Students Remember Lectures Better Taking Notes Longhand Than Using Laptops 191
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Walk into any university lecture hall and you're likely to see row upon row of students sitting behind glowing laptop screens. Laptops in class have been controversial, due mostly to the many opportunities for distraction that they provide (online shopping, browsing Reddit, or playing solitaire, just to name a few). But few studies have examined how effective laptops are for the students who diligently take notes. Now Robinson Meyer writes at The Atlantic that a new study finds that people remember lectures better when they've taken handwritten notes, rather than typed ones. The research suggests that even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing. 'Our new findings suggest that even when laptops are used as intended — and not for buying things on Amazon during class — they may still be harming academic performance,' says psychological scientist Pam Mueller of Princeton University, lead author of the study. Laptop note takers' tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning. If you can type quickly enough, word-for-word transcription is possible, whereas writing by hand usually rules out capturing every word. 'We don't write longhand as fast as we type these days, but people who were typing just tended to transcribe large parts of lecture content verbatim,' says Mueller. 'The people who were taking notes on the laptops don't have to be judicious in what they write down.'"
Really? (Score:2)
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One Fiat on a hill is a miracle as certainly as two there is science fiction.
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Fiat? I prefer MGs
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The Show-me Canuck objects to being shown?
Not suprising (Score:2)
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When I learned to type back in the day, we were basically taught not to read what we were typing. We could literally type copy from gibberish and get it right, precisely because we were not trying to comprehend what we were typing.
Re:Not suprising (Score:5, Funny)
It's hard to remember what's in the lecture while you're reading Slashdot.
What you should do in your books (Score:3)
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It's called "Kinesthetic Learning" and it has been known of for at least 50 years.
You know what worked better for me then longhand? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what worked better for me then longhand notes? No notes. Listening to the teacher instead of writing worked best for me. Turns out I recalled things better when I spent my attention listening to the teacher rather then trying to write legible notes so I could read then later.
Just goes to show that people learn differently and making blanket statements for all people gets you into trouble :)
Min
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I find this too.
It was a startling realization that I could take notes during a lecture, walk out and not have a clue what was being said - this is handwritten notes too.
So I gave up on notes and focused on the lecture itself, since afterall I can copy out content from a book anytime.
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Same for me too. Writing by hand always occupied too much of my attention, so I never internalized and processed what was being said very well, let alone get it down on paper in a form that would job my memory of that understanding later. If I simply didn't take notes, I tended to understand the material better, so long as I relied on other source materials to help fill in gaps in my knowledge.
Taking notes on laptops actually did work for me eventually, but only after I realized that taking them word-for-wo
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What if the lectures were videotaped and we could watch them over and over again? We would still take notes but only to summarize the important things in the lecture. Universities that offer MOOC style video lectures along with real classroom lectures will win.
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Truthfully school isn't about learning, it is a game where you try to figure out the system a teacher employs to determine the material on the test, a game to manipulate faculty members into liking you enough to offer extra credit and special exceptions for failings, and ultimately tailoring your school 'resume' well enough facilitate you into whatever job or school you want to move to next.
I made the mistake in assuming academia was about learning and fairness above everything else while I made my way thro
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People learn differently. I am like you, I learn best taking very sparse notes, mostly just following the lecture. Occasionally jotting down key equations or highlights. I almost never used my note afterwards, just a way to cement certain things in my head.
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You know what worked better for me then longhand notes? No notes. Listening to the teacher instead of writing worked best for me
I had a law professor(criminal and constitutional) that taught by example, using case law to explain what happened and why it happened as such. I still remember what he taught, and how he taught it. I don't remember shit on the provincial statues, because of the way it was taught.
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Yep, I was the same way. Taking notes distracted me from concentrating on the lecture at hand. The textbooks and handouts were always there to review the material if I wanted, but I discovered that I had a very high retention rate of the information presented when I simply listened and concentrated on what I was being said.
The whole "you must take notes as you listen to the lecture" mentality is horrible advice for people like me who can't multi-task. It was only very late in my schooling that I finally
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Indeed. In one of my first college courses we were permitted to take notes in the (very small) margin of the text itself. This led to focus on the instructor and very small amounts of note taking.
