This blog post is a small thing to help parents understand that school are often using techniques and interventions that are not only not the best ideas, but in the end damage students in their learning. After fighting about how to teach reading for a few decades finally educators have decided to follow the science and focus on phonics and what we know actually works. But we still have the issue of teaching students to learn and thing, and these are just a few notes about how that ought to be done..
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An article in The Guardian this week speaks about learning on paper, for example, handwriting vs. Screen learning. Here is the title: “A groundbreaking study shows kids learn better on paper, not screens. Now what?”
Well, actually there is nothing “groundbreaking” about these findings. Anyone who is involved in the science of learning and the science of education has known this for years….decades!
He is the summary in one short paragraph:
“Neuroscientists at Columbia University’s Teachers College has come down decisively on the matter: for “deeper reading” there is a clear advantage to reading a text on paper, rather than on a screen, where “shallow reading was observed”
You can find the article in it’s entirety here:
Now there are large piles of research showing that students who take notes by hand do much..much…better than students who take out their $4,000 MacBook Pros and type notes (they are usually typing every single work the instructor has said, and are doing nothing with the information, such as shortening it, re-stating it in their own words, basically picking out the important parts -analysing it and shortening it. It’s called “note taking,” not transcribing.
And the same can be said for thinking on paper. Or reading on paper, rather than a screen. Oddly, with student’s who receive special education services in school the first thing we do is take away their pencils and paper and give them an iPad. About the most useless passive device one can imagine. Student’s who have trouble with reading or writing have their books taken away, as well as their paper and pencils. This battle, to keep technology out of the classroom until it is proven to have a benefit, and it hasn’t been proven, has been lost to big business and the early introduction of iPads, laptops and other devices at the expense of teaching children how to actually write and form letters and words…and then thoughts.
Regretfully I am quoting KUMON’s page here, but the information is clearly stated:
“Integrating technology and learning is a necessity of our time. Students around the world had
no choice but to turn to their screens when schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Did they really have no other choices?) From video calls to educational mobile apps, teachers and parents alike had to get creative to keep kids learning. As we move forward and students eventually return to the classroom, online learning will likely continue to play an important part in our children’s education. But that doesn’t mean you should throw out your paper and pencils. Here is the importance of paper to students.
Impact on Expression
While technology is a necessary part of life, research suggests that students learn differently, and in fact retain more knowledge, when their hands are actively engaged in the writing process. One study specifically focused on how different modes of learning, such as printing, cursive writing, and typing impacted children. Researchers discovered that when they (children) wrote by hand, the children expressed more ideas. Their brain scans also showed greater activation in areas associated with working memory.
Impact on Retention
Another study of 650 students across ten countries noted that although there are clear benefits to the use of computers in learning, some students actually preferred to write by hand. The reason is simple—(writing by hand) helped them retain what they had learned. The author noted, “Many of the students in our study found making hand written notes leads to greater retention of the data than if it is typed and there is a firm belief that retaining new knowledge is more likely to be successful when writing notes during the learning process than when reading or listening online.”
(Note: I always teach students to take notes by hand, and to use a note taking method appropriate for the subject. That might mean taking “Doodle Notes” with drawings, lines and words scattered everywhere, to high school and college students using the well known Cornell Note Taking method,)
Impact on Processing
Research also shows that note taking by hand forces students to fully process information and re-frame it in their own words. On the other hand, those who take notes on their computers tend to write the lectures down word for word. Those who hand-wrote had to digest, summarize, and select the important pieces of information, which promotes deeper understanding and retention. ( This is the ultimate aims of good note taking methods like Doodle Notes and using structured systems like the Two Column Note Taking Method or Cornell notes, when the learning needs to be very serious.)
Academics have repeatedly shown that the act of producing work independently from memory, without the prompts provided by a keyboard, forces students to engage with their work more deeply. As a result, this helps them commit their learning to their long-term memory.
Kumon seems to have this right! (Still, when after school I walk by a Kumon Education Centre I want to open the doors and yell, “Run! Escape, you’ve been at school all day….go out and play!”
A final note from Science News:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201001113540.htm
And this should make you wonder about what is so “groundbreaking” in the Guardian article:
A simple summary of the article: ”The use of pen and paper gives the brain more 'hooks' to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain. A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sense experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We both learn better and remember better," says Van der Meer.
My biggest worry is that corporations, seeing schools and education as a big pot of money, are more interested in selling us passive “information devices” like the iPad and laptops than in helping students learn to think deep. While an internet connected learning device may help us connect with a “world of information” I remember the Encyclopaedia Brittanica being enough to launch me, and others into our love of knowledge. Knowledge has now become confused with entertainment. It’s time to sit back, relax, and take some notes and do some deep things. Engaging the world instead of watching it.