Re: [Phys-l] note-taking, or not

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

Earlier today, I wrote in part:

> > So far as my own personal learning goes, I certainly find
> > it next to impossible to take notes and pay attention at
> > the same time.

On 04/30/2012 01:53 PM, Derek Chirnside wrote:

> I'm the opposite.
> *I find it next to impossible to pay attention UNLESS I take notes.*

That leaves out the most important part of my previous note, where
I said that different students learn in different ways, and that's
OK.

 *) If you are arguing that you do it differently from me, then 
  you're supporting my main point.

 *) If you are arguing that your way is better, you have not
  addressed the main point ... and I don't believe your way is
  better in general.

> IMO, the evidence is clear from my classes: whatever happens it n eeds to
> be ACTIVE.  Active thinking and engagement and active note-taking - great.
> But mere reading over notes - or passive listening: ineffective.

That is a classic fallacy.  Just because you habitually associate
two things does not mean they are reliably associated in general, 
much less that they are causally related.  The fact is:
 -- The process of taking notes does not necessarily engage the
  sorts of thought processes that lead to effective learning.
 -- The process of reading something (books, handouts, notes,
  or whatever) is not necessarily passive and not necessarily
  ineffective.  See below for more on this.

> lecturer says "there are three things" I write '1' and get prepared.
> Cause and effect, sequences: I draw boxes and arrows.
> Compare and contrast: I draw tables with 2 columns.

That's just fine if you are a monk in a scriptorium, and the
objective is to take down what is being said, verbatim.  However,
that sounds to me like the lowest form of rote recording.

I had the sort of education that most people literally cannot
imagine.  The main lesson from Day One onward was to think for
yourself, and *not* believe everything you are told.

> lecturer says "there are three things" I write '1' and get prepared.

You can do whatever you like, but as for me, when the lecturer 
says "there are three things" I immediately think, what if there 
/aren't/ three things?  What if there is a fourth thing?  What if 
there is only one thing, with three or four different ways of 
looking at it?

It has been known explicitly for more than 100 years (William James,
1898) -- and probably long before then -- that the key to /effective/ 
learning is to mull over each new idea in your mind, checking it 
against everything else you know, looking for connections and for
inconsistencies.

Dutifully scribing three things in numerical order does not
require this sort of mulling.  Maybe in your ever-so-personal
experience you habitually do the scribing and the mulling at the
same time, but there is not the slightest evidence of any causal
relationship between the two ... and statistically speaking, based
on the study habits of students I have known, scribing and mulling 
more often anticorrelated than correlated.

> But mere reading over notes - or passive listening: ineffective.

If you do things in such a way that your reading and listening
are passive and ineffective, you are doing it wrong.

So, as Dr. Henny Youngman would say:  Don't do it that way.