It's conventional knowledge that writing notes by hand is better for learning than typing, but now there's science to back it up. Psychological researchers have found that students who hand-write notes remembering conceptual information over a longer period. Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University reckon that writing by hand forces note-takers to process information and then selectively write it, while laptop users are more prone to transcribing information verbatim. The study can be found here.
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Notes by Hand Better for Long-Term Comprehension
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by umafuckitt on Wednesday April 30 2014, @04:54AM
In high school and University I learned/memorised everything for exams by writing it out multiple times. Reading multiple times was always, far, far, less effective for me. On the day or two before the exam I'd scribble down my final notes so quickly they were barely legible, but that didn't matter. The process of writing was very helpful. Now at work I take notes on the computer and I've noticed I retain information less well. Sure, I'm older, but I reckon going back to writing would help. Might even help for learning new coding idioms, perhaps I should try it for that. I've never written code long-hand before.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by juggs on Wednesday April 30 2014, @05:24AM
Writing is indeed a powerful aid to memory. Not simply transcribing notes from a board (may as well just do handouts), but listening, internally digesting then writing. If you can explain comprehensibly in your own way either verbally or by writing then you have understood the material.
The people struggling to grasp a subject will be the ones religiously transcribing every word, maybe recording every lecture. Attend, relax, absorb, make notes - then go read - once read write your own summation of the subject.
By rote cramming needs to die a death. That's not education, it's stuffing a head full of spewable factoids for the exam which drop soon after.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday April 30 2014, @07:36AM
Who told you that?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Wednesday April 30 2014, @12:00PM
It depends what you're studying. A lot of biology, for instance, is very fact-based and it's a memorising effort simply to learn your own summations of the facts. Just memorising facts is bad, but there are time when you need to memorise facts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by black6host on Wednesday April 30 2014, @12:34PM
I agree with you regarding cramming. I would also add that in my college years, I never fully understood a subject until the next semester when I actually had to use what I was learning in the previous.
For example, my major was math with a high emphasis on statistics. I learned basic calculus, I learned the formula for std. dev. But when I was required to derive the formula for std. dev. - well, that was when a lot of info sank in. Of course it got much more complex after that :)
So, as far as learning goes, practice of what you've learned is what really cements it in place. IMO, of course.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 30 2014, @07:54AM
While I cannot comment on typing vs. handwriting (when I studied, laptops were far from affordable for students, and I'm not sure that using a laptop during lectures would have been received well anyway back then -- anyway, unlike text, writing formulas on the computer still takes considerably more time than writing formulas by hand, not to mention drawing sketches), I can certainly say from my own experience that writing notes helps. It's an easyly made mistake to think that just because there's a script or book for the lecture, you don't need to make notes. Sure, the book or script contains all the material (the script usually even contains exactly the material, not more, not less). But the mere act of writing puts the material firmly in your head.
Indeed, the best mark I got on university was on material where I took notes, but they were in so terrible shape that when it came to learn from that, I decided to rewrite that cleanly (it was at the beginning of a holiday where the test was afterwards, so I had the time to do that). The result was that I didn't even have to explicitly learn; after rewriting it in a clean form, I already knew it by heart. I got the best mark possible on the test.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Webweasel on Wednesday April 30 2014, @08:03AM
I wondered about this a few years ago. I realized pretty quickly that we actually remember the shape of what we have drawn through vision and muscle memory.
I have several A4 notepad books that have been filled over the years. If I need to dig out a password, I can remember the shape and angle and where on the page it was written and go straight to it.
Humans will never give up pen and paper. Computing does not have a tactile feel that can be placed in memory. Writing is very tactile, the feel of the pen, the pressure on the paper, the movements of you hand. Typing on a screen has a lot less feedback overall, so less memory and less connected memory (I.e. vision connected with hand feeling) making stuff written on screen much harder to remember.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 1) by dentonj on Wednesday April 30 2014, @09:38AM
I've know for a long time that I learn best by doing. I've always assumed that writing in a notebook was enough doing that it'd help me remember things I've learned.
