BBC News recently published “The Benefits of Note-Taking by Hand.” The author, Hetty Roessingh, is a professor of education at the University of Calgary.
Over three years ago, I touted the benefits of journaling by hand, and even recommended use of the non-dominant hand (cf., blog entry of 12 July 2017). Applying similar principles to the academic setting, Roessingh notes that the process of taking “notes by hand involves cognitive engagement in summarising, paraphrasing, organising, concept and vocabulary mapping — in short, manipulating and transforming information that leads to deeper understanding.” Of course, time constraints during a lecture doubtless make it impossible to take notes with the non-dominant hand, but it would be interesting to see what results might ensue.
The second question addresses a matter of more personal interest. Roessingh reports, “When people visually represent knowledge, they can deepen their comprehension of concepts such as cycles and relationships: as a result, some cognitive researchers advocate teaching different ways of representing knowledge from an early age.”
That is well and good for most people, but some – like me – suffer from aphantasia, an inability to visualize mental imagery. Above and beyond the academic concerns raised in the article, I wonder whether the “comprehension of concepts such as … relationships” might also create behaviors consistent with mild Asperger Syndrome, although I am unaware of any such studies to date.
