One of the earliest teachers I credit with inspiring my love of history was my middle school social studies teacher, Mr. Dowling. He was passionate and funny, and I looked forward to class. What I remember most, oddly enough, was his curriculum. It did not have frills, but was well-organized and required engagement. He adapted his own readings and had them printed with fill-in-the-blank sections and comprehension questions. We three-hole-punched each lesson and added it to our three-ring binder, with each unit separated by colorful divider tabs. Of course, Mr. Dowling’s classroom personality did most of the heavy lifting, but I remember the exciting feeling of writing on my “textbook.” I interacted with those materials far more than in my other classes.
In my first year as a teacher, I found myself staring at a group of rambunctious 6th graders trying to channel my inner Mr Dowling. The school I taught at used the TCI Social Studies curriculum and had purchased workbooks for every student. That provided a needed system of organization and helped get me through the year successfully.
Midway through my second year, I switched to teaching high school in a neighboring district. As part of that transition, I remember a professional development session on helping students create spiral-bound interactive notebooks as a learning strategy. The teacher I took over for was using them, so I continued using them like a good soldier. In retrospect it was also a good system, though at the time I found the process tiresome. The pasting, the table of contents, the upkeep, the student training, the constant reminders, the notebook checks… all of it took a lot of time and energy. I just wanted to teach.
As a student, I had appreciated the organization such systems forced on me. As a first-year teacher, I had survived thanks to such a system. As a third-year teacher, I disregarded something I found inconvenient without spending time thinking about its impact on students. I found my way back to using organization systems quickly, but missed what I now think was an important factor in those systems’ successes.
When I transitioned to International Schools in 2016 I found myself in a one-to-one laptop environment. The opportunities for added value seemed endless. At one of our divisional meetings, the tech integration specialist gave a talk on the SAMR model, which pushed me to look for more innovative and exciting ways to integrate technology. Over the last decade, I have, like many teachers, gone back and forth on the cost vs benefits of using various tech tools in class and reflected on the negative externalities students face because of the mania for greater tech use driven by educational companies, schools, and many parents. As I have seen student screen time increase, overuse of AI tools, decreasing attention spans, and other struggles, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on how to be more meaningful in my approach to technology.
That autobiography is meant to contextualize a decision I have made for my AP World classes this coming school year; I will be requiring handwritten reading notes in interactive notebooks. I have been using this strategy in my 9th grade course for several years with success, but have been worried about such a change in an AP course. AP students expect a little more autonomy and laptop use has been so ingrained in school culture that I have not wanted to fight a major battle over something that might be trivial.
I second guessed my decision briefly yesterday when I logged in to my AP Classroom account to check my AP World exam scores. My students had done just as stellar as in previous years, beating the global and China averages by a generous margin. After all, why change what is working? Well, I don’t believe typed notes are not high on the list of factors responsible for my students’ learning and success. I do student surveys every year, and being able to type notes has never come up.
My strongest students over the years have organized their notes and learning on their own, regardless of whether I enforce a system; many of them have used analog notebooks even though I provide reading guides in digital format. Many other students take dutiful notes on the provided digital files, but struggle to organize them on their devices. They admit to using them during reading quizzes and then rarely again. Having an organized Canvas page with fully digital resources does not guarantee their use either. Although I think Canvas is a net positive, I wonder if students lose something in the learning process?
I’ve been reading quite a bit lately on the relative value of handwritten vs typed notes, and am hopeful that this small change will have a positive impact on my students without removing any of the factors that are helping account for learning and exam scores. At a minimum, I hope less screen time will be appreciated by both students and parents.
My Notebooks
I won’t be going totally old school and asking each student to have a 5-subject spiral notebook for the course. Instead, I have been working on custom unit notebooks that I will have printed and bound through our school’s print shop. I worked through several versions, integrating student feedback, to create something that students will actively use.
My reading guides have been reformatted to a more traditional style, but still include key vocab and reading comprehension questions for the Strayer textbook. I added unit timelines, key concepts, and other useful skill guides. Certain primary sources and activities that I already use in class as a hardcopy that students write on have been included as well. There are still some final touches to complete and a table of contents to add. Once I am happy with the Units 1 and 2 notebook, I will be able to more quickly make the others.
The pdf of the notebook draft is linked HERE if you are interested. I will be adding the final versions of all of them to my AP World page in the coming months. I am still scouring the internet for other useful ideas to include in the notebook without overdoing it. It’s a challenge to maintain the balance between relevance and clutter.
Not exactly a revolutionary change, but a step that makes sense in my context.
Postscript
A few hours after publishing this piece, I received an email from one of my students who sent me their thoughts on digital note taking as well as edtech in general. I often forget that a handful of my students subscribe. I appreciated these thoughts as they are a reminder that students can be just as engaged in educational and pedagogical practice as teachers. Often, we need just ask them. With permission I am including a quote below:
“My hypothesis to the cause of digital notetaking’s failure is that, ironically, digital notetaking is actually too good: People are able to type fast enough to mindlessly write down whatever the teacher states or puts up on the screen, without having to internalize or process it, the core of learning. Contrast this to paper notes: because writing on paper is slower, you are unable to just transcribe directly from the lecture. You need to compact what you are intaking in order to write it down. And In order to compact, you must internalize and recognize and realize what the teacher is saying.“
I’ll save a second quote for part two of this post, in which I hope to write more about edtech in AP World beyond simple notetaking.
Further Reading on Handwritten Notes
Barshay, J. (2025, January 20). Writing notes instead of typing pits scholars against each other. The Hechinger Report. Link
Kuepper-Tetzel, C. (2024, July 18). Handwritten versus Typed Note-Taking Effects on College Students” Performance. The Learning Scientists. Link
Lambert, J. (2024, May 11). Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning. NPR. Link
Marano, G., Kotzalidis, G. D, Lisci, F. M., Anesini, M. B., Rossi, S., Barbonetti, S., Cangini, A., Ronsisvalle, A., Artuso, L., Falsini, C., Caso, R., Mandracchia, G., Brisi, C., Traversi, G., Mazza, O., Pola, R., Sani, G., Mercuri, E. M., Gaetani, E., & Mazza, M. (2025). The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle? Life, 15(3), 345–345. Link
Terada, Y. (2026, May 29). Why Writing by Hand Beats Typing (in 6 Charts). Edutopia; George Lucas Educational Foundation. Link