It's cool to know I've been doing something right.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 30 2014, @12:20PM
I know I'm not the refutation of the study, just a single contrary data point, but typing works so much better for me for some simple reasons.
1) My handwriting never improved past the 3d grade.
2) I grip my pen so tightly it hurts pretty intensely after a while.
3) The physical issues cause my notes to be much too terse, and even I can't understand them later.
When I went to law school in 1994, I bought a laptop for taking notes (32 shades of grey!) -- I was one of the first people in the school to do that. The reasons above were part of it, and the second reason was that people who typed the bar exam had a very high pass rate compared to those who hand-wrote it (the bar exam was all essay in my time). I wanted to get some real practice typing (I also typed all my exams during school) so that by the time I took the bar, I'd be a great typist. Anyway, this plan worked out great for me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GoonDu on Wednesday April 30 2014, @02:18PM
Your three reasons apply to me as well. My handwriting is so bad I can declare it as a new encryption standard.
I don't know about the rest but writing and typing to me is the same: I get the concepts easier because of paraphrasing and linking to other facts in my mind. The reason why I still write is because I can't stand the linearity of word documents for my notes. I like to draw mind maps and diagrams to illustrate my points, something that typing cannot emulate.
But we are dodging the most important question: pen or pencil?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 30 2014, @09:48PM
Pen -- roller ball. The more the resistance between instrument and paper, the more I deathgrip the instrument. Plus, fatter pens are easier to come by than fat first grade pencils.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Wednesday April 30 2014, @03:42PM
> 1) My handwriting never improved past the 3d grade.
> 2) I grip my pen so tightly it hurts pretty intensely after a while.
Are you me? It sounds like you could be. I suffered with this for decades, but recently (very recently... in the last month, actually) decided I was going to fix this [writegeek.com].
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 30 2014, @09:46PM
That doesn't tell me the correct pen holding posture to use. This is how I hold a pen: http://eksith.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/20130201 _065124.jpg [wordpress.com]
(Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday May 01 2014, @03:43PM
That actually looks like what I was taught to be the "right" way. I think my problem was a combination of holding it in my own strange way and gripping too tightly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 30 2014, @12:51PM
research done by psychological people for normal people. If was researchers in psychology on the other hand....
(Score: 2) by metamonkey on Wednesday April 30 2014, @01:48PM
If I don't use my computer in class, how will I pretend to take notes while I really surf Soylent News instead?
I haven't been in school in ten years, but I certainly wasn't interested in using my computer to take notes then. I got an electrical engineering degree and I don't know how I'd take notes quickly that would include all the formulas and circuit diagrams.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Wednesday April 30 2014, @03:28PM
Agree - I mostly took pen/paper notes even in grad school, but experimented with a laptop on a couple of occasions. I find personally - call it a discipline issue - but the computer had too many innate distractions; it really did, even with the network turned off. I found personally the notebooks required me to listen. Obviously computers and typing work better if you're in a class where you can take notes mostly in text (history, philosophy, etc.). When it comes time to note a diagram or something, you're toast. Anyway, you can always scan and PDF the notes if you want to go all digital later.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 30 2014, @02:27PM
I've experienced all of these. My usual is handwriting on a notepad. Served me well in school, serves me well now. But I did do experiments and was part of one. In one class my teacher gave out handouts of every lesson so it was all there and I didn't really have to take notes. But I did anyway, then I got curious and decided to try using those handouts for an entire section. My usual test grades in that class were A-B. For the handout section I got a D. Stopped using the handouts after that and my grades recovered.
Now for a different class, as part of the teacher's own studies we were all given Bamboo tablets to take notes with and appropriate software. That was kinda fun. I could write and draw whatever I wanted, change colors, even doodle. In that class I did fairly well. It still felt funny because I wasn't used to it, but I can see it as a viable option, though much of the class wasn't receptive to it. I did learn how to write without looking at what I'm writing.
Short answer for me: Notepad > Drawing tablet > Handout