Psychology professor Betsy Levy Paluck talks about teaching a class in which she reads to her students who have no technology, just a notebook to take notes. The book, about the social psychology of normalization, can help them to think about what is currently "normal" in their college experience and how they'd like to change it. Episodes are about social norms, attention, memory, focus, note taking, and teaching.
A conversation with Mike Rohde of Rohdesign and the author of the Sketchbook Handbook about how your listening and understanding is enhanced by sketchnoting (a "a mix of handwriting, drawings, hand-lettering, shapes, and visual elements like arrows, boxes, and lines" --Mike Rohde). We talk about sketchnoting, the why and the how, and about Mike's live sketchnote during my class while students tried out their own sketchnotes. by Betsy Levy Paluck
00:00 Introduction01:49 Mike Rohde 03:00 The Sketchnote Handbook03:27 Listening is key to sketchnoting05:14 What is sketchnoting10:33 Sketchnoting disciplines your mind11:16 AI and notetaking13:15 This week's chapter19:00 Student engagement24:20 Reviewing notes and meta-notes27:33 Sketching improves collaboration31:40 Experimenting with grace
20 Sept 2026
The economics and psychology of attention: Can you look at art for 30 minutes?
Dan Connolly, an economist and psychologist, and my head teaching assistant, joins me to talk about ATTENTION. We discuss its psychological and economic principles and describe a 30 minute challenge at the Princeton Art Museum that we hoped would demonstrate to our students some of the properties of attention and would develop their understanding for and enjoyment of their own attentional capacity.
20 Sept 2026
Blindfolds, some rope, and a listening exercise
Recap of today's listening exercise in our discussion section: the blindfolded walk. With some debriefing on the experience of the first class's tech-free reading. by Betsy Levy Paluck
20 Sept 2026
Field Notes on the First Day of Class
Betsy Levy Paluck recaps the first day of her university class in which she reads to her students and they listen with nothing but a notebook and pen.
20 Sept 2026
The performance of teaching, and teachers as performers
Guest Yuval Boim, actor and performance coach, talks with Professor Betsy Levy Paluck about techniques for teaching and giving talks that hold an audience's attention, invite engagement and feel more like a conversation--even when you are reading from a text. Notes on managing nerves, arranging the space of a classroