So I was intrigued to come across a study by Carnegie Mellon University’s Lisa Anthony, Jie Yang, and Kenneth Koedinger about “How Handwritten Input Helps Students Learning Algebra Equation Solving.” I had just extrapolated from my own experience that it’s no fun to type math, and writing it out with a digital pen is way better. But here are actual scientists conducting an NSF-funded experiment about it!!! Now I’ve got some data!!!

The study compares three learning interfaces: handwriting, handwriting-while-speaking, and typing. And it poses the question, “Do students experience differences in learning due to the modality in which they generate their answers?”

Researchers found four key differences:

Handwriting frees up brain space. Using the handwriting interface decreased “extraneous cognitive load.” Having to worry about how to type the math into a computer doesn’t help you learn. When you don’t have to use part of your brain to figure out how to type the math, you have more space in your brain to solve the math.

It’s easier to write math out by hand than to type it. It’s easier to write exponents and fractions by hand than to figure out how to type them, and the more advanced the math gets, the more fractions, exponents, and other visually complex symbols are involved. “Handwriting is a much more flexible and robust modality for representing and manipulating such spatial relationships.”

It’s easier to transition back to paper. Unlike typing, handwriting on a computer and then switching back to paper does not involve a “modality switch.”

The real stunner: When writing by hand as opposed to typing, students solved problems twice as quickly. Whether they were just copying problems or solving them, students who were typing took about twice as long to enter equations than students writing them by hand, or writing them by hand while speaking. Even though the students who used handwriting moved so much faster, they learned just as much as the students who typed.

The researchers pointed out that “students who can get through more problems more quickly by virtue of a more natural interface can therefore advance farther in the curriculum than if they had been typing.” The extreme difference in learning times led them to wonder if handwriting was actually a more efficient learning modality than typing.

They also speculated that, since so many students preferred writing math by hand to typing it, perhaps they engaged in the tutoring more when they were using their preferred modality.

Aside from learning differences, the vast majority of students preferred handwriting. Over 78% of the 38 students who participated (half male, half female, ranging from sixth to twelfth grade) said they preferred either handwriting or handwriting plus speaking.

While students commented that typing “took too long and it was hard to get everything where I wanted,” they observed that handwriting “is how I’m used to doing problems in math class, by writing them out.” Not only was handwriting “easier” and “better” than typing, but students also finished problems faster.

These findings completely confirm my own experience, even though these researchers embarked on this study in the context of students interacting with computer program “tutors,” as opposed to students using computers to interact with a human tutor (like myself). I look forward to hearing more from these researchers!

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My Online Tutoring Technology (3): Why I Use Phones Instead of Video

Familiarity and ease of use. Most people are already used to talking on the phone.

We’re in sync. There’s no delay in transmitting voice over the phone, so it’s easy to stay in sync. However, at this point in the development of webcam technology, there is a slight microsecond delay between transmitting and receiving video data. This delay feels disconnecting and tiring.

It’s not distracting. It is easy to handle visual input from the computer screen while getting verbal input over the phone. But having the webcam in the same screen as the online whiteboard is weirdly visually distracting.

You know where to direct your attention. It’s easy to pick up on verbal cues over the phone and visual cues from the whiteboard. But when you’re using a webcam, you look in the same direction to see both the person in the webcam and the math in the whiteboard. There’s no visual way to tell which one you’re paying attention to. This is socially confusing.

Your attention is not fragmented. Toggling between multiple windows—for example, the online whiteboard window and the webcam video window—is a classic recipe for decreased focus and degraded executive function. Talking over the phone eliminates this problem, since you are only looking at one window: the whiteboard.

It is nice to put a face with a name, so I do offer new students the chance to start our very first meeting with an introduction via webcam. But then we turn the webcam off and just use the whiteboard and the phone for the actual working-on-math part.

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Here’s why:
• It’s extremely pleasureable to draw with when you use a pen tablet.
• It’s intuitive to use.
• The huge and scrollable screen size gives you room to finish even complex problems in a single screen. No toggling back and forth between multiple screens.
• The buttons are easy to understand and use.
• I can use it immediately without waiting. There is no need to schedule a session or wait for anything to load.
• It has an eraser function. (This is key when learning math )
• Whiteboards are automatically saved so students can review them whenever they want.
• Skrbl’s developer was interested in my feedback & suggestions.

Do you have another online whiteboard you love to use with a digital pen tablet? Are you an online whiteboard developer interested in adding tablet support to your product, or creating a new product that includes tablet support? I want to hear from you!

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My Online Tutoring Technology (1): Why I Chose the Wacom Bamboo Digital Pen Tablet

Here’s why:
• It’s extremely easy to use.
• It’s intuitive. Just like drawing or writing with a pen.
• It’s ergonomic. (Unlike drawing with a mouse, which is physically agonizing after a few minutes.)
• It’s small and portable. (Unlike an actual physical whiteboard.)
• It’s affordable. (Unlike more elaborate pen tablets with fancy professional-designer-quality features that are unnecessary for tutoring purposes.)
• It’s high quality.
• The digital pen is a pencil-shaped object. So during online tutoring we write the same way you write in math class, for homework assignments, or when taking a test.
• There’s nothing extra to learn. You don’t have to learn any fancy software or codes to write out the math on the computer screen.

I want my students to experience online tutoring as something that makes math easier for them, not more frustrating. So I saught out the most frustration-free technology possible. Bamboo is part of my time-tested ideal combination.

Thank you, Wacom, for developing and manufacturing this awesome product!!!

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