In High School I took more notes and learned less.
The best situation was where I took little or not notes, but paid one of the transcribers for the hearing impaired for their professional notes (in those dark days before professors provided pointers to their web page ;>). I focused on the lecture, and a professi
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The point is not to write notes you can read later, the point is to involve the fine motor system of your brain.
The learning process is the writing, not the reading.
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Yep, but I'm dysgraphic, so anything involving my fine motor system is a cognitive, rather then an associative task, as it probably is for you. E.g. writing requires cognitive processing for me as opposed to happening as an 'automatic' background task as it likely does for you.
Thus my point about the danger of making sweeping statements for 'students'. We all learn differently, so making decisions based on this sort of study is treacherous ground.
Min
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Ditto what Minulpa said.
Ease of handwriting is personal. Some people, like me, require intense focus to write longhand legibly. Thst means shutting out hearing what is going on while I write.
The correct answer is longhand for some, keyboards for others, and no notes for still others. Averages are as useless as an average bra size for women.
not for me. (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a teacher who didn't allow you to take notes in his class ... because it was all in the book.
Of course, he wrote the book, and his 'teaching' was him copying examples from the book onto the overhead machine each class. If you couldn't follow along in class, you couldn't get a different take from reading the book, as it was THE EXACT SAME THING.
But not taking notes in class meant that I fell asleep 10-15 min into each class. I also recall things by remembering where on the page I wrote things (top, left side, in green ink). I also make notes on how excited a teacher seems about an idea, if they spend a lot of time on a topic, or if they specifically say 'this will be on the test' ... so I have something to skim through before the test. (and then try to decrypt what my chicken scratch of hand writing actually says)
Maybe listening and not writing is better for remembering things (as the professor claimed), but not if you can't stay awake through lectures on fluid dynamics & beam mechanics. And it also leaves you nothing to review before the tests and/or to share with friends who might've been sick and missed a class. (or for you to borrow from them)
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You know what worked better for me then longhand notes? No notes. Listening to the teacher instead of writing worked best for me. Turns out I recalled things better when I spent my attention listening to the teacher rather then trying to write legible notes so I could read then later.
Just goes to show that people learn differently and making blanket statements for all people gets you into trouble :)
Min
Doodling usually worked best for me. If I am not doing something with my hands then my mind starts moving onto other things and I completely lose track of the lecture. Though I will say that I found the laptop to be quite nice. I could type notes fast enough that I could almost do a word for word transcription of the teacher's lecture. I didn't do that. I would listen, and "doodle" on the trackpad (just move the mouse cursor in circles) and then quickly type what important bit I wanted to remember from
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I remember being taught that.....back in the day, at a study skills workshop my campus counseling center sponsored.
The recommended taking thorough book notes before the lecture, then going to the lecture with questions about the material, using the lecture as a time to think about the material.
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I was the same way. I hardly ever took notes, I guess I wasn't a perfect student, but I found that if I took lots of notes in class I would do much worse, I would spend all my energy on writing it down and trying to keep up with what was being said, my attention divided, learning less of everything. Instead I just like to listen and focus, and if I really wanted to remember it, write a summary after.
For stuff I had to work through like math and CS I would write it down. Also when starting a new program or p
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For me, I forget easily so I need something recorded. Same for taking notes. :(
Re:You know what worked better for me then longhan (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is the key in working with any population.
Some people don't need notes.
Some need anchor notes
Some need to read the book ahead of time and ask questions.
And some need to type things down because they can't write fast enough and miss portions of the lecture.
And some use digitial recorders.
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And let's not forget 3 other tiny variables -- "who's doing the teaching", "what is being taught", and "how it's being taught." Different tools for different situations. Math class is different from history class is different from philosophy class. (Hell, even different types of math are different enough to warrant different approaches.) There were times I'd take 2 pages of dense notes in a class, and other times I'd write nothing but the date, the topic, and 2 or 3 key or interesting points.
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Just remember to...
Listen carefully, math on tape is hard to follow.
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In point of fact I scored a 4.0 in English class, and technical writing. After that I spent 20 years in the school of working for a living. The first two taught me correct diction, grammar, and proofreading skills. The latter taught me that there was a time and place for perfection, and a time and place for writing quickly with enough accuracy to get a point across. No one pays me to write Slashdot comments, so it falls into the second category.
Min
Go to class every day and dont study for the final (Score:2)
I found going to class every day, even hung over, and taking notes in my own hand set me up far better than studying 10 hours for a final and trying to cram it all in.
Re:Go to class every day and dont study for the fi (Score:4, Interesting)
I found going to class every day, even hung over
That probably helped, considering you didn't have all those pesky short-term memories from the night before getting in the way of what you're hearing at the moment.
My methodology (Score:2)
When in college, I would take copious notes during class with pen and paper. When preparing for a test, I would retype the notes over and over. Once I could type all of the notes without looking at my notebook, I felt ready to take the test. This is clearly memorization for the sake of the test, but I retained much. I also graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.92, so I think it's fair to say my process was effective.
Re: My methodology (Score:2)
I was taught something similar. You takes notes, then later on you make notes of your notes, then notes of your notes of your notes, keep going on until you only have a bulleted list of topics, and just by looking at each bulleted item should be able to remember anything
Who knows if it worked or not, my most effective method of "studying" was cramming hours before the exam.
Yeah but.... (Score:2)
how much do the students retain when taking notes on a galaxy note tablet?
Yup. (Score:2)
I often advise students to take notes longhand and then use their tablet camera to collect them, or better yet, transcribe them into a device. Yes it takes time. No you did not buy that device to save time, you bought it to communicate and organize.
You know what works even even better? (Score:2, Informative)
The Zeigarnik Effect [psychwiki.com]
Not only will you remember your lectures, you will have constant intrusive thoughts. So much so that you will underperform your current tasks because of the constant intrusive thoughts from remembering your lectures!
Seriously, why in the world would you want to remember everything? You only remember something until the task is done and forget about it. That is how the brain works. You only need to remember the lectures until the finals and then the brain flushes it out.
Remembering
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Why did you attend university?
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For the only reference you thought relevant enough to cite, it is awful full of weasel words like "may", ending with a solid, weasel free conclusion based on nothing concretely shown. I hope there is a better source, otherwise this ranks near homeopathy for everyone not writing a doctoral thesis on it.
Mindmaps? (Score:3)
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i have tried to use similar software but it never really worked out for me. i mean, not everything in my notes is a flowchart! but i've had this nagging feeling that maybe i don't know how to use mind maps properly.
huh? (Score:2)
If you had a laptop sitting there, why the hell would you be typing in notes instead of recording the entire lecture to your drive?
Personally I dont get a damned thing from lectures. Some dude speaking at me while I have no real ability to stop and ask substantiative questions is pointless. Watching a video later, or on-line so I can pause to get me questions answered via google is the the next best thing to having a tutor or being an apprentice. I guess some peoples minds just work different.
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Lectures work really really well when you need to have a conceptual understanding of a subject. I always found biology lectures useful, because the subject is extremely concept oriented and you need to understand that. Same with chemistry, and the same with physics - interestingly.
What I've found absolutely doesn't work for me is mathematics (and mathematics heavy subject) lectures. I have no idea how anyone learns a thing from lectures on mathematics. At least in first and second year, my experience of mat
What about online video lecturers vs big classes (Score:2)
What about online video lecturers vs big classes.
What about lecturers where they just read from the book and that's it?
What about lecturers where the only real value is the grade from showing up?
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What about lecturers where the only real value is the grade from showing up?
That kinda answers itself, doesn't it?
Is it in a university's best interest to record? (Score:2)
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It's pretty much going to happen anyway, not every academic can be tenured or make a career out of it. The only things that couldn't really be done online are lab work and exams.
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UNSW actually is trying to do this, but so far it seems very opt-in. If you use overhead projectors then it doesn't go into the recording.
I suspect they are allowing the system to be way too cooperative with the lecturers where it should probably be a little more adversarial - ensure nothing used to present in that room isn't recorded.
