An interesting thing happened on the recent Europe History tour – someone purchased a postcard with the intention of writing on it and sending it home. It reminded me of a time before emails and computers, when as a backpacker I wrote aerograms and kept a travel diary. My family kept all of these, and it is a joy to read over them some 30 years later.
These letters were composed with quite some thought and self-reflection. They were more than an account of each day, instead expressing my feelings and interpretations of significant sites and cultures.
Students today spend significant hours typing and texting and take fewer opportunities to write by hand. Long after the excitement of getting a pen licence in primary school, there is an audible groan when I insist my students write their notes by hand in class.
My insistence is not merely a romantic longing for the past. There has been significant research into the effects of writing study and class notes by hand verses computer. The results demonstrate that handwriting:
- Improves creativity.
- Improves memory.
- Enables information to be processed more deeply.
www.psychiatrist.com/news/handwriting-shows-unexpected-benefits-over-typing/
www.researchgate.net/publication/325103925_Handwriting_instruction_a_commentary_on_five_studies
The lesson for our students is:
Write class notes and study notes by hand as notetaking is a creative activity that will improve your knowledge and understanding and memory.
