Interested in being a Volunteer Notetaker?
None of my classes require note-taking in order to retain material (and certainly not in order to satisfy course requirements or prepare for tests), but some students still take notes because they’ve found that’s the best way for them to interact with, and take in, the course. Among those students, some benefit from asking a fellow student, maybe you (if you’re the note-taking type), to share notes with them. Such a student is a volunteer notetaker — and the nice thing is that U of T Accessibility Services provides extra perks for those who volunteer.
But as usual, in my classes I do things just a bit differently. I ask volunteer notetakers to send me copies of the notes they take, in addition to uploading those notes through Accessibility Services, so that I can share them on our course Google Drive, making them available to anyone who might benefit from them. You don’t have to send me copies to share with the class, but I’d greatly prefer if you do.
Volunteer Notetakers can get started right away, but you’ll only be able to activate Accessibility Services’ special systems and perks if you register officially with them. To do that, once you’ve confirmed with me that you are indeed going to be our class’s Volunteer Notetaker, please follow these instructions:
Register Online as a Volunteer Note-Taker at:
https://clockwork.studentlife.utoronto.ca/custom/misc/home.aspxFor a step-to-step guide please follow this link to the Volunteer Notetaking Portal Guide
Click on Volunteer Notetakers, and sign in using your UTORid
Select the course(s) you wish to take notes for. Please note: you do NOT need to upload sample notes or be selected as a volunteer to begin uploading your notes.
Start uploading notes.
Email Accessibility Services at as.notetaking@utoronto.ca if you have questions or require any assistance with uploading notes through their service. If you are no longer able to upload notes for a course, please also let them know immediately. And for more information about the Accessibility Services Peer Notetaking program, please visit https://studentlife.utoronto.ca/program/volunteer-note-taking/.
Remember, though, that I make audiorecordings of all of my class sessions, and I make those recordings, as well as slides, available to all students — and I allow students to use additional recording devices in my classes if they wish — so in this case you may not need a notetaker at all. And you may not want one: above all, before making arrangements for a notetaker, consult my guidelines for notetaking and retention in my classes (click here).