Sunday, August 17, 2014

How We Learn

In some of the courses I've taught I've allowed students to take a note sheet into the final exam.  I'm not convinced that knowing and understanding math is the same thing as memorizing formulas and equations--and let's be honest, a kid who doesn't know any more about a topic than what they wrote on their note sheet isn't going to ace the test anyway.  But that isn't the point of this post.

My rule for the note sheets was that students must write everything; no cutting/pasting, no typing, no photocopying, only writing by hand.  Anyone who can type well knows that you can type something while simultaneously holding a completely unrelated conversation with someone, but it's significantly harder to do that while writing.  Consequently, I developed the belief that there's something at work in the writing process, something that activates the brain, that isn't present in the typing process.  That's why I always required students to write their notes instead of typing them, I've believed it's better for the learning process.

Turns out I might have been on to something:
A study titled The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard backs the idea that students learn more when they write in longhand rather than taking notes on a laptop.
The study found that, because the hand can’t possibly keep up with the speaker’s words, the writer must rephrase what was said in his or her own words, which in turn processes the information at a deeper level.
I wonder if that study took shorthand into account. Do schools even teach shorthand anymore? Am I one of the few remaining people who possesses that archaic skill?

8 comments:

PeggyU said...

Gregg shorthand?

momof4 said...

My college study method was to take really extensive (handwritten) notes (12-15 pages per 3-hour class wasn't unusual), go over notes as soon after class as possible and add/comment as necessary to make sure I had everything and to prepare for tests by serially condensing all the material from class notes and assigned reading into ever-smaller packages. By a couple of days before the exam, I'd have the entire lot down to a few index cards. Considering my grades and the fact that I was double-majoring (one a practice discipline with 15-25 hours per week) to the tune of 18-21 credits per semester, I'd say it worked.

Auntie Ann said...

As a physics major I was often allowed a one-page formula sheet going into exams. What I found was that the task of *making* the sheet was far more important than the sheet itself. The review that went into making it and the choices of what to add and what to omit were the important parts. It became a study guide and a method of review.

But, once I got into the exam, I almost never actually looked at the thing.

I've tried to suggest similar things to our rising 9th grader to do going into exams, but so far she hasn't heard me.

Darren said...

Mrs. Gordon's 4th period class my senior year in high school: Gregg Shorthand. I still use it!

Darren said...

And I agree that the process of taking the notes is *at least* as valuable as having them!

Ellen K said...

At Scottish Rite Children's Hospital, children who are seriously dyslexic are taught to write in cursive. The muscle memory of writing the letters helps the brain to internalize and recognize the letters by motion helping with decoding. Yet cursive is now rarely taught in public school these days. How many students will fall through the cracks because someone doesn't want to be bothered doing the hard work of linking hand motions to eye to mental imagery?

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

VERY interesting, Ellen K! I am finding one of my children seems to add letters when writing in cursive, but not in print. I think it is because his pencil is moving while he thinks about what the next letter should be instead of lifting the pencil from the page. The result is a mess and a lot of extra work to fix.

maxutils said...

Having notes is a great thing ... and I not only encourage it, but demonstrate it as how *I* would do it ... which is kind of Indent style, with main topic highlighted and as topics get smaller, more and more indentations. What isn't good is teachers who require a certain former, with lines here, and questions there and filling in the rest later ... or whatever the hell they like. Teach it as a possibility the student might like, but let them do whatever they feel works best ...