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If you're a student looking for the most advanced learning machine available, give laptops a pass—and pick up an age-old notebook.
You'll absorb and retain more information if you take notes by hand, according to a study by UCLA, giving you an edge on your tests.
That spiral-bound stack of paper has other advantages, too: You can't zone out on Facebook and Instagram during a lecture, so you are more likely to stay focused.
Putting pen to paper requires a different kind of mental processing than typing does. Sure, typing on a laptop gives you the power to record a lecture nearly word for word—but transcribing verbatim is associated with what's called "shallow cognitive processing." The words may be captured on your screen, but they basically went in one ear and out the other.
Also, your notebook doesn't run Fortnite.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 09 2019, @03:47AM (2 children)
You really shouldn't do that, it's doing the students a disservice. The point of the notes is that they force you to pay attention to what's going on rather than tricking yourself into thinking that you're understanding things just because you're hearing them.
This is the 21st century, chances are that the information the students need about how and what things are is available somewhere. What isn't available is the priorities of the instructor or the personal experience of parsing through the material and identifying what is and isn't important.
I remember getting the notes for calc 3 and it was the only math class I have ever failed. And I failed in large part because I was trusting the notes. It's much more useful to have worked out examples to analyze than notes anyways and the notes themselves don't always include the bits that you personally find to be confusing.
If a lecture is so unclear that you have to hand out lecture notes to every student, not just the ones getting accommodations, then you really need to fix the problem. Handing out notes is at best a bandage.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday May 09 2019, @08:05PM (1 child)
You're referring to note-taking, I take it? I agree that note-taking is, as best I can tell, a valuable learning process, and like you, I disagree with Kell discouraging students from taking their own notes.
Assuming for a second that my admittedly ungrounded pro-note-taking opinion is accurate, I'd go a good deal further: if students don't understand that being given lecture-notes by a lecturer, is not a substitute for taking their own notes during lectures, they've not been properly introduced to undergraduate study.
But perhaps we're wrong. It's an empirical question after all, and I don't think either of us have looked at the studies. Maybe I'll get round to it some time.
I disagree with your opposition to lecturers providing lecture-notes, though. If students use them instead of taking their own notes, it's on them for studying ineffectively.
You were given inaccurate notes? Then you were taught badly. I'm not seeing a compelling argument here against teachers giving out their own 'official' lecture-notes.
You're suggesting that it's counter-productive for a lecturer to provide additional learning materials to their students. Your anecdote doesn't really support this.
You can use the same line of reasoning to argue against giving lectures in the first place.
Offering lecture-notes does not necessitate giving an inferior lecture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @04:23AM
The point is that sitting in lecture without taking notes is basically pointless. Perhaps if the instructor uses a style of lesson that involves plenty of interaction or group work, showing up without taking notes might make sense. But, it was the kiss of death to actual learning in that class.
And no, the existence of materials elsewhere isn't an argument against going to lectures in the first place, people have had access to those materials for decades and possibly even centuries via libraries and assigned readings. The point of attending lectures is that the instructor cuts through that and prioritizes the things that need to be learned. They probably also present it in a different way from what's on the net or in publications.
As far inferior lectures, if the notes cover the entirety of the lecture, then yes, they are inferior lectures. A good lecturer covers the material, but also adjusts and elaborates when the people attending need that. A proper set of notes for a lecture can't be had until after the lecture is completed. This is one of the reasons why a common accommodation is for a different student in the class to take notes on a carbon copy set up.