Did you know that the most effective notes you can take are hand-written? That’s right, according to a study conducted by Princeton’s Pam A. Mueller and UCLA’s Daniel M. Oppenheimer, when you use a laptop to take notes you are taking transcription and not absorbing the new materials.
This even held true when they asked students to type in their own words what was being said and then tested them to come out with the same result… still not as effective as hand-written notes.
Do you find this to be true after using your laptop or tablet to take notes in class?
Why is this true? According to the research, using longhand forces us to absorb and remember the details more clearly as it is done in a slower pace which increases our ability to remember what we heard later.
You can see other articles that support this theory like this one in Scientific American.
Your turn.
Try bringing a pen and notebook to your next class and let us know how it went.