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Step into any college lecture hall and you are likely to find a sea of students typing away at open, glowing laptops as the professor speaks. But you won't see that when I'm teaching.
Though I make a few exceptions, I generally ban electronics, including laptops, in my classes and research seminars.
That may seem extreme. After all, with laptops, students can, in some ways, absorb more from lectures than they can with just paper and pen. They can download course readings, look up unfamiliar concepts on the fly and create an accurate, well-organized record of the lecture material. All of that is good.
But a growing body of evidence shows that over all, college students learn less when they use computers or tablets during lectures. They also tend to earn worse grades. The research is unequivocal: Laptops distract from learning, both for users and for those around them. It's not much of a leap to expect that electronics also undermine learning in high school classrooms or that they hurt productivity in meetings in all kinds of workplaces.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:43AM (22 children)
not very successfully: I kept attempting to take a UCSC algorithms course but repeatedly had to drop it when work got too busy.
I was the only one in the class who was taking notes in a notebook, by writing them by hand.
Everyone else used a laptop. I'm quite a fast typist but I can't see how anyone can take notes by typing them.
I never read my notes, but I take them religiously. The reason is that taking notes increases my understanding of the lecture.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:52AM (2 children)
"MDC is old."
(Score: 4, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:22AM (1 child)
I'm fifty-three, you young whippersnapper.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by janrinok on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:41PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:06AM (13 children)
Mr. Skipper made each of us keep a notebook and the notebook was a significant part of the grade.
I thought|think that is stupid.
In the time it takes me to make a note, I miss 3 other things.
...and everything was already documented in the textbook.
Not everyone learns in the same way.
Looking back on when I was using Windoze (One Microsoft Way), it reminds me of that dude.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:23AM (1 child)
Then he was going too fast. Part of a good lecture is to give the students enough time to take notes. That's also why blackboard lectures are generally better than beamer lectures. Writing on the blackboard forces the professor to slow down.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday November 27 2017, @01:23AM
Generally agree, though my first year University maths professor could scribble down notes onto the blackboard frighteningly quickly.
To GP - sucks to be you, but it's been shown that most students retain stuff more when they write (not type) it down*. Implementing a "no laptop" rule is the best choice from a utilitarian point of view.
*Too lazy to look up a citation
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 25 2017, @10:22AM (6 children)
You should have taken a course in shorthand and/or stenography. Court clerks can "take notes" all day long, and only miss a word now and then. Of course, it's a real fad to blame the professor because you came to class unprepared.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @11:42AM (3 children)
G-E-O-M-E-T-R-Y
the professor
H-I-G-H S-C-H-O-O-L
came to class unprepared
I came prepared to to things the way that had served me perfectly fine for 10 years of school.
...then I ran into his One Microsoft Way.
You goddamned Authoritarians all stick together.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:03PM (2 children)
So, you always make excuses? This teacher - he was new at your school? You had never heard of him before? Or, you rode the short bus to the short school, and none of the students ever discussed the teachers? Was he a short teacher, as well? And, did NO ONE pass his course? Or did only ten percent of students pass his course? Tell us more about hell year in geometry, and the sad short students who couldn't keep up.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:19PM (1 child)
I passed. I got marked down, however, because my gait didn't match his my-way-or-the-highway rigidity.
Intelligent instructors don't do that kind of stupid shit.
"Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results." --Lt.General George S. Patton Jr.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 25 2017, @01:55PM
Except, Patton was talking about mature people, with education and training behind them. Patton wasn't addressing high school kids with neither.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @07:25AM (1 child)
Clerks transcribe general English language. In STEM related classes you write down field specific terms, their definitions, and lots of math/symbols. Do the shorthand techniques still work for those domains?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 27 2017, @10:31AM
Uhhhh - yes, of course. You can shorten just about any term used in the English language. The military does it all the time. Closest point of approach - CPA. An unidentified aircraft is a bogey, an unidentified ship is a skunk. Whatever you're talking about, there are abbreviations, shortened versions, whatever. Shorthand need not be especially legible, it doesn't need be any more detailed than YOU are going to need when you are studying your notes later.
The whole point was, to learn to take notes QUICKLY. I dare say that even without a course in shorthand, some people can take notes a lot faster than others. When taking notes, do you actually LOOK AT your notes, or can you write while watching/listening to the lecturer?