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What if a university did mandatory recording of every lecture and posted them online?
Can't post them online without permission from the presentor, due to their copyright.
Some professors have even gone so far as to force students [slashdot.org] to turn in all their notes at the end of the semester, for destruction, and file lawsuits against professional notetakers [wired.com].
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One of my lecturers has gone further and recorded all of his lecturers with videos, it allows the course to cover more content as the pre-recorded lectures don't take up class time where extension lecturers and some repeat
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What about Q&A sessions following the lecture? If you are not present, you don't get the oportunity to have the instructor clarify some points. Even using some sort of messaging or discussion board, the issues are not as clear in your head as immediately following the lecture. Good lecturers can gauge the mood of their audience (class) and adjust their delivery to reinforce confusing points if they sense comprehension problems. Some even take questions in mid lecture.
And then there's the really bad pro
Differing experience. (Score:2)
I found that writing long or shorthand dampened my learning experience.
However, I'm pretty sure I'm an edge case. I had years of experience at call centers prior.
Dumb. (Score:3)
So, let me get this straight. You get the professors to repeatedly deliver a long winded lecture to a room full of students. Each student must record important bits of the lecture as notes. Then you assign work for them to do on their own and gague the degree of their inability to cope with the most moronic "learning program" in the universe? Dumb.
Take a step back for a second, look at the big picture, and THINK. You have technology now, USE it. Wouldn't it be better to Record a good lecture by the professor once, (update recording on changes, to include clarifications or additional info if needed)? Then you can assign each student to watch the lecture on their own time thus decentralizing the primary training set consumption. The students can pause, rewind, etc. and write down any questions they have about answering some example questions at the lecture end. Then the Professor and Students meet to DISCUSS the Lecture they already consumed and clarify any questions, aiming to work out any misunderstandings BEFORE you assign them a task to gauge the degree of knowledge they have now learned?
It's like you're purposefully trying not to divide information over space-time properly. It's fucking Pathetic, and you should be ashamed.
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The missing part of your argument I think is not just "1 professor".
What you want to do is get a whole bunch to record the relevant lectures - ideally people who are very diverse in style. Then let the students pick the one they find works best for them.
Of course you could then take this further: have a project to post-process and bookmark the content covered in each section, so if you're struggling with a concept then you get a splay of dozens of that same lecture over the years, from different people, so
Taking notes is an art (Score:2)
The idea is not to write down what the lecturer says as fast as possible, but rather to pay attention to what they are saying, think about it briefly, rephrase it in your mind, and write down a brief summary note about the point that was made. Sure you have to write down formulas and equations accurately, but that's not "taking notes" -- it's copying from the board/overhead/projector.
When it came time to study, I'd rewrite and condense my notes even further.
By the time I got the notes for a semester c
And yet again (Score:2)
They had futures either as court stenographers, or as PHBs.
The Important Part (Score:2)
So the problem is that laptop users have bad note taking skills, not that laptops cause students to remember less... (Or rather people have bad note taking skills and it's easier to take bad notes on a laptop)
Here's an experiment to try (Score:3)
I wonder how well they'll be able to remember, if instead of using a laptop to take notes, they use their laptop to recorded and auto-transcribe it, so it can be replayed over and over. So that any parts that cause confusion can be examined until understood, without worrying about missing the next part. Where, with a press of a button, a user can mark the clip with a note; "important part here" or "come back to this, it's confusing" or even "prof says this will be on the test".
Besides, what a stupid study. There are certain classes where 'remembering' is the most important part of the class, but at least in my engineering and science classes, 'knowing' and 'understanding' had slightly higher priority. I can easily remember the last thing I was expected to memorize, with no other expectations - in 7'th grade, US History, I was expected to memorize each president's name and their start & end dates in office, in years. Completely useless.
Is that a laudable goal to test against for college students? That they're being judged at the 7'th grade level?
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There are certain classes where 'remembering' is the most important part of the class, but at least in my engineering and science classes, 'knowing' and 'understanding' had slightly higher priority.
