At the start of this semester, I bought my students $1 notebooks from Amazon. Instead of submitting typed papers online, they are journaling by hand<\/a> to analyze what they’re reading.<\/p>\n My no-tech classroom predates the AI acceleration<\/p>\n Around six years ago, I told my students that laptops and tablets weren’t allowed in my class, unless they had an accommodation from the university.<\/p>\n I was seeing lots of students distracted by the screens<\/a> in front of them \u2014 messages, links, emails, and notifications were popping up, taking them elsewhere mentally.<\/p>\n I handed one of these notebooks to each of my students.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Ay\u015fe Baltac\u0131o\u011flu-Brammer<\/p>\n I realized that having no laptops in the classroom was making a huge difference. My students were finally paying attention.<\/p>\n The feedback was positive too. In anonymous comments from students evaluating the course, I’ve had numerous responses along the lines of: ‘I actually hated that we weren’t going to have laptops. But now I’m glad the professor actually did that. It was way more engaging not to have technology in the class.’<\/p>\n AI was messing with online submissions<\/p>\n Before the notebooks, I would normally have two or three primary-source assignments where students had to analyze a historical source and upload it as a Word document or PDF.<\/p>\n However, anxiety about whether my students were using AI to write their assignments<\/a> was creating a trust problem in my classroom.<\/p>\n I didn’t want to approach my students with that sense of suspicion all the time. After all, maybe they hadn’t used AI.<\/p>\n So I thought: How can I bring back that trust between my students and I? <\/p>\n I was inspired by a colleague at NYU who was providing notebooks to his students in class.<\/p>\n After all, if they write by hand, then I’m not going to be as worried about whether they are using AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even if a couple of students feed the questions to the AI and then write the generated answers by hand, that’s a win for me \u2014 they are still spending much more time thinking and writing.<\/p>\n They are more authentic<\/p>\n So far, the notebooks are going well \u2014 I’ve not received any negative comments. I can clearly see that the answers are more authentic<\/a> \u2014 I see scribbles and crossed-out words, and attempts to replace them with better ones.<\/p>\n There are also more misspellings. I’ve had some cases where I’ve really had to scratch my head to decipher what they’ve written. But I would say 90% have been a joy to read so far.<\/p>\n My students’ thought processes can be seen through crossed-out words.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Ay\u015fe Baltac\u0131o\u011flu-Brammer<\/p>\n The switch to the notebooks has added about 2 hours to my workweek, but it’s meant I’m having much more fun with my students. Two students asked if they could decorate the front page<\/a>, and I’ve suggested we could even have an art contest at some point.<\/p>\n Many people have found the notebooks inspiring \u2014 one post I shared about them on X received over 11,000 likes.<\/p>\n Several colleagues have said they’re inspired to try implementing them as well. Others are worried about the class size and having to decipher different types of handwriting.<\/p>\n AI has democratized cheating<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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