Two recent studies about retention and memory suggest that we should not rely wholly on digital means for learning and especially conceptual understanding. The findings have implications for teachers, trainers, speakers, and indeed anyone engaged in trying to remember the important parts of the information that wash over us all every day.
When I was a graduate student, I spent a blissful year of 14-hour days in the library at the University of Virginia reading philosophy, the history of the 1800s, and the works of Charles Dickens. The days were so long because I had decided to read everything Charles Dickens wrote before I jumped into my dissertation. I thought I had the baker’s dozen of novels and a modest assortment of short stories and novellas to plow through. It turned out Dickens had written another 3,000 pages of miscellaneous non-fiction, mostly, for his various magazines – and that was just the stuff attributed to him. He wrote other pieces unsigned and uncollected, and edited a good deal more of other writer’s works (including noted writers like Wilkie Collins) because he was indefatigable, generous, and particular. It was a shock to discover that I had so much reading to do, but I plunged in anyway, eager for the challenge.
I took endless notes, filling a dozen fat notebooks full of tiny writing to save on paper. No digital note-taking platforms were available then! Were I beginning this task today, I would almost certainly use a digital app for the job.
And I would be wrong to do so. One of the two studies finds that taking notes by hand allows you to recall conceptual material better than if you take notes digitally. Apparently, physically forming the words sticks them in your memory more completely than typing them into a device.
Professional speakers know that insiders at conferences and meetings look for what they call the “cell-phone slide” – the slide that causes everyone to bring out their cell phones and take a picture in order to retain the information. The audience would be better served if the conference organizers handed out notebooks and pens and encouraged everyone to write down what they wanted to remember.
The other study found that students (during Covid) who watched short videos of educational material remembered virtually nothing compared to having teachers teach them the same content in person. It turns out students learn early on to process the cues teachers give out through their body language that this piece is particularly important, or that item is less so. Teachers teach with their emotion as much as their intellect. They signal to us what’s important, and how to learn. Videos are poor at doing either of those two things.
We’re not going to do away with digital information, of course, but these studies suggest that when we really want to transmit some important knowledge to each other, in-person teaching and note-taking by hand remain the top ways of communicating. Teachers, trainings, speakers, and leaders who want their colleagues to remember what they are saying should eschew the virtual and embrace the physical.
I find this fascinating, Nick. When I was a teenager, long before I became a mom, I was haunted by a poem I’d read by Alice E. Chase, “To My Grown-Up Son” [https://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/1810.html]. I recopied the poem in my own handwriting and stashed it in a scrapbook. Every so often I’d come across it, read it again, and be haunted again.
The last two lines of that poem became, “I wish I could go back and do the little things you asked me to.” When Katie came along, I paid attention to her in a way I don’t think I would have, had I not recopied that poem so earnestly.
Katie and I both credit the exercise to the childhood she had and the relationship we still have.
When I’m serious about learning something, I write it down.
Thanks for the powerful post!
Thanks for so beautifully pointing out the relevance of the research!
Hi Nick,
This is great information, even though I received it in a digital format.
I’m teaching carpentry apprentices right now, and we often watch short videos as part of the class work.
I’ll be taking a serious look at the balance of live versus digital media that I use going forward.
Cheers,
Mike
I hope you can remember it (because it came to you digitally):-) Apparently, the non-verbal cues of instructors give essential information to the students. So maybe show the video, then discuss it after?
Nick, this piece connects with so many readers of Public Words, including me. You write that you I took endless notes! So, did I, when I was in final year of my Physics BSc (Hons.) class, way back in 1964. The beauty with taking notes is that you rehearse the idea that you are writing down. I became greedy, and would keep 3 or more books by different authors, in the same subject, and would try to take the essence out of a given topic and make PERFECT motes. But as is said, having taken notes you need to read them a few times to grasp the concepts. I had no time left. I just managed to get a first class in my final exams. Imagine, with my SUPER notes, I was hoping to score much higher. But everything in fife has to have a balance, including taking notes. Later in 1966, we had teachers who were quite fast and most of us in a class of 35 students, would try to take copious notes. But the problem was that if we wrote fast we could write down most of what was being spoken, literally, by the teacher. But if we stopped even for a second to understand the concept of a physics topic, we would miss the train of ideas to be copied down in our notes. A bright idea came to us. We identified two students in our class, who took fast notes, legibly. In the evenings in our hostel, we would match the notes of both these students and fill the gaps left by each of them, from the notes of the other, and make the story complete, so to say.
—- Prof. Dr. J.V. Yakhmi (Retd. Scientist, educationist, author)
Professor Yakhmi — thank you so much for your insight into the best note-taking technique, especially when it *is* rocket science! You remind me of the other challenge of taking in information in this way: its sequential nature. If you get off track, you miss a great deal trying to get back on track, and then the connection to the earlier material may be missing. The best speakers and lecturers present in chapters, to allow their listeners to catch up at set intervals.