A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#161

Post by padobson » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

Moreover, high verbatim note content was associated with lower retention of the lecture material. It appears that students who use laptops can take notes in a fairly mindless, rote fashion, with little analysis or synthesis by the brain. This kind of shallow transcription fails to promote a meaningful understanding or application of the information.

The study sort of assumes that taking notes at all is necessary, but I think the conceptual understanding vs. rote memorization idea suggests that taking notes should be questionable also.

Jordan Peterson has 3 minutes of advice for taking notes conceptually rather than verbatim: https://youtu.be/lMvvdz7YJ-Q

I take notes in text files every day. I do it for work, I do it for exercise, I do it for cooking and grocery shopping, I do it for planning my day, I do it for self improvement.

Writing it out is the simplest form of explanation - I'm explaining the concept to myself. I'm analyzing it to make sure I don't have any logical holes in my thinking, and then I can refer back to it. If I try to explain the concept to another person, and they point out a logical hole or they otherwise can't grasp the point, I go back to my text file and try to find the missing pieces and add them in.

I like this because I always have the concept at the ready. Maybe I don't encounter the topic for a few months or years, and I go back and read the text file on the topic and it's like the neurons organized around the topic all come to life again - but the best part is that there are all these new neurons that I've picked up that apply to it, and the text file gets a little bigger.

It also helps me compartmentalize. Once I've written something into digital stone, I can switch contexts knowing I've pushed the concept as far as my mind can take it for the moment. Later, I can come back and pick up where I left off after my subconscious has had time to chew on it.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#162

Post by yial » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

broth wrote: post #18

yial wrote: post #8

I frequently still use notepads for notes, I find it actually helps me retain information. Additionally, when reviewing shortly after a meeting, I find that I can better suss out the truly important action items. Especially if things need to be delegated. This isn’t to say I never take notes on my computer. (Notepad++ is wonderful for this), but I find the physical note taking to be incredibly beneficial for organiza…

Mind sharing how you use Notepad++ to take notes? Why is it wonderful?

I like notepad++ because it’s light, there’s no formatting or similar that happens if I hit 1. Space or 2. Space Or I use a.

Additionally, I like that I can hit new and have quick new tabs of notes (instead of new windows ) and that when I close it it gracefully saves them as “new” rather then promoting me to have to save them. (Of course I have the option to save them, but it doesn’t have a prompt like word and defaults to making sure they’re saved somewhere ).

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#163

Post by fatnoah » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

Deinos wrote: post #157

seventhtiger wrote: post #116

I tended to be in the top of the classes I was in and as far as I've seen my method was somewhat different. I also only take notes on paper, but more importantly, I throw all my notes out as soon as I finish writing them. For me studying is the act of writing the notes. The purpose of notes was never to read them later. That's why writing on paper is important to me. It's not about the qualities and convenience of th…

Instead of throwing out my notes, I tend to "refactor" them multiple times, condensing them down to the bare minimum. By the time I get them to that point, I no longer need them. I also tend to utilize multiple mediums: first note taking is writte; then I condense them to a digital format; I print that off and highlight, work in the margins, etc.;I will sometimes rewrite them a final time, depending on difficulty of…

I had a workflow similar to this. I took all notes by hand (pretty sure laptop wasn't a viable option in 1993, anyway) and then typed them out later. During the course of studying, I'd condense things to a single sheet whenever possible. It worked very, very well.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#164

Post by blcArmadillo » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

2rsf wrote: post #80

linker3000 wrote: post #36

I'm 53 and work in IT for a 'funky' learning/media company, ranking among the seniors in both age and position. I have a customised Cornell Notes* Word doc template, and I run off batches of 5-10 sheets to take to meetings and training sessions. My colleagues typically turn up with their tablets, surfaces, laptops, phones and 'multitask', however a few have started to adopt my method - it's been particularly useful f…

> It's also very easy to drill down through Quarterly reviews and link chains of historic comments 'on the fly' I have never heard about Cornell Notes, it seems like the missing piece I was looking for to convince myself to move back to pen and paper since I too feel that handwriting makes you remember and understand better. But there are two things I am missing over OneNote - Search capabilities, how do you drill do…

For search capability you could try the method shown here: http://www.highfivehq.com. Basically you mark the edge of a page in the spot that corresponds to an index. You can then find items form a certain category by looking at the edge of the notebook. It's an interesting concept if you don't need a ton of granularity in your ability to search.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#165

Post by veddox » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

iliketosleep wrote: post #52

rcthompson wrote: post #32

Sounds like the actual learning secret is "don't take verbatim notes", and the only relevance of the laptop is that it makes it much easier to take verbatim notes. I've pretty much only ever taken notes with a laptop, but I always take notes in the "digest and summarize" style, never recording the speaker's words verbatim, and it's worked great for me. (It wasn't a conscious decision; it's just how I take notes.)

