Re: [Phys-L] book versus video versus lecture

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 01/13/2014 04:53 PM, Philip Keller wrote:
> While I have always believed that taking notes helps memory, that is
> really just an opinion.  Even when I provide detailed handouts, I
> still like to leave space for students to write in the steps of key
> arguments as  we develop them together.  But there is something else
> that complicates the issue:  yes, I say that note-taking is
> important, but it really matters who is taking the notes.

Agreed.

> Some students have the ability to understand, organize and record
> what has happened in class with an ability that to me seems like
> alchemy.  In fact, my current "official archive" notes are a
> collection given to me by one of those students.  Also, these
> students have an amazing ability to write in clear,
> better-than-legible handwriting at high speed.  Not everyone can do
> that.

Agreed.

> For other students, the act of getting it down on paper is more
> taxing.  They just don't have that gift.

Personally, I cannot write legibly at any appreciable speed.
My handwriting is a disaster, and always has been.  Calling
it chicken-scratch would be a euphemism.  Ironically, I can 
do calligraphy that people find reasonably attractive.

The calligraphy is very slow.  The handwriting is both slow and
illegible.  On the other hand, I can type reasonably rapidly.

> For now, when my notes are
> especially text-y, I email them a copy.  What I would like to do is
> identify the handful of best note-takers and encourage them to share!
> But that raises ethical and competitive questions like: "If others
> are to benefit from my special ability to receive, organize and
> present this technical information, shouldn't the best problem
> solvers be forced to share their insights?"  My answer would be that
> I DO encourage that kind of sharing as well.  I have a website where
> students are welcome to post questions and answers to any homework
> question (and I believe that they are using Facebook for this as
> well).
>
> Have any of you used this kind of student note sharing?

Once upon a time, at a small trade school in Pasadena, we used
the following scheme.  This applies to advanced courses where
there was no text, or where the professor did not follow the
text:

In each class, we picked out three guys who had exceptionally
good handwriting.  They took notes, tag-team:  One guy would do
the first board, the next guy would do the second board, and the
next guy would do the third board, and so on, modulo 3.

Using three guys is a big win, because nobody except /maybe/ a
skilled stenographer with a fancy machine can write fast enough 
to keep up with a lecture ... and for technical material I doubt
even the world's best court reporter could keep up.

After class they would meet and collate the results.  Then they
would give them to the professor to proofread.  Then they would
make copies.

We chipped in to pay the guys for their efforts.  For me, this 
was a tremendously good deal, because any attempt to take my own 
notes would have zeroed my ability to pay attention in class.
The note-takers benefited financially, and also benefited 
because they themselves got super-good notes with roughly
1/3rd the effort.

A sizable minority of the students thought that the /process/ of
taking notes was important to them, and they were free to ignore
what we were doing.

=============

As a slightly different answer to the same question:  If it was
a course that had been given before, you could hope that somebody 
had taken the course the previous year, gotten an A+++, and left 
his notes behind.  Such notes were nowhere near as complete as 
the tag-team notes, but they were better than nothing.  Indeed
they had some advantages, insofar as you could copy the notes in 
advance, study them in advance, and follow along and make annotations 
during class.

=================================

In graduate school the experience was completely different.  The
students were not interested in the notes from last year;  all
they cared about was the solutions to last year's homework, which
was by-and-large the same as this year's homework.

I chose to /not/ participate in that.  I wanted to figure out the
exercises on my own.

Let's be clear about the contrast:
 -- The /process/ of note-taking is not important to my learning style.
 -- The /process/ of wrestling with the exercises *is* important to
   my learning style.
 ++ I am not going to impose my learning style on other people.
  Similarly, I ask other people not to assume there is only one
  viable approach.