I banned all cellphones and computer-based note taking in the classroom, with the exception that students could use a device if they wrote with a stylus.

I get the cell phones, for most classes you won’t need to have it out aside from taking an occasional photo of diagrams.

However, I’ve always thought that it was silly to have this stance on computers. Not everyone has access to an iPad or nice Wacom device, nor stylus compatible software that matches their workflow / note-taking style. I tried a lot of them and never found one I liked.

The article cites that same decade-old paper, which suggests that handwritten notes have better retention. If you actually look at the paper, here is the design of the commonly cited study:

Students generally participated 2 at a time, though some completed the study alone. The room was preset with either laptops or notebooks, according to condition. Lectures were projected onto a screen at the front of the room. Participants were instructed to use their normal classroom note-taking strategy, because experimenters were interested in how information was actually recorded in class lectures. The experimenter left the room while the lecture played.

Next, participants were taken to a lab; they completed two 5-min distractor tasks and engaged in a taxing working memory task (viz., a reading span task; […]). At this point, approxi- mately 30 min had elapsed since the end of the lecture. Finally, participants responded to both factual-recall questions (e.g., “Approximately how many years ago did the Indus civilization exist?”) and conceptual-application questions (e.g., “How do Japan and Sweden differ in their approaches to equality within their societies?”) about the lecture and completed demographic measures.

The advantage of typed notes is being able to reformat the notes over time and to go back and fill in details after class. If students don’t get the opportunity to do that, then yes it makes sense that the more cognitively demanding method of taking notes would give better recall.

This also depends a lot on the type of course being taught, which I didn’t see when I skimmed the NYT article:

I’ve taught the same course to a class of undergraduate, M.B.A., medical and nursing students every year for over a decade

What’s true is that laptops can be distracting to other students around you if you are doing something else (ex. watching sports / e-sports was common). If profs want to reduce that without policing what people are doing in class, having a “laptop section” in a back corner of the classroom works nicely

My handwriting can be fast or readable but not both. This is why I was so excited when I finally got a laptop (on my second or third attempt at uni ~2004-5). I still take notes this way for anything that requires me to not be slow.

Out of all the reviews, only one was negative. But the point is not to brag — I don’t think these comments reflect anything about me and my teaching ability. I’m teaching in basically the same manner I have for years.

Oof. I’d be embarrassed to admit that I haven’t changed or learned in a decade, but here we have a educator who is supposed to help people learn admitting just that.

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