> Sounds like the actual learning secret is "don't take verbatim notes", and the only relevance of the laptop is that it makes it much easier to take verbatim notes. Yes, that's pretty much what it explains. The title "don't take notes with a laptop" is rather misleading. It's a well known fact that summarizing requires the learner's brain to actively process the information, as opposed to passively receiving informa…

No.

Learning is very much a multi-sensory process. The act of writing is part of the learning - the two-dimensional shapes your fingers trace actually help cement the memory in your brain. (And no, simply clacking away on the keyboard is not the same.) As these authors [1] say: "the additional context provided by the complex task of writing results in better memory."

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/154193120905302...

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#166

Post by Thinkx220 » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

When I take notes I take them with a laptop precisely because of the increased speed it provides. Usually I find that note taking in general is actually counter productive because it diverts my attention away from the lecture. As a result I want the note taking process to have a low cognitive burden so I don't miss what my instructor is saying.

I usually use Emacs Org-mode for my note taking and then refactor my notes once class is over.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#167

Post by WomanCanCode » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #16

ergothus wrote: post #5

My issue with this has always been that my longhand is terrible, and writing under pressure makes it worse. Longhand notes (which I do frequently for the RPGs I run, so practice isnt the issue) are nigh unreadable. I literally have dozens of notebooks (not full, but at least 30 - 50 pages each is pretty common ) of notes I struggle to read and organize. Being able to write with speed and br able to read them is why a…

I got frustrated that I enjoyed writing on nice paper with nice pens, and yet I could type much faster than I could write. So about 4 years ago I started learning shorthand. I use shorthand plus icons as needed to pull out important concepts. It's really helpful. Most of the time very little transcription is needed.

How did you learn. Where should someone start? I think now is the perfect time to learn shorthand since we have abandon hand writing completely due to overusing computer, mobile etc

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#168

Post by geomark » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

Aromasin wrote: post #138

seventhtiger wrote: post #116

I tended to be in the top of the classes I was in and as far as I've seen my method was somewhat different. I also only take notes on paper, but more importantly, I throw all my notes out as soon as I finish writing them. For me studying is the act of writing the notes. The purpose of notes was never to read them later. That's why writing on paper is important to me. It's not about the qualities and convenience of th…

I do something similar. My method is always to try and fit everything I need for an exam on a single A5 sheet of paper, as if I could take it into the exam with me. The first 5 or so drafts I'd never be able to fit enough on, so with each iteration I make the writing smaller, or work out a pictorial code, or condense my explanation of a method to squeeze on as much as I could. By the time I've finally managed to fit…

I used that same method throughout college. I think I might have read about it somewhere.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#169

Post by chapium » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

linker3000 wrote: post #36

I'm 53 and work in IT for a 'funky' learning/media company, ranking among the seniors in both age and position. I have a customised Cornell Notes* Word doc template, and I run off batches of 5-10 sheets to take to meetings and training sessions. My colleagues typically turn up with their tablets, surfaces, laptops, phones and 'multitask', however a few have started to adopt my method - it's been particularly useful f…

Pen and Paper's killer feature is that, aside from doodling, is distraction free.

Re: A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

#170

Post by veddox » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31

dexwiz wrote: post #24

Thank goodness I learned this freshmen year in college, also the first time I was allowed a laptop in class. I starting taking notes with pen and paper as soon as I could write fast enough. I was successful in school, and I really think a large part of it was recording so many notes. I noticed that many classmates that stayed on laptops often were bad students. And the times I did take my laptop to class I was worse…

Why can’t you just take a picture of the diagram? I actually never learned or benefited from note taking, so I’m pretty clueless. I still got through university and grad school with good grades, but I wonder if I was missing something. Professionally I draw a blank whenever someone at a meeting asks me to take notes, kind of embarrassing.

> Why can’t you just take a picture of the diagram?

Because the learning effect is zero. (Also, not every professor allows it, and you don't always sit in a location from which you can take a decent picture. But that's beside the point.)

The best teacher I ever had in school never got tired of reminding us that we learn in four different ways: hearing, writing, speaking, drawing. Taken individually, hearing is the worst, drawing the best. The more you combine, the better your rate of recall will be.

Drawing is fantastic because it engages your kinesthetic learning, your spatial learning, and your analytical learning (because you really have to look at a picture in detail before you can copy it).