I’ve always said that I learn through my finger tips. As an undergrad, I used to study by copying my notes onto impressive piles of multi-colored notecards. I rarely studied them by the time I was done, but the act of writing everything out drastically slowed the speed at which I could think about the topics at hand. My brain could no longer frantically rush from one concept to the next, and instead I would actually have time to comprehend what I was learning and determine if I truly did understand it.
Nowadays, tediously transcribing notes is not how I recommend that my students learn, but a new study does back this “learning through writing” sentiment in a surprising way. Technology is flooding into the classroom at a surprising rate. As instructors, many of us are trying desperately to harness this new power for good, but in some cases, it just can’t compete with the old school methods.
Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer recently published a study demonstrating that when students take notes in a lecture course, those that handwrite their notes internalize the information better and retain it for a longer period of time than students that use computers (even when all distractions have been removed, as was done in the study). They posit that students that type their notes transcribed the content verbatim, and although they took far more notes, they didn’t actually process what they were writing as they were typing.
The researches suggest that taking notes long-hand benefits students in part because they don’t have time to write everything down, so they process the information as it comes in so they can focus on the important details. This immediate and unconscious processing in turn helps them to commit the material to memory more quickly.
Who knew replacing writing with typing could impede learning in such an interesting way? I guess I’ll go back to carrying around that box of #2 pencils for my students…
Amy M. Worthington 