Are you sure? When I studied Physics knowing and understanding were fairly important, but at least equally important if not more so was the ability to reel off a mathematical derivation at will. Generally you could not work through the derivation in the allotted exam time, unless you were doing most of it from memory with a bit of logic checking along the way.
Knowing and understanding might be the ideal but that is much harder to test in a written exam and mark in a uniform way so you end up assigning value
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I am sure. They correctly realized that there was little value in rote memorization.
Maybe it depends on the quality of institution you attend, but my teachers at least were more concerned with whether or not I knew how and when to apply a given formula than rote memorization of it. Sure, they had limits; you could only bring in one sheet of formulas for a given midterm or final (which was well more than enough), but most of the time they wrote the necessary equations right on the board.
As we're even more
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I am sure. They correctly realized that there was little value in rote memorization.
Maybe it depends on the quality of institution you attend, but my teachers at least were more concerned with whether or not I knew how and when to apply a given formula than rote memorization of it. Sure, they had limits; you could only bring in one sheet of formulas for a given midterm or final (which was well more than enough), but most of the time they wrote the necessary equations right on the board.
As we're even more well connected, with everyone carrying a cellphone in their pocket capable of accessing nearly the whole of recorded public human knowledge in seconds, people are coming around to realize that memorization isn't as important as understanding - or almost as good, knowing how to search for information to gain understanding.
Maybe it depends on institution, maybe also things are changing now with more coursework based degrees. I agree with you that understanding is far more important than learning by wrote in a real world setting, but in my experience all academic subjects up until you study for a master degree here in the UK enable you to obtain a passing grade more easily without understanding by simple memorisation due to the exam based nature of how they are assessed and how those exams are marked en masse, often by people
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Besides, what a stupid study. There are certain classes where 'remembering' is the most important part of the class, but at least in my engineering and science classes, 'knowing' and 'understanding' had slightly higher priority.
Actually, I think that was actually the point of the study.
Students who typed tended to transcribe verbatim, effectively doing a kind of "remembering" the lecture on their computer without ever "knowing" or "understanding" the material well enough to extract the important stuff and take notes on it.
Those who wrote things down had to be more selective -- they had to process the lecture, "understand" what was important in order to choose what notes to take, and then write it down so they could review it a
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School teaches us basic tools, how to learn.
It does no such thing, and that's unnecessary for non-cretins. What it should do, and what it (at least public schools) fails to do, is promote understanding of the material, rather than rote memorization. I certainly never needed to be taught "how to learn," which just sounds like indoctrination.
slide notes + annotation (Score:2)
... or just don't take notes in class (Score:3)
I tend not to take notes at all during class/lectures. The material is not unique - there are plenty of other sources for that information. The point about attending is to have someone explain stuff to you in a way that makes it easy to comprehend. The best way to make use of that exposition is to pay attention and make sure you understand what's being said, asking questions if necessary.
Make notes later.
Contemporaneous note taking is for situations where the information that is is only available from that source and needs to be accurately recorded. Examples include doing an experiment where you need at accurate record of what was done, or taking a statement from a witness.
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Except (Score:2)
For many classes I would take notes on my laptop in a continuous excel spreadsheet, then re-read and annotate them with material from the book, off the internet, etc. It worked quite well.
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Experiments on kids (Score:2)
I used to work with a handwriting expert to, ironically, develop a handwriting training system on a computer.
Anyway, he used to quote studies that showed writing by hand (this was the early 1990s) gave you language skills you never developed growing up typing.
Losing that may be a bigger and more risky experiment than we realize at this time.
I still take notes (Score:2)
I've always understood that taking notes forced your brain to take something short term memory and push it into longer term memory by processing what you're hearing into the written word.
I have a stack of composition notebooks (the black and white bound ones from college) that date back over 20 years filled with my business notes. It's cheap, but it's thorough and nothing says "paying attention" like physically writing it down. I also tape business cards onto the page where I made the notes on that meeting.
How is this news? (Score:2)
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A few years ago, I attended a talk by a psychology researcher who had done work on 'kinesthetic learning'. She had come to the conclusion that people who wrote long hand, or better yet sketched diagrams longhand, had much better understanding of subjects. Particularly where there was some diagramatic (is that a word?) aspect to the material.
