I’D Be An ‘A’ Student If I Could Just Read My Notes

[markh]

Somehow, I can't help laughing reading this article. I alternate feeling sorry for the students, and thinking "I told you so". My bad....

 

In today's W.S. Journal:

 

I’d Be an ‘A’ Student if I Could Just Read My Notes

 

Professors are banning laptops in class, driving college students to revert to handwriting—and to complain about it; ‘a hand cramp in government’

 

Adam Shlomi says he is a good student at Georgetown University. But the sophomore is failing in one unexpected area: note-taking.

Back in his Florida high school, he brought a Chromebook to class, taking “beautiful, color-coded notes.” So he was shocked to learn many professors at the elite Jesuit university in Washington, D.C., don’t allow laptops in their lecture halls.

With nearly illegible handwriting—a scrawl of overlapping letters with interchangeable t’s and f’s, g’s and y’s—Mr. Shlomi, 20 years old, begs notes from friends, reads textbooks and reviews subjects on YouTube when it’s time to take a test.

As professors take a stand against computers in their classrooms, students who grew up more familiar with keyboards than cursive are struggling to adjust. They are recording classes on cellphones, turning to friends with better penmanship and petitioning schools for a softer line.

...

Professors are weary of looking out over a sea of laptops, with students’ faces aglow from who knows what. Are they taking notes? Ordering sneakers on Amazon? Checking out memes?

 

Full article here, hopefully not behind a paywall:

<https://www.wsj.com/articles/id-be-an-a-student-if-i-could-just-read-my-notes-1520865531?shareToken=stbcd55b25f1854ed690d9f621f0b20130&reflink=article_email_share>

 

 

What can I say....

.

 

.

[Tweel]

Sounds like Axl Heck from "The Middle".

 

"Students complain professors just don’t understand how hard it is to write by hand" made me smile. On the other hand, the handwriting captioned as "nearly indecipherable" was almost entirely readable for me.

[Mech-for-i]

In my days, it's the good old walkman ; well at least most professor are not against recording on the fly. These days, its not the laptop, or the smartphone that's the issue, its the insatiable urge and desire to be online ALWAYS and lack of self control of most of these students to keep themselves on the class that really fuel these restrictions. And by large and all, if any of them cannot even write I doubt if the guy even qualify for the class at all .... these students got to be more frugal in their note taking ... as and when they enter real world at work, there is loads of opportunity when they will find that not always a compute or a device would be there to do the job on hand.

 

And might be they just are too lazy even to learn a basic skill in communication, documentation, and general thought preservation for their own good

[Brandywine]

Those people actually study at university?

How can a school fail to teach its students to write and then issue a diploma that sends them to university?

 

If they want to enter their notes into a computer, they can transfer their handwritten notes after the lessons.

Thus they would rehearse their knowledge and remember it better, they might even get good grades!

 

Some things you just have to do for yourself!

Your'e not doing your kids a favour by keeping all hardships out of their way.

[ParramattaPaul]

Oh, poor babies. "...professors just don’t understand how hard it is to write by hand."

 

How do they think every student in every school or university in any country in the world took notes before circa 1990?

 

Spare me Lord!

[Bo Bo Olson]

Be a chapter ahead............but I'd known how to write in cursive....then ball points eventually changed me into printing......

 

part of writing too tiny.

So I'd guess his printing is as bad as mine was when after decades I came back to fountain pens.

It's bad when you have trouble reading your own printing.

[ParkerDuofold]

Those people actually study at university?

How can a school fail to teach its students to write and then issue a diploma that sends them to university?

 

If they want to enter their notes into a computer, they can transfer their handwritten notes after the lessons.

Thus they would rehearse their knowledge and remember it better, they might even get good grades!

 

Some things you just have to do for yourself!

Your'e not doing your kids a favour by keeping all hardships out of their way.

Bingo! +1.

 

 

- Anthony

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Another question, apart from the method of taking notes, is how much time one should spend taking notes at all, and how much one should simply listen. If you just try to write everything down while you're hearing it, it can be harder to think about what you're hearing. I always tried to save note taking for specific information or examples which might not be in the textbook, or for explanations of textbook passages that I hadn't understood.

[Tasmith]

I attended a workshop recently and the person next to me was taking notes on his laptop. The noise from his keyboard was very distracting and I guess I must have looked annoyed at him one too many times as he apologized and moved to the back of the room.

[Zaphodbebullbrox]

Yes, as it should be, No laptops!

