Handwrite Your Notes
What if I told you there is a trick to improve cognition and memorization in every learning experience? There is! Handwrite your notes.
I used to recommend writing notes by hand to my classroom students, and I still follow that advice myself in a corporate role.
The learning science suggests that handwriting notes helps memorization because there is deeper cognitive processing that occurs. The physical act of moving your hand forces you to process the material an extra time.
Also, typing is so fast you can type what someone is saying almost verbatim without having to process, prioritize, and consolidate the material.
When I participate in a learning experience like a webinar, book club, or Udemy course, I take handwritten notes in a notebook. These notes are a concrete takeaway that I can refer back to. The tactile experience of flipping through my notes to refresh my memory puts me back into that moment and helps me activate what I learned again.
How can you make that suggestion to your learners? You could provide a note-taking template, or provide prompts for them to write down. Gentle nudges to take a moment of reflection in their notes goes a long way. It doesn’t need to be anything overly-formal.
For a bit more evidence to support these claims, check out the 2014 study “The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard” by Mueller and Oppenheimer.