I have an even better example (Score:2)
Waconia Public High School - where my kids go - issued ipads to all the students starting with a certain grade.
Now, a year or so on, my student WANTED to take notes longhand, as they felt that they learned the material better in that way. The teacher actually PREVENTED this student from doing so, claiming that "all the notes needed were coming to her ipad" and that the school's recommended policy is for students to then take their ipads home, and manually copy the notes in longhand there to improve retenti
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Good call on the school's part.
Pay attention to the lecture while it's happening. Re-copy later if it helps you. Don't re-copy if you're like me and that method is physically torturous and only detracts from learning.
Shorthand for a new generation (Score:2)
The article makes sense to me.
It does seem to require more "processing" to take notes by hand than type it all in.
My trouble in school always was that my handwriting was not all that great and some of my notes later on were slightly less useful. It would have been nice to have the notes typed on the spot.
Maybe the answer is to learn shorthand.
Even now, years out of school, when I start a new job I have to take notes.......and fast, and what I have left is sloppy and incomplete.
I have no idea how much effor
The way to prevent verbatim notes (Score:2)
With technology, there is no need to take verbatim notes. The teacher/professor can just upload his powerpoint slides and a video of the whole lecture to the web.
The problem it seems is that notes serve 2 different purposes. #1 Make an accurate record of the lecture contents, #2 Distill the lecture information in a way that will help you remember/understand key points. #2 Can lose a lot of information, and I know I myself am guilty of distilling lectures to the point of missing some key points. I think
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Exactly. And THAT is the real advancement in lecture-based education that technology permits. There's no reason to take notes at all if the information is available, and today it can be, with very little difficulty.
And while not perfect (there is some potential for interaction lost) it also removes the need to be physically present for every lecture. I just finished fixing a server problem for one of my clients from home, didn't waste any gas, didn't waste any drive time, and now get to look at Slashdot
Bullshit. (Score:2)
BULLSHIT.
Pure, unadulterated bullshit.
I'm sorry, taking notes longhand for me is an exercise in self torture. If I try (and I haven't tried since junior high school, I got a laptop in high school to end that stupidity) I have moderate to severe pain in my hand, unreadable notes, and no memory at all whatsoever of the lecture.
With a laptop, I can reasonable notes, meaning a few key words or phrases to jog my memory of what the lecture was about. I don't bother with a word-for-word transcription, if I wante
Study needs to consider what people do with notes (Score:2)
Re:Equations (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're using Word or OpenOffice, that might be a problem. If you're using LaTeX, it's not, provided that you're a reasonably quick typist and have memorized the standard mathematical commands. I ended up typing all of my lecture notes for my statistics Ph.D. classes without much of a hassle. In fact, most of the students in my classes came to me for portions of my lecture notes, as I was able to capture all of the important comments that the professors would make in haste while continuing on with a derivation or proof.
As for a comment on the article, since very little information was given about their testing protocols there may be some inherent bias in their findings. Specifically, their testing methodology seems to hinge on showing that short-term conceptual recall rates decrease when using laptops. That is, the authors don't bother addressing long-term retention and generalization.
Re:Equations (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're using Word or OpenOffice, that might be a problem. If you're using LaTeX, it's not, provided that you're a reasonably quick typist and have memorized the standard mathematical commands. I ended up typing all of my lecture notes for my statistics Ph.D. classes without much of a hassle. In fact, most of the students in my classes came to me for portions of my lecture notes, as I was able to capture all of the important comments that the professors would make in haste while continuing on with a derivation or proof.
When I read this I immediately though that this would be a trade off. The benefit you mention, against the fact that the repeatedly rewriting your notes helped you memorise them.
You needed to do this when taking written notes because the lecturers would generally fly along so fast you had to scrawl everything down just to keep up, so as soon as you got home that day (or in the break period after the lecture if their was one) you first job was to write your notes up in a more neat, organised fashion, while also making sure all the proofs made mathematical sense.
