Does digital learning really help students focus and remember better, or is traditional note-taking more effective?

The recent digital transformation of classrooms offers convenience, but there are concerns that it may have a negative impact on students’ concentration and memory. We discuss how traditional note-taking can still be effective for in-depth learning.

 

In the past, classes were taught by a teacher who would explain things on the board and students would take notes in their textbooks or notebooks. However, in recent years, most classes have moved away from this method and are now using beam projectors to present PPTs on the board, which students can carry around on their desks. As a result, heavy and expensive textbooks have been removed from students’ desks and replaced with printouts of the professor’s PPT, tablet PCs, and laptops. These teaching methods have the advantage of reducing the amount of time that professors and teachers have to spend on lecturing, and they can use various media such as videos and photos to keep students motivated and interested. But are these changes only positive?
While traditional note-taking allows students to record information in class by hand, which naturally aids in comprehension and retention, this process is often omitted or streamlined in lessons using digital media. Note-taking is important because it’s not just the act of recording information, it’s the process of processing and internalizing it. The process of note-taking allows students to reorganize information, express it in their own language, and deepen their understanding of the material. Digital learning, on the other hand, lacks this process and is unlikely to result in deeper learning.
In a broadcast, an experiment was conducted to compare the same content in a paper book and a digital device. The results showed that the group who read the paper book zigzagged their gaze evenly and read every corner of the book, while the group who read the book on a digital device had a jumbled distribution of gaze, with some reading at the bottom and some at the top, and some not reading at all. This suggests that reading a book on paper is more focused and thorough than reading on a digital device. In addition, the group that read on digital devices could only remember keywords and the location of pictures, while the group that read on paper showed better memory, remembering not only keywords but also passages or phrases from the book. The results of this experiment suggest that even if the same content is delivered through digital devices, it is more effective for students to be delivered in a paper book than through digital devices.
In addition, as more and more classes are taught using PPTs, more and more students are using tablet PCs or laptops because they don’t want to print out PPTs before each class, or because it’s easier to take notes. While it would be great if these devices were used exclusively for lectures, many students don’t realize that this is not the case. Tablet PCs and laptops have the advantage of being able to do a lot of things with simple controls. However, this advantage can also be a disadvantage, as students are tempted to surf the internet, use social networks like Facebook and KakaoTalk, or do assignments rather than focusing on class. This makes it easy for students to miss important content in class, which can negatively affect their learning performance.
From the above two aspects, we can see that the use of electronic devices in teaching, which was thought to be a way to motivate and engage students, is actually reducing their ability to focus and remember lessons. These issues are not just limited to individual learning styles, but can affect the effectiveness of the entire education system more broadly. Therefore, we need to stop chasing convenience and start thinking about what truly helps learning.
Before the introduction of multimedia teaching methods, the lecture method was inconvenient, requiring students to carry textbooks and making corrections while taking notes, and the lecturer had to write on the board, which was more laborious than multimedia teaching methods. However, as the saying goes, “No pain, No gain,” we need to suffer in order to gain something, and I wonder if we can gain more knowledge that we came to university for rather than just pursuing convenience through multimedia teaching methods. In addition, through this process, students can develop problem-solving skills and critical thinking beyond just acquiring knowledge. We shouldn’t choose an approach that does more harm than good just because it’s convenient.