When people type their notes, they have this tendency to try to take verbatim notes and write down as much of the lecture as they can,” [Pam] Mueller tells NPR’s Rachel Martin. “The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were forced to be more selective — because you can’t write as fast as you can type. And that extra processing of the material that they were doing benefited them.
James Doubek, “Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away” (HT: Belut Yasar)
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Similarly, it is better for professors to write on the board rather than flip through text in PowerPoint.
Joel,
Interesting you should write this. I wrote on the board (chalk, then a white board) for years but students insisted on powerpoint slides, so I capitulated. I still lecture but it’s true, there is much more information on a powerpoint that I would have written by hand. It’s essentially an outline of the course. I upload it to the school’s course info site so they can download and use it for exam prep. I think it helps them to see where we are and to reinforce what I’m saying but it can also be a distraction.
I haven’t forbidden computers in class but I do present the same case summarized in this article. Most students, in my courses, have gone back to taking notes by hand.
I agree that too much material on slides and flipping though them too fast, would not be helpful. I try to leave the slides up for a few minutes at a time.
I’d be interested to see if there’s research that supports this. I’m inclined to believe it, but I’d still like to see some research.
When I present with powerpoint, I try to leave my slides simple and uncluttered, and say a lot more than is on the screen. (And of course avoid the cardinal sin of simply reading text off the screen)
That is fascinating. I currently type in my Church History class and I spend much time fretting over whether I’m getting everything instead of processing the information.
The HT I believe should be “Bulut”, not Belut.