Monday, June 07, 2010

Deeper than we think ...

... The Shallows. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I can't say I do much multitasking. I like to work at something for a bit, then switch over to something else for a bit, then either come back to the first thing or move on to something else altogether. But I this was interesting:
This was tested in a communication studies class where students were generally encouraged to use their laptops during lectures, in order to explore lecture topics in greater detail on the Internet and in library databases. Half of the students were allowed to keep their laptops open, while the other half (randomly assigned) had to close their laptops. Students in the closed laptop condition recalled significantly more material in a surprise quiz after class than did students in the open laptop condition. Although these results may be obvious, many universities appear to be unaware of the learning decrement produced by multitasking when they wire classrooms with the intention of improving learning.
In college, I could almost always just listen to a lecture and pass with flying colors any quiz based on it. My technique was quite simple: I just sat back and listened. Every now and then I might make a very brief note -- never more than a phrase. On the other hand, I knew students who took copious notes who always complained that they had trouble passing tests based on lectures. Their cure for this was always to take even more copious notes. It never seemed to occur to them how much the note-taking distracted them from hearing what was being said.

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