words themselves. They can then provide those terms to the chatbot and request simple definitions in the context of the Essential Question, or they can also look up the definitions themselves without the help of AI.
Another approach is to have the AI help the student figure out the meaning of vocabulary words based on context. Additionally, students could extend their learning by seeking more context, such as how the terms fit into the larger topic for the day.
Sample prompts include:
- “Here are three vocabulary words from the lesson: [insert words]. Ask me questions that help me predict what they might mean.”
- “How do these terms relate to the Essential Question?”
- “Here are a few vocabulary words from the lesson: [insert words]. Explain why these terms are key to understanding this lesson.”
4. Background Information
Similar to highlighting relevant vocabulary, AI can also provide background information that gives the student necessary context for understanding the content.
Sample prompts include:
- “Provide relevant background knowledge that will help me better comprehend this text.”
- “What background information should I understand before learning about this Essential Question: [insert question]?”
5. Structure
AI can help with brainstorming note-taking structures. Based on the suggestions, students can then decide which format they think will work best.
Sample prompts include:
- “What are some note-taking structures I could use that would align well with this Essential Question: [insert question]?”
- “I am about to learn about [topic]. Ask me questions that will help me choose a format and prepare my notes before the lesson.”
- “My Essential Question is [insert question]. To take notes on this topic, I’m considering [list note-taking formats being considered]. Provide a list of pros and cons for each option so that I can make an informed decision about which note-taking format will work best for me in this situation.”
6. Completeness
After students finish taking their notes, they can ask the AI to help them review what they’ve captured. Based on this feedback, students can then review, revise, and strengthen their original draft of notes.
Sample prompts include:
- “Review my notes and compare them to the source content. Identify inaccuracies and gaps.”
- “Review my notes. Provide a list of strengths and also provide a list of areas that could be strengthened.”
7. Comprehensive Preview and Review
Students can use NotebookLM to bookend the lesson with a preview and review.
To do this, students would upload the source content into a new notebook and then use the Studio Tool to generate either a briefing document or study guide. These reports often highlight major themes, key terminology, and important relationships between ideas in the source content. Using one of these options is much like combining the first four options above into one step, and it can help set students up for note-taking success.
When the students finish taking their own notes, they can go back and review the briefing document again, asking themselves several higher-level analysis questions:
- What ideas appear in the briefing document that I missed?
- What ideas did I include that seem less important?
- What important ideas did I include that the AI missed?
By using these questions to compare their notes to the briefing document or study guide content, students are the ones doing the deep thinking, and this process can help them evaluate if they have taken targeted and comprehensive notes on their own.
Once they have finished this evaluation, students can revise their notes, strengthening them as needed.
Debrief
At the end of the first step of the focused note-taking process, it’s beneficial to have students debrief.
This can help them evaluate not only the learning that they experienced but also the effectiveness of their note-taking and the role that AI played in the process. Below are some processing questions for students to consider when debriefing:
- Learning:
- What did I learn?
- What questions do I still have?
- Note-Taking:
- How did the process go?
- What worked well?
- What shortcomings did I notice?
- Artificial Intelligence:
- How did AI help me in this process?
- Were there any parts of the process where I allowed the AI to do some of the important thinking for me? If so, how might I change that in the future?
The answers to these questions can be the foundation of great classroom discussions and can help students set goals for improving the process in the future.
AVID Connections
This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:
- Instruction
- Systems
- Leadership
- Culture
- Relational Capacity
- Rigorous Academic Preparedness
- Opportunity Knowledge
- Student Agency
- Insist on Rigor
- Break Down Barriers
- Align the Work
- Advocate for Students
- Collective Educator Agency
Extend Your Learning
- The Five Phases of the Focused Note-Taking Process (AVID)
- How to Create a Briefing Document in NotebookLM [2026 Full Guide] (BM Tech Tutorials via YouTube)
- How to Create a Study Guide in NotebookLM [2026 Full Guide] (BM Tech Tutorials via YouTube)
- ChatGPT (OpenAI)
- NotebookLM (Google)