30. Handwriting, Practice, Participation, and Cornell Notes

Electronic technologies have been embedded in classrooms for decades, but the emergence of genAI has prompted some professors to resort back to handwritten assessments, such as bluebooks and notes. The concern, of course, is cognitive offloading--that an overreliance on genAI for learning tasks short-circuits the learning process by taking away opportunities for cognitive processing.  In this episode, I present a few studies from the decade before genAI that show how electronic technologies can be detrimental to learning, which prompted me to ask students for daily handwritten notes for participation. However, my method still needed improvement: I also relate how, last year, I stumbled upon the Cornell note taking method, which has important learning strategies built in. Toward the end, I provide a sample to show what it looks like in my classes with students' practice with conceptual knowledge and metacognition. The Cornell note taking system makes it easy for students to review their notes and use them later, and it's also easy for teachers to assess them.

Show notes

Brookings Institution synopsis of 3 handwriting vs. screen studies
Dynarski, S. M. (2017, August 10). For better learning in college lectures, lay down the laptop and pick up a pen. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/for-better-learning-in-college-lectures-lay-down-the-laptop-and-pick-up-a-pen/

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task

Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein, Pattie Maes

Get the paper "Your Brain on ChatGPT" in PDF format:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

Research team's web page for the study at MIT:
https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/your-brain-on-chatgpt/overview/

Official Web site for "Your Brain on ChatGPT":
https://www.brainonllm.com/

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