In the Dark

I learned yesterday from Keith Flett’s blog that the new King of England appears to have had a bit of problem with his writing equipment. It must be difficult to face such a severe challenge at such an early stage of his reign but I’m sure he’ll sort it out, or perhaps his servants will.

As a result of this important news I was thinking that I must be very old-fashioned in continuing to use fountain pens. I have four different pens like that, three for everyday use, and one for “best” i.e. mainly for signing important letters. Although I don’t have a blotter, I do fill my pens with ink from a bottle rather than from cartridges. I have noticed, however, that it is rather difficult to buy bottles of ink these days so I tend to buy several bottles at a time. Another issue is that not all forms of paper are suitable for writing on with a fountain pen. I use this as an excuse to buy quite posh notebooks. In particular, fountain pens are useless for doing crosswords as the ink spreads into an illegible smudge on the paper,

You might think I’m an old fuddy-duddy for using such pens rather than biros or even doing everything using a word processor but old habits die hard. When I was at school my handwriting was very bad so a teacher suggested I start using a fountain pen in order to improve it. That didn’t work, but I got into the habit of using that sort of pen and I’ve never broken it (though I have broken many nibs).

I use a keyboard when writing documents nowadays but whenever I have to do calculations, I write out the complete thing (with equations), when I’ve checked it, using a fountain pen. After that I type them up using LaTex. The chaotic scribbles I produce during the actual process of calculating are usually done in pencil or biro, but the final version to go in my notebook is written out with actual ink.

Another example is when I am preparing to give a lecture. Although we have printed notes – like a textbook – I never lecture directly from them. I think a lecture should have a coherent structure to it so I always write out what I want to say with a beginning, middle and end. Writing it out longhand means it enters my mind far better than just reading from the notes.

On reflection, I think these approaches are extensions of the technique for taking lecture notes I used as an undergraduate student. Another teacher at school spent one lesson teaching us all how to write very quickly without looking at the paper. Doing that means you don’t waste time moving your head to and fro between paper and screen or blackboard.

Of course, the notes I produced using this method weren’t exactly aesthetically pleasing, but my handwriting is awful at the best of times so that didn’t make much difference to me. I always wrote my notes up more neatly after the lecture anyway, using a fountain pen. But the great advantage was that I could write down everything in real time without this interfering with my ability to listen to what the lecturer was saying.

An alternative to this approach is to learn shorthand, or invent your own form of abbreviated language. This approach is, however, unlikely to help you take down mathematical equations quickly.

My experience nowadays is that many students simply aren’t used to taking notes like this – I suppose because they get given so many powerpoint presentations or other kinds of handout –  so they struggle to cope with the old-fashioned chalk-and-talk style of teaching that some lecturers still prefer (and which actually works very well in mathematically-based disciplines). That’s probably because they get much less practice at school than my generation did. Most of my school education was done via the blackboard..

Even if I hand out copies of slides or other notes, I always encourage my students to make their own independent set of notes, as completely as possible. I don’t mean by copying down what they see on the screen and what they may have on paper already, but by trying to write down what I say as I say it. I don’t think many take that advice, which means much of the spoken illustrations and explanations I give don’t find their way into any long term record of the lecture.

And if the lecturer just reads out the printed notes, adding nothing by way of illustration or explanation, then the audience is bound to get bored very quickly.

My argument, then, is that regardless of what technology the lecturer uses, whether he/she gives out printed notes or not, then if the students can’t take notes accurately and efficiently then lecturing is a complete waste of time. In fact for the modules I’m doing this term I don’t intend to hand out lecture notes at all during the lectures, although I do post lecture summaries and answers to the exercises online after they’ve been done.

As a further study aid, most lectures at my previous institutions (Sussex University and Cardiff University) are recorded and made available to students to view shortly after the event. I have seen no evidence that availability of recorded lectures lowers the attendance at lectures. It appears that students use the recordings for revision and/or to clarify points raised in the notes they have taken, and if anything the recordings allow the students to get greater value from lectures rather than persuading them that there’s no need to attend them. Unfortunately we don’t have lecture capture at Maynooth, and a recent policy decision at high level is basically to ban lecture recordings here. I think that is regrettable to say the least, but since we don’t have proper equipment we can’t do it anyway so there’s nothing I can do.

I do like lecturing, because I like talking about physics and astronomy, but as I’ve got older I’ve become less convinced that lectures play a useful role in actually teaching anything. I think we should use lectures more sparingly, relying more on problem-based learning to instill proper understanding. When we do give lectures, they should focus much more on stimulating interest by being entertaining and thought-provoking. They should not be for the routine transmission of information, which is far too often the default.

As a matter of fact don’t think I ever learned very much about physics from lectures – I found problem-based learning far more effective – but I’m nevertheless glad I learned out how to take notes the way I did because I find it useful in all kinds of situations. Effective note-taking is definitely a transferable skill, but it’s also in danger of becoming a dying art. If we’re going to carry on using lectures, we old fogeys need to stop assuming that students learnt it the way we did and start teaching it as a skill.

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