8 ms·

> Learning is simply better when you have to write things down. I disagree. Learning is better when you aren't able to diddle on your laptop or phone, and havi

by dsrguru 13y ago

> Learning is simply better when you have to write things down. I disagree. Learning is better when you aren't able to diddle on your laptop or phone, and having to write things down strongly encourages you not to do those things, but the actual act of writing things down forces you to focus on quickly copying text, which hugely impairs your ability to internalize what was said. Some people's learning styles might make that less of a problem (i.e. so-called auditory learners might be able to internalize what's being said nearly at the speed it's spoken), but for those of us who need to translate what we hear into our own mental language, constant note-taking substantially hampers the learning process. The ideal for me is to preview the notes of a lecture before it's given a la Khan Academy, pay full attention during the lecture, occasionally jot down a keyword to trigger the memory of a thought I had during the lecture, and if I didn't have the opportunity to preview the lecture notes then I'll want to be able to access them afterwards to look up anything I don't remember. Edit: Corrective upvote because you didn't say anything that harms the discussion.

bjelkeman-again 13y ago
Different people have different learning styles. I often would draw pictures that represent what the lecturer would be saying. Which helps me memorising. It would have been perfect if I then had had an audio recording pen, which associates the doodle with the recording, but I got that after it stopped going to lectures.
testrun 13y ago
What is a corrective upvote and who gives it to you?
- tinco 13y ago
  It's when you make a comment that makes the parents position seem silly, you up vote the parent to correct for people downvoting parent because they strongly agree with your comment.
wiredfool 13y ago
I find that I learn the best, and pay attention the best when I'm making notes. Even if I never refer to them again, burn them, throw them out, whatever. Hear, write, see, understand. Epic problem sets are also effective. Scanning other people's lecture notes, even if it's the professor, was worth maybe 5-10% of listening and writing the notes.
- reeses 13y ago
  Rewriting à la Cornell is another huge step for retention.
- matwood 13y ago
  Taking that 1 step further. When I was in school I would take notes in class with pencil and paper. My studying session consisted of typing those notes up while filling in the gaps from the book(s). Simple strategy that worked remarkably well.
wisty 13y ago
> Some people's learning styles might make that less of a problem (i.e. so-called auditory learners might be able to internalize what's being said nearly at the speed it's spoken), but for those of us who need to translate what we hear into our own mental language, constant note-taking substantially hampers the learning process. Learning styles is more or less discredited. IIRC, research indicated that most students respond similarly to the same learning styles. The main difference between students tends to be whether or not they understand previous material. I'm not saying that different mediums is a bad idea - most students do respond well to diagrams, explanations, examples, practice, etc. Research supports note taking, so it's probably a good thing for most students. However, it might not be good for all subjects - math and programming requires a lot less memorisation of facts, and a lot more thinking. If you want to understand dynamic programming, simply memorising the key points won't help you much. If you want to learn a new API, then writing down important methods might.
- jacobolus 13y ago
  Speaking only for myself, taking copious notes in class always substantially hampered my ability to keep up. The only times I took such notes were in a couple of mathematics courses which moved at a blistering pace and had no textbook or other provided material: in those, it was essential to write everything down so that it could be studied and learned later, after class. But the act of writing during those classes made it quite a bit harder to follow the lectures while they were happening. I would have much preferred to receive hand-outs with the same definitions/theorems on it a day or two before the lecture, so that I could have put my full attention on the professor and the material. In basically all other courses, I only wrote notes when struck by particularly insightful thoughts I wanted to remember later, and my notes as often were about my own reactions as about what the professors were saying. But because I find it easy to focus and pay close attention in lectures, I generally had better recall afterward than most of my peers, even the ones who spent much more time “studying” their notes later. * * * By contrast, I had several friends who could only follow lectures by writing notes while in class, because otherwise they found lectures hard to focus on, and because they found that the physical act of writing what they heard to enormously help their later recall (not to mention they had a physical artifact they could refer to afterward). * * * I would like to see your sources for the statement “learning styles is more or less discredited”, as it does not align with my experience either as a student, as an observer of other students, or as the son of a school teacher. It seems completely obvious and non-controversial to me that some people have an easier time following verbal conversation than others, that some have an easier time reading/writing, that some people are more attuned to pictures/graphic elements, etc. Maybe “learning styles” is a bad name for this, and I personally believe that it’s mostly the result of practice and acculturation rather than anything genetic/inherent, but it still remains obviously (to me) true that different students find different modalities and teaching/learning methods more effective.
ag80 13y ago
There is some indication that hand writing notes results in better retention: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/ink-on-paper-some-notes-o_b_4681440.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/ink-on-paper-some... Some searching also pulls results from a few years ago with similar headlines.
abhaga 13y ago
This. Being a slow writer, it was a constant struggle for me through out school & college to keep pace with the instructors. I can imagine the same problem for the instructor as well - you need to be reasonably legible and fast to be able to cover everything. On the other hand, I have often found PowerPoint based presentations to be boring and uninspiring. I remember a class on Thermodynamics from college that I found so boring for this reason that I nearly flunked it. The best classes I have taken have been once which are primarily PowerPoint based with instructor jumping onto a whiteboard to flesh something out as required. PowerPoint provides the peace of mind that it will all be available if I need to refer to it later and working on whiteboard brings in the engagement and chance to go off track in between.
swah 13y ago
I had the same concern of not "taking note of everything", which Powerpoint solves (the teacher just sends you the file). But the better solution is that you watch the class w/o having to stop paying attention to write, maybe take notes for important stuff, and the class is also recorded and available in your uni website (like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3nbY3hIDLQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3nbY3hIDLQ ... can't be that expensive to put a camera and a big red button "start recording" in each room. Could even be a student project...) (Sal Khan also mentions that his nephews preferred him on Youtube than in-person because they could pause and rewind). (And by the way, I hate that universities that teach technology aren't themselves automatized, with superb intranet, etc...)

