Attending classes, college lectures or conferences leave your laptop in its bag, or don`t bring it at all. Because if learning is your goal, using a laptop during class is a terrible idea. Try to use traditional tools: paper and a pen and you will find something surprising.
Scientific research says you’ll get much more out of classes when you are taking notes by hand instead of using laptop. What’s more, students perform worse on exams when they use laptops in class.
So, what’s the reason? Researchers have found that laptop use during class-time might be distracting. In other words, a laptop is whole world of distraction: it’s so easy to click over to Facebook or buy things on Amazon during the lecture.
And even when students aren’t distracted with their laptops, the act of taking notes using keyboards actually seems to interfere with their ability to remember information. Typing is faster than handwriting for most people and it can come in handy when there’s a lot of information. But it turns out the fact that you are slower when you take notes by hand is what makes it more useful for better long-term comprehension.
It happens because students on laptops usually just mindlessly type everything a teacher says without extra processing of the material. But students taking notes the old-fashioned way, have to actively listen and select what’s important. And this extra processing of the material ultimately benefits them.
So, despite of the fact that the idea of taking notes by hand just seems old-fashioned to many students today. There are still advantages of taking notes with a pen and paper. If you want to learn something and remember lectures better maybe you should put your laptop away. And ask our Writing Tutors about simple techniques how to take notes more effectively.
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