 

We, as a society rely way to much on computers.

[ParramattaPaul]

"Another question, apart from the method of taking notes, is how much time one should spend taking notes at all, and how much one should simply listen. ... I always tried to save note taking for specific information or examples which might not be in the textbook, or for explanations of textbook passages that I hadn't understood."

 

​Exactly. The purpose of note taking is not to make a verbatim transcript of a lecture or one's readings, but to record and highlight important information for future reference and study.

[ParkerDuofold]

Another question, apart from the method of taking notes, is how much time one should spend taking notes at all, and how much one should simply listen. If you just try to write everything down while you're hearing it, it can be harder to think about what you're hearing. I always tried to save note taking for specific information or examples which might not be in the textbook, or for explanations of textbook passages that I hadn't understood.

 

"Another question, apart from the method of taking notes, is how much time one should spend taking notes at all, and how much one should simply listen. ... I always tried to save note taking for specific information or examples which might not be in the textbook, or for explanations of textbook passages that I hadn't understood."

 

​Exactly. The purpose of note taking is not to make a verbatim transcript of a lecture or one's readings, but to record and highlight important information for future reference and study.

Exactly right, gentlemen; however, I can recall a particular college freshman, who shall remain nameless, who made like a Dictaphone his first year in college.

 

 

- Anthony

[Tweel]

I wrote down significant points, and otherwise drew in my notebook while I listened to the lecturer. There was one computer in the school ( -- this was the early 1980s), a Wang word processor that sat like a holy object on its own pedestal in the center of the school office, drawing hushed tones of reverence from the secretaries. I never saw anyone using it.

[torstar]

I miss those exam weeks with up to 27 hours in total spent writing furiously in script or numbers.

 

not....

[Kelly G]

I thought for a moment this was an article out of "The Onion", then I realized it was real. Note taking by hand is a bit of a lost art. When I started Seminary at age 56, most all of my younger classmates brought laptops to class. I was the "old" guy with the notebooks and funny pens. I will say that most of my professors seemed appreciative of the old school methods. I broke down and tried the laptop method a few times, but I found it distracting as I tried to be more verbatim than with pen and paper where my usual style was more in outline. Ultimately, I found my Parker "51", Pilot VP, and Sheaffer Balance along with Black 'n Red wirebound notebooks to be the proper tools for the job.

Another benefit to being a fountain pen junkie was using Preppy's converted to eyedropper fillers, with highlighter tips for my reading highlighting. I went through nearly two full 4.5 oz bottles of Year of the Golden Pig Noodler's ink and more than a few tips. Saved a fortune on highlighters!

 

I don't think I converted any of my younger classmates to fountain pen usage, but a few of them were always paying attention as to what pen I would pull from my pocket.

[oregano]

I can empathize, as someone with terrible handwriting. But, as a professor, I have to agree. I wish I had the nerve to ban laptops. It made me kind of sad to notice how many students were physically struggling with handwriting an exam in class the other day--they are clearly not used to continuous writing. Interestingly, all of them were male.

[Bo Bo Olson]

"Another question, apart from the method of taking notes, is how much time one should spend taking notes at all, and how much one should simply listen. ... I always tried to save note taking for specific information or examples which might not be in the textbook, or for explanations of textbook passages that I hadn't understood."

 

​Exactly. The purpose of note taking is not to make a verbatim transcript of a lecture or one's readings, but to record and highlight important information for future reference and study.

 

You cheated and read ahead!!!! ......

[GJMekenkamp]

In my first year of studying (5 years ago) almost everybody used a laptop in the lecture rooms.

Now, a couple of years later, nobody uses a laptop anymore - everybody writes by hand.

 

I've been told that this has been a trend for the last 10 years. In their first year, students use a laptop, but after a year or so they get back to writing.

 

Perhaps this only applies to the Netherlands, I do not know about other countries.

[pajaro]

Well, do you want to be a verbatim reporter, or you making notes -- important points?

 

I used a Cross Century ballpoint to jot down important points for further study. Somehow I managed to go from Chemistry to Spanish and turn it into an IT career with a brief stop in the USAF, minding Titan II ICBMS in the early 70s. Thankfully all that is over.

[Runnin_Ute]

My note taking was important points PLUS if the Professor felt it was important enough to write it on the chalkboard, I wrote it down. For me it worked pretty well. At the time I was using Mechanical Pencil and Ballpoints. I wasnt an A student - but I got my share of them, so I must have been doing something right.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Runnin_Ute