If/when I've thought that I needed to take notes, I've often been rushed, but I always got the most important points onto paper, for later reference. And, with note taking, that IS all you need - those most important points. It's not a full fledged journal after all.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @03:43PM
My high school geometry teacher(*) started class by putting the assignment for the next day on the lower left of her chalk board. Along with a few other friends, I sat in the back and did that assignment concurrently with her lecture -- and never had to take home any homework. After we finished, we quietly passed notes around -- I'm sure she saw, but never said anything because she knew we were on top of the material. Since we were in the back we didn't bother the rest of the class.
(*) I only found out recently, when reading her obit, that this teacher was a star math major at the local big university. Back then (mid-1960s) she was faced with the glass-ceiling and was unable to get tenured as a math prof. We didn't realize how lucky we were that she ended up as our math teacher.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Saturday November 25 2017, @05:33PM (1 child)
My California history teacher was worse. Each day, he would lecture and you had to take notes and turn them in.
His entire grade was based on how many pages of notes you took. 5 pages was an A, 4 pages was a B and so on. 5 pages of notes in 1 period is a lot of writing in a 45 minute period. I used wide rule and wrote a lot, got carpal tunnel from all the writing, and a good grade.
Of course I learned absolutely nothing about California history.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @12:26AM
Except for the "Each day" part we're talking about the same model.
...was worse
Yup.
I got the Patton quote above from a source that had interpolated the original. 8-(
The words he used were "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." --General George S. Patton
Trivia: Had modern seat belts been installed and in use in cars in 1945, [wikipedia.org] Patton would have lived past 60.
...but at that time, Ralph Nader was only 11 years old.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:00PM
I always thought getting graded on things like your notes was stupid too. I mean I did have some classes early on that were meant to teach you how to take notes and various techniques (shorthand, etc.) that can assist with that. I thought those classes were a bit silly myself, but there were some good tips in there.
The problem I had with this kind of thing is that the teacher always had some preconceived one true way that the notes had to be taken, and you had to conform to this (or your grades suffered). It really shouldn't matter how you take your notes so long as it works for you, and your performance on tests and homework should be the judge of that.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @10:36AM (3 children)
I did the same thing back when I was in university, because everyone always said you should take notes to help understand the material. Preferably by hand because that activates different parts of the brain which aids learning.
For me that lasted just a few months. Until the moment I realized that I was spending so much effort writing down those stupid notes, that I didn't get to actually hear and think about and understand what the lecturer was actually saying. My grades went up when I stopped taking notes and was actually able to pay attention and think about the ideas conveyed in the lecture. So in my anecdotal experience, note taking during lectures was just a giant waste of time and actually hugely detrimental to my studies.
Take this as a warning that note taking may be helpful, or it may not be, depending on your own traits and preferred learning methods.
Much better to have the teachers write down some notes or record a video accessible to every student. Also, if you're going to cover stuff not present in the textbook, for the love of $deity, please document it somewhere instead of just assuming that everyone can always attend every single lecture!
P.S. We have all these expensive textbooks. Why not reserve a few pages of those for some condensed notes instead of expecting students and teachers to waste countless man-hours again and again and again writing their own?!
P.P.S. This turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry about that!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday November 25 2017, @11:08AM
Some lecturers use attendance at lectures as a grading bonus - adding "this will be in the exam" after a particular probkem had been shown on the board (and, to differentiate the *complete* sadists, sometimes added just *after* they had erased those notes..)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:37PM (1 child)
If you can't take notes by hand fast enough to keep up either you're instructor is speaking inordinately fast or you have some sort of memory/attention problem.
You're not supposed to copy the lecture down word for word, you're supposed to copy important pieces of information and any relevant examples. If you were struggling to keep up with the lecture, that usually means that you didn't have the skills necessary before you got to class to identify the main idea and other significant ideas.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday November 25 2017, @05:58PM
Personally, I don't retain well unless time is sweet between ideas for taking notes or I don't take them. I focus too intently to listen and write at the same time.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday November 26 2017, @12:01AM
As a leftie that had to suffer through rightie-centric penmanship lessons, my handwriting starts at "poor", and when I have to write quickly, end at "illegible scribble". That makes typing much more attractive for me, since I can type over 150wpm with extremely high (~98%) accuracy, and can maintain >70% accuracy over 200wpm, which is still easier to understand than my handwriting.
That said, I find that note-taking is as much about forcing something to be committed to memory, and for that, it doesn't matter much if my notes are legible. Still, if there's any chance I might need to refer back to what I wrote later, I need a keyboard or, for handwriting, a lot of time to spare.