The Lost Art of Note-taking

 by Kevin Finn

In a former life, I taught math and science to Catholic school students in grades 6-9. In the early 2000s, I began noticing a troubling trend: many students had little to no idea how to take notes from a lecture or a textbook. Some didn’t even know how to hold a pencil correctly. It’s worth noting that, in the years just before I retired, we were receiving significantly more students transferring from public schools.

One moment from a ninth-grade Algebra class still stands out. During the first week of school, I noticed a couple of students sitting passively with nothing on their desks -- spectators, as if they were watching a YouTube video rather than attending class. When I told them to take out their notebooks, one student reached into his backpack without looking, pulled out a random notebook, opened to a random page, and began copying what was on the board. When I asked if he was using his Algebra notebook, he checked and discovered it was his History notebook. I then asked to see the notes he had taken the day before. He had no idea where they were.

He wasn’t alone. I ended up restarting the class from Day One, teaching them how to record the date, number their notebook pages, copy information neatly, and organize their work -- skills that should be firmly established by middle school. By the time students reach high school, they should be refining these skills and habits, not learning them for the first time.

A few students insisted on taking notes on laptops, claiming it was easier than writing by hand. In reality, they spent most of their time wrestling with how to type mathematical symbols and diagrams. Instead of absorbing content, they were battling their devices.

I would imagine that some students are now simply recording audio (and video) records of their classes. Does anyone believe those students will repeatedly sit through those entire lectures at home, and call it “studying”?

For elementary and high school students, using pencils, pens, and paper for note-taking, writing, and mathematics offers several well-supported advantages over electronic devices. These benefits are grounded in cognitive neuroscience, educational research, and practical classroom experience.

Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions -- including those involved in movement, vision, sensory processing, and memory -- compared to typing. When students write by hand, their brains show more elaborate connectivity and synchronized activity, which supports deeper learning and better retention. Typing produces far less of this neural engagement. Because children’s and adolescents’ brains are still developing, this difference matters.

The slower pace of handwriting forces students to paraphrase, summarize, and prioritize key ideas rather than transcribing verbatim. This deeper cognitive processing leads to stronger comprehension. Research consistently shows that handwritten notes result in better performance on conceptual and synthesis tasks, even when fewer words are written.

In mathematics, paper-and-pencil work encourages students to show their steps, organize their reasoning, and manage their work more effectively. Studies involving middle and high school students have found that those who use paper outperform device-only peers by significant margins -- 13 percentage points in one study. Writing equations, diagrams, graphs, and multi-step proofs by hand involves tactile, sequential actions that strengthen neural pathways for problem-solving. Digital input, while convenient for editing, often encourages a more passive approach.

For younger students, forming letters and words by hand significantly improves recognition, spelling, and early literacy skills. Research shows that children learn and remember letter shapes, sounds, and words more effectively when they physically produce them, building stronger foundations for reading and writing.

Electronic devices also introduce distractions -- notifications, multitasking, and easy access to unrelated content. Paper removes these temptations entirely, helping students maintain focus, especially those who are more easily distracted.

Paper allows unrestricted drawing of diagrams, number lines, geometric figures, and mind maps without the limitations of software tools. The fine motor coordination required for handwriting supports overall brain development, including areas linked to creativity and problem-solving.

Students who use paper never have to worry about connectivity issues, battery life, or software glitches. They can flip through pages quickly, annotate margins freely, and compare multiple pages at once -- often more intuitively than on a screen.

Electronic devices certainly have strengths: editing, searching, collaborating, and receiving instant feedback. But the core learning processes of encoding, understanding, and retaining information -- especially in foundational subjects like math and writing -- tend to benefit more from traditional handwriting for elementary, middle, and high school students.

A balanced approach is called for. Prioritize paper for initial learning, concept development, and math practice, while using devices strategically for research, drafting longer essays, or polishing final work. For most routine tasks such as note-taking, writing, and mathematics, the evidence strongly favors paper, pens, and pencils.

Our public schools are failing, and there are quite a few reasons why. I would think that the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on tablets and laptops for students could be better spent elsewhere.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/03/the_lost_art_of_note_taking.html