by dsrguru 13y ago

bjelkeman-again 13y ago

Different people have different learning styles. I often would draw pictures that represent what the lecturer would be saying. Which helps me memorising. It would have been perfect if I then had had an audio recording pen, which associates the doodle with the recording, but I got that after it stopped going to lectures.

testrun 13y ago

What is a corrective upvote and who gives it to you?

tinco 13y ago
It's when you make a comment that makes the parents position seem silly, you up vote the parent to correct for people downvoting parent because they strongly agree with your comment.

wiredfool 13y ago

I find that I learn the best, and pay attention the best when I'm making notes. Even if I never refer to them again, burn them, throw them out, whatever. Hear, write, see, understand. Epic problem sets are also effective. Scanning other people's lecture notes, even if it's the professor, was worth maybe 5-10% of listening and writing the notes.

reeses 13y ago
Rewriting à la Cornell is another huge step for retention.
matwood 13y ago
Taking that 1 step further. When I was in school I would take notes in class with pencil and paper. My studying session consisted of typing those notes up while filling in the gaps from the book(s). Simple strategy that worked remarkably well.

wisty 13y ago

> Some people's learning styles might make that less of a problem (i.e. so-called auditory learners might be able to internalize what's being said nearly at the speed it's spoken), but for those of us who need to translate what we hear into our own mental language, constant note-taking substantially hampers the learning process. Learning styles is more or less discredited. IIRC, research indicated that most students respond similarly to the same learning styles. The main difference between students tends to be whether or not they understand previous material. I'm not saying that different mediums is a bad idea - most students do respond well to diagrams, explanations, examples, practice, etc. Research supports note taking, so it's probably a good thing for most students. However, it might not be good for all subjects - math and programming requires a lot less memorisation of facts, and a lot more thinking. If you want to understand dynamic programming, simply memorising the key points won't help you much. If you want to learn a new API, then writing down important methods might.

jacobolus 13y ago
Speaking only for myself, taking copious notes in class always substantially hampered my ability to keep up. The only times I took such notes were in a couple of mathematics courses which moved at a blistering pace and had no textbook or other provided material: in those, it was essential to write everything down so that it could be studied and learned later, after class. But the act of writing during those classes made it quite a bit harder to follow the lectures while they were happening. I would have much preferred to receive hand-outs with the same definitions/theorems on it a day or two before the lecture, so that I could have put my full attention on the professor and the material. In basically all other courses, I only wrote notes when struck by particularly insightful thoughts I wanted to remember later, and my notes as often were about my own reactions as about what the professors were saying. But because I find it easy to focus and pay close attention in lectures, I generally had better recall afterward than most of my peers, even the ones who spent much more time “studying” their notes later. * * * By contrast, I had several friends who could only follow lectures by writing notes while in class, because otherwise they found lectures hard to focus on, and because they found that the physical act of writing what they heard to enormously help their later recall (not to mention they had a physical artifact they could refer to afterward). * * * I would like to see your sources for the statement “learning styles is more or less discredited”, as it does not align with my experience either as a student, as an observer of other students, or as the son of a school teacher. It seems completely obvious and non-controversial to me that some people have an easier time following verbal conversation than others, that some have an easier time reading/writing, that some people are more attuned to pictures/graphic elements, etc. Maybe “learning styles” is a bad name for this, and I personally believe that it’s mostly the result of practice and acculturation rather than anything genetic/inherent, but it still remains obviously (to me) true that different students find different modalities and teaching/learning methods more effective.

ag80 13y ago

There is some indication that hand writing notes results in better retention: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/ink-on-paper-some-notes-o_b_4681440.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/ink-on-paper-some... Some searching also pulls results from a few years ago with similar headlines.

abhaga 13y ago

This. Being a slow writer, it was a constant struggle for me through out school & college to keep pace with the instructors. I can imagine the same problem for the instructor as well - you need to be reasonably legible and fast to be able to cover everything. On the other hand, I have often found PowerPoint based presentations to be boring and uninspiring. I remember a class on Thermodynamics from college that I found so boring for this reason that I nearly flunked it. The best classes I have taken have been once which are primarily PowerPoint based with instructor jumping onto a whiteboard to flesh something out as required. PowerPoint provides the peace of mind that it will all be available if I need to refer to it later and working on whiteboard brings in the engagement and chance to go off track in between.

swah 13y ago

I had the same concern of not "taking note of everything", which Powerpoint solves (the teacher just sends you the file). But the better solution is that you watch the class w/o having to stop paying attention to write, maybe take notes for important stuff, and the class is also recorded and available in your uni website (like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3nbY3hIDLQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3nbY3hIDLQ ... can't be that expensive to put a camera and a big red button "start recording" in each room. Could even be a student project...) (Sal Khan also mentions that his nephews preferred him on Youtube than in-person because they could pause and rewind). (And by the way, I hate that universities that teach technology aren't themselves automatized, with superb intranet, etc...)