This meant that even if you did the minimum possible work you still ended up going over the same stuff at least twice to help it sink in. If you use typed notes and get everything down first time round, then you have no reason to revisit them until exam time and then you will most likely have forgotten the first going over in the lecture. Some diligent students might, but many will not.
This is one of the cases where what seems like a pointless waste of effort at the time is actually important as it is the slightly dull repetition of something that really helps it sink in to long term memory so you can recall it months later.
Re:Equations (Score:5, Interesting)
No.
I use LaTeX Professionally. Moreover I use AucTex with in editor previews, split panes with docview and a heavily customised yasnippets installation made to work on Lyx-type input shortcuts. Everything is designed to speed up LaTeX document creation(Believe me I've tried it using vanilla LaTeX).
On average, it still takes me five times longer to type up a page of mathematics than to simply write it down with a pen. If there is so much as a single image, this extends to fifteen to twenty times longer -- literally.
LaTeX can very easily fool you into believing you are actually getting work done, but in reality you are simply wasting time typesetting mathematics instead of actually writing it. The only positive side to LaTeX'ed mathematics is that the equations look nice. Everything else is a huge waste of time.
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On average, it still takes me five times longer to type up a page of mathematics than to simply write it down with a pen. If there is so much as a single image, this extends to fifteen to twenty times longer -- literally.
May I recommend the Notability iPad app and a good capacitive stylus?
Or the PC equivalent.... MS OneNote and a touchscreen laptop or Wacom cintiq/Pen tablet to plugin to the laptop.
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This!
As a recent engineering student, it was obvious in subjects with plenty of maths and funny looking symbols, that the only way to write things down was with a pen and paper. I just bought exercise books for the subjects where I needed to write.
Main point I wanted to make was that, you could tell that the students are engaged, when there were only one or two laptops or tablets out. If there were lots of people on some sort of computing device, then it was obvious that they weren't listening at all. Next
Re:Equations (Score:4, Funny)
It must be fun to watch you at parties.
You suddenly exclaim " This! " and everyone walks away.
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___________
For example.. Taking notes in Word...
Time for an equation? ALT+"+"
Integral sign? \int
Greek letter? \mu
Right arrow sign????? \rightarrow
The list goes on.... incompetence in a method of note taking is not a reason to denounce it completely.
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Surface pro with one note on it.
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I used to write out my physics lectures pretty much verbatim. Of course, my handwriting is awful so much of the prose was unreadable but I had better recall of what I had written down than if I didn't and equations and constants were always given a little extra attention to actually be readable.
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Incidently, the best lecturers would write on the blackboard and work through their proofs. The worst ones (in general*) would use transparencies or, later, powerpoint.
*There was one really bad prof who would use the blackboard.
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Goddamn Big Graphite!! I knew they were behind this.
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And that BA degree was the longest seven years of your life, right?
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In my (newly ongoing experience, 2nd degree program) I'm finding that idea seems to have gone out the window. 50-person tutorial classes are just a second-round of less effective lectures, delivering material that would be more usefully provided as a worked-solutions booklet. Waiting a week to find out why you're wrong is also a least-efficient means to learn.
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I'm currently studying medicine in Sweden (on my second semester, which is somewhat equivalent to "pre med" in the US system) and we are using PBL and focusing on it quite strongly.
Every week we have two PBL-meetings which usually involves a typical case regarding the subject the week's learning is supposed to be about (this week it's about memory and forming memories on a neuronal level in the brain and the case is about an old man forgetting
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Giving lectures, on the other hand, is the most efficient way to learn.
this is truer than most people realize. i had a teacher who divided the syllabus into parts at the start of the semester, and gave each student one part to teach. everyone knew their parts well in time and had time to prepare. the portion i had to take up, i didn't even need to study for the final, just the other topics. i wonder how well my score could have been if i would have taught the whole syllabus.
Yet, no matter how you take your notes, attending lectures is the least efficient way to learn.
i don't know about this. many people don't attend lectures and get copies of notes from multiple people.
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I can't speak for others but I would say I got 98% of what got me my degree through lectures. I actually had very few books. (Physics).
Now, it seemed the law students got most of their learning by going to the library and *photocopying* books.