At Anvil City Science Academy, learning goes analog

In Rachel Ventress’ writing class on September 23 at Anvil City Science Academy, middle schoolers pulled papers out of binders and pencils out of cases, along with their thick assignment packets.
“Today, your task is that you complete page 21, the self-review,” she says to the chattering kids. “You are going to make changes on your draft, on your writing, and then record what changes you've made to your writing on page 21.”
The kids are working on a story about a big event in their life. When starting their second drafts, about half the kids in the class pulled out pencils and paper instead of laptops. This is new. Last year, everyone would have been on laptops. Now, the students were typing the second draft of their papers into their computers. “You'll see some people typing, some are handwriting, but they all have a handwritten draft, which is different than how we've ever done it before,” said Ventress.
In past years, students would brainstorm and plan on paper, then switch to computers for drafting. They would make edits to their drafts on computers. This year, every step up to the second draft was done on paper.
The change is a deliberate one. Teachers at Anvil City Science Academy, ACSA for short, noticed that students were easily distracted when using laptops, and they were missing out on valuable skills gleaned from using pen and paper – notetaking, using reference books and picking through texts. Ventress and science teacher Keane Richards spearheaded the change.
Ventress remembers the advent of digital device use in classrooms. First, it was a shared cart of computers that teachers could check out, then an iPad for every kid. With online education aids like Google Classroom, it became the popular thing for teachers to have assignments turned in online and complete classwork on computers.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there was a push to make sure every home had access to the internet, and every student had a device they could use to learn online. “I feel like COVID may be the hammer that cracked the already cracked shell,” Ventress said. It exposed what was already an undercurrent of erosion and learning, and accelerated it, she said.
Richards and Ventress both note that computers are distracting, a sort of “black hole” for a kid’s attention. “When you open up a computer, it can do a million things, right? We're asking you to do maybe one thing on that computer. That can be really difficult for a lot of students,” said Richards.
Principal Ayden Wickman is onboard, too. When students are writing with pen and paper, they go slower, and that purposeful and slow movement increases the brain’s ability to process knowledge. “The research is really clear that this slow, purposeful way of learning increases this brain's ability, especially a developing brain, to retain and work with this new cognitive information that they're gaining,” he said.
Part of the specific reasoning to take the essay process analog was that students did not have enough planning work done when they started typing. Students would get distracted and mess around. “Let's get that those creative juices flowing without the distractions,” she said. “And then when they go to type, they’ll be more focused.”
Once students got to a certain point in the process, Ventress gave them the option to type or handwrite their papers. “I was surprised by how many students declined to even attempt to type when that was an option,” she said.
ACSA’s students had mixed opinions on the change. Willis Breuker said it took more time to handwrite his first drafts. Typing is easier. “I prefer typing more. Also, my handwriting's pretty bad,” he said.
Kourtney Bogart said that she liked that the students were handwriting more. “I feel like it's easier, and I'm not as distracted as when I'm typing,” she said. “It just feels easier when I'm handwriting.”
Max Pardee noted that handwriting helped ideas flow faster. “Whenever I'm typing, I just kind of type it,” he said. “Whenever I'm writing, just stuff starts naturally coming to me faster than looking at a screen while I'm just typing.”
There’s another benefit to handwriting, too. “My handwriting's not the best, and I kind of need to work on that,” he said. “So, I think this is going to be a good opportunity for me to work on my handwriting.”
Lexi Blandford said that she was less distracted when handwriting. Revising was easier this time, too. “Although it's like a longer process, I feel like it's better for our learning because a lot of people need to like work on their handwriting a lot more,” she said. “I feel like this helps us learn better.”
Ventress said that it’s not that the teachers are anti-technology. “It's that we want to be more intentional about how technology is used, why we're using it, and what the benefits that we hope to get out of tech use, and incorporating that into the classroom,” she said.
The analog extends beyond writing essays. Ventress and Richards plan to have students design science fair projects on pen and paper. Richards purchased a set of reference books for his classroom. Ventress got an encyclopedia set.
Every Wednesday, Richards takes his students outside. They collect data and record observations, all in a physical logbook. When they read materials or work on coursework, he tries to have it be on paper as much as possible. There are benefits to this beyond just getting off a laptop – kids can highlight articles and mark them up.
Scientists with lab notebooks and field notes use pen and paper to note down careful observations during experiments or out in the field. “That is really a kind of a lost art and skill with today's generation. We don't need to do that on a computer,” Richards pointed out. “In fact, we're not going to be carrying our computers out there anyway. So why should we prioritize that sort of writing on a computer?”
ACSA is a tech-focused school, but Richards said it’s important to remember that technology and screens are not the same thing. Students might log scientific observations in a spreadsheet on a computer, but technology extends beyond that. Trail cameras, permafrost probes and other tools for scientific inquiry are all forms of technology that are vital parts of the scientific process, and they’re forms of technology Richards wants his students to be comfortable using.

Richards said it isn’t necessary to teach kids how to access the internet. “Trust me, they know how to get to Google Classroom. They can access a website,” he said. “We do not need to worry about those skills with today's generation. I think we need to scale it back the other direction.”
After the pandemic, there was a dramatic decrease in student focus and performance. Part of that, Richard thinks, is that students were online and weren’t able to access the kinds of learning they would have had in the classroom. There was no in person one-on-one instruction, no writing by hand, students weren’t reading physical books. “It was pretty obvious when, after the pandemic, students arrived back into the classroom that we just had a tremendous amount of work to do,” he said.
Navigating online spaces has become harder as the available information to sift through online grows. “I would say certainly literacy has declined sharply, and our ability to pick through what is true and what is not true it just so much harder now because there's so much information,” said Richards. “As a teacher, we're trying to teach those sort of skills.”
He listed off a list of questions he wants students to be able to answer: “When we're researching, how do we find information? How do we verify that that information is true or weigh the claims that are in there? How do you know? How do we collect evidence?”
It’s not that technology or even the use of laptops is all bad, but Richards said it has to be used in accordance with the educational institution’s goals. “In education, what are we trying to accomplish, and how do we get there? And if we are merely using electronics just because, then I think we need to step away from that and refocus in on what forms of technology are really going to accomplish that goal,” Richards said.