I first experienced partnered notes in the course Protecting Information, an elective at Williams College. Our co-teachers from the realms of math and physics were running a course on cryptography from the Romans up to theoretical quantum cryptography that would be available in the future. As students, we were assigned in pairs to produce notes on the lectures, those notes eventually turned into a textbook for that course.

As Evolution of Society was a similar course (no established textbook) we thought that technique would be of use. Matt and I set up students in pairs to take on the notes for various classes including extending the content in some way with outside information. The following class would then begin with a 5 minute recap of what the prior class was.

It worked beautifully. The structure meant that each class was tied to the prior one (an omission that we were both prone to making) and as it was an MA for the students, they produced some excellent results that became a reference for students as they moved through the course.