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Note Taking

Note Taking

Studies show that students who take notes on laptops do worse on conceptual questions than those who take notes longhand, and not just because they are distracted by multitasking. For an overview of the research, try reading:

May, C. (2014). A learning secret: Don’t take notes with a laptop. Scientific American, 3. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

If you prefer to read a research paper, see:

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 0956797614524581. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797614524581

1.P. Gaudreau, D. Miranda, A. Gareau, Canadian university students in wireless classrooms: What do they do on their laptops and does it really matter? Computers & Education. 70, 245–255 (2014).

2.F. Sana, T. Weston, N. J. Cepeda, Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education. 62, 24–31 (2013).

The provision of partial notes is not associated with improved student attention in lectures or subsequent understanding of the lecture material

K Machida, M Chin, KA Johnson - Active Learning in Higher Education, 2018

To optimize learning in lectures, students need to maintain a sustained level of
attention to the lecture material. Previous research has suggested, however, that
student attention declines over the course of the lecture. One strategy suggested to …