Take note

David Truss (@datruss) started something when he tweeted this photo showing an extreme version of a common phenomenon in classrooms and lecture halls everywhere. The ensuing Twitter discussion then lead to a blog post by David, 4 notes on taking notes.

The problem with this photo is that the students aren't taking notes at all, they're simply copying. They do this because the information shown on the board is only available at that moment and represents a pedagogy of scarcity and exclusivity. If the material was published on the net they wouldn't be jostling to get the best photo, they might instead be discussing the issues raised by the material. Of course it's handy to quickly take a photo of a diagram or slide that you see in class but it isn't worth anything until you actually process the information yourself. The questions that immediately arise for me are:

• Why didn't the teacher make the slides available to the students in advance and used class time to discuss the material?
• Why not devote more time to explaining how to take meaningful notes and the importance of processing and reworking information rather than simply copying verbatim.
• Students are still stuck in the traditional view of learning as the memorisation of facts. 

In David Truss' blog post he comments that taking a photo is a lousy way to take notes since it is not searchable and you haven't processed the information presented. It's the same as copying a friend's notes on a lecture you missed. You get the bare facts but miss the internal processing of deciding what to note and how to express it that is so essential to learning. The learning is not in the notes it's in the process. Instead of copying these students should learn to use mind-maps and other note-taking methods to process and rework what they hear in class or in other learning spaces.

Take notes or create notes? There are times when copying notes might be a useful thing to do, but for the most part, that is a rather passive way to learn information (unless you use specific strategies to help you take those notes). Students creating the notes, or doing a task whereby the notes are used to help construct a learning experience, is far better than copying words onto a piece of paper, or into a digital document, or for that matter, taking a photo of the information.

This leads into another ongoing discussion about note-taking; whether it is better to take notes digitally or by hand. I have always believed that it's not the device or the medium that matters, it's how you work with them but an article in Scientific American, A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop, claims that handwritten notes are actually more effective. The reason is that we can usually type fast enough to simply write what is said whereas handwriting forces you to summarise and select the information you note and therefore allows you to internalise the information to a greater extent.

Technology offers innovative tools that are shaping educational experiences for students, often in positive and dynamic ways. The research by Mueller and Oppenheimer serves as a reminder, however, that even when technology allows us to do more in less time, it does not always foster learning. Learning involves more than the receipt and the regurgitation of information. If we want students to synthesize material, draw inferences, see new connections, evaluate evidence, and apply concepts in novel situations, we need to encourage the deep, effortful cognitive processes that underlie these abilities. When it comes to taking notes, students need fewer gigs, more brain power.

The moral of all this is not to abandon technology and return to the good old days as some might hope. It is once again a lesson that we need to learn to use the right methods and devices in the right situation and for the right reasons. Taking photos of someone else's notes or copying verbatim may give an illusion of learning but are an example of using powerful technology in the wrong way. We need to learn to use our devices wisely and be more aware of their possibilities and limitations. Instead of seeing a divide between old and new we should see a wide range of tools and methods all of which can help us learn as long as we choose wisely.

Note: I always try to credit the photos I use but in this case I don't know who took the original. If I have infringed on any copyright here I will of course remove the photo and link to it instead.