Unplugged Teaching
By Gina Benz for SDPB’s Teacher Talk
This summer I taught a college course that I described as “unplugged.” I structured the entire course so that neither I nor my students needed to use electronic devices. I also set the expectation that students would not use electronic devices during class for anything — practice, research, notetaking, nothing. I wanted to provide fertile ground for cognitive struggle, slow learning, face-to-face communication, and community building.
Full disclosure, a few exceptions were made. I had some videos I needed my students to watch, but to honor the spirit of my unplugged course, we watched the videos together and stopped them frequently to discuss what we were realizing and learning. In addition, although I wanted assignments to be handwritten, I allowed students to type their assignments if that was their preference. Since my assignments required significant personal reflection and citations from our exact texts, I had little concern about AI use circumventing the learning process.
The result of making class unplugged was meaningful connection between learners, thoughtful discussion and learning from each other, student-centered learning, and practice in speaking and listening. In fact, I was so pleased with the outcomes that I’ve made my high school classroom as unplugged as possible this semester. When given a writing assignment, my students handwrite their first draft. Notetaking and journaling all happen on paper. Discussion and collaboration are much more common than practice and assignments in Canvas, our LMS (learning management system). The results in my high school classes mirror the results in my college course.
I recently came across a study on the NIH (National Institutes of Health) website that supports the unplugging of our classrooms. “Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom” (2024) encourages teachers to require handwritten work, rather than typed, as much as possible because the study found that “the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen, contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning.” The study cites another study to explain this phenomenon: “the involvement of fine and intricate hand movements in notetaking, in contrast with pressing keys on a keyboard that all require the same simple finger movement, may be more advantageous for learning (Van der Meer and Van der Weel, 2017).” I encourage school leaders to review the 2024 study, which has links to numerous other studies that say the same: pen and paper often promote learning better than keyboard and screen.
The primary downside I’ve experienced with handwritten work is that over the years my students’ handwriting has gotten harder to decipher. I long for the days when schools took handwriting seriously. Nevertheless, a work-around exists. My students complete rough drafts on paper, but their final drafts are typed. What I’ve observed is a refreshing carefulness and thoughtfulness that goes into the rough drafts when the temptations and distractions of the world wide web are unavailable. What’s more, the final drafts end up more authentic and true to the task than I’ve seen in recent years.
I don’t expect that my classroom will ever be completely unplugged. Technology in the classroom has many benefits including videos, simulations, polished creations, organizational tools, assistive technologies for those with disabilities, and extensive opportunities for research. But for now, I’m enjoying and seeing the benefits of less technology in A113.
Citation
Van der Weel, F. R. R., & Van der Meer, A. L. H. (2024). Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Frontiers in psychology, 14, 1219945. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945
