Technology has effectively taken over in the educational realm. Professors use AI to design tests and lesson plans, the majority of assignments given in high schools are entirely completed and submitted online, and a large portion of those assignments are completed using help from AI. Help is also a pretty generous word in this instance. Should this really be the accepted method of modern teaching?

Per the University of Tokyo, it should probably not. Most people might say that technology is more efficient, but volunteers in the study who used paper completed note-taking tasks about 25% faster than those who used digital tablets or smartphones. Paper and pencil was also found to increase stimulation of the cerebellum at a higher rate compared to technology, the part of the brain in charge of retrieval of information. This phenomenon can be easily observed in the college classroom, where some students have already developed their own note-taking methods. 

“I don’t take notes about any specific thing,” says Nick Cheney, a senior at Lewis and Clark University. “I just write down everything that is being said, because it’s not about having information for later, it’s just about remembering what has been said in class. When you write it down, there’s that mechanical connection between hand and brain.”

While many teachers have switched entirely to technology, Math Department Chair Jennifer Smola likes to do it the old fashion way. Specifically in math, the step by step written out steps are integral to knowledge of the material. 

“I still want kids to write it all out,” she said. “Especially since we still have to take AP tests and stuff which you have to write out. It’s a math class. I like to see your work and see where you went wrong.” 

Math lends itself to relying on memorization, and memorizing the steps is greatly helped by paper and pencil. 

However, not all math teachers at MC use the same method as Mrs. Smola. Fellow math teacher Mr. Jack Murphy contends that maybe memorization isn’t the only part of math that is important. 

“You guys get instant feedback on your online homework,” he said. “Last year I’m not even sure that half of the kids were checking their answers in the back of the book. The instant feedback is really nice for people that simply want to get better at math.”

While seeing if an answer is right or wrong instantly is certainly nice, feedback a day later going over the work is nicer. Students need to see those steps and be able to check exactly where it went wrong. The paper and pencil system also lets them personalize their corrections.

Another reason online work has been favored is due to this perception that it is more organized, which is true for certain teachers. 

“I give three homework assignments per week,” said Mr. Murphy. “I teach 125 students. If I give out a homework assignment that is ten questions long, that’s 1,250 questions to grade. So for my own sanity, last year, I said I can’t do that.” 

But for students, learning is much more easily organized and efficiently processed on paper, and most teachers do not grade homework on accuracy. When I want to study for a test, I don’t think I have ever gone online to Math XL or Gizmo or any of the other programs teachers use for online math work. I know I’d spend thirty minutes just trying to find what I’m even studying, and then another ten trying to set up a method to study it. With paper, I just open up my notebook and folder to find what I need, which has never taken me more than five minutes. I then write the pertinent information into one sheet. Not only does writing it down ingrain it into my mind, but I can easily just retrieve any lost information using the sheet. It’s a flawless system that online work seeks to destroy. 

While many students tell teachers how the online versions of the homework teach them so much more, it holds no value. Many are saying that so they can keep cheating in a far less easily detected fashion.

Cheating is a fact of life in high school, and there’s no real way to completely eradicate it. Students will get home and decide not to do forty-five minutes of busywork in favor of finding the answer key on Teachers Pay Teachers. A fact of life, but it can be cut down easily using pencil and paper assignments. 

“I like to have kids write things out in class,” said Mrs. Smola. “If they show me all of their steps I can make sure it’s legit and they’re not just Photomath-ing everything and actually showing me what they’re doing. When it’s online, you just see a final answer.”

When things are online, teachers open themselves up to rampant cheating. There is an easy way to cut down on it as well as improve retention–paper and pencil.

Back before Chromebooks and iPads, students answered questions out of a textbook. Besides the answers in the back of the book which don’t provide the work and steps necessary to get the credit, students had very limited options beside baring down and doing the work, connecting their memory into the mechanics of writing it down in the process. They’d put the assignment in a folder that says “Math” on it, turn it in, get it back a few days later, and return it to the folder for later use. The way it should be. 

It did not used to be normal for students to guess endlessly on MathXL until by some miracle they got it right, and it certainly did not used to be normal for factoring problems to be copy and pasted into ChatGPT. For these reasons, we should all favor and pencil. While it is mainly beneficial for math, and subject that relies on memorization reaps the benefits of it as well.

“It’s just old school,” said Mrs. Smola. “It seems to work well. Going to the board and doing problems.”

Maybe the old school should be new again.