My goal is to enable student understanding, and often a definition is not enough to allow students to understand a subject. A description plus additional information (sometimes plus some details) are necessary. Taking notes by itself is a form of learning, but further study of those notes increases learning and understanding. Taking notes requires the attention to be more precisely focused on the access, sorting, and coding of the information than it would be when simply listening to a speaker or reading a document. Graphic organizers that students have to create about the material can be an excellent way of learning. This includes charts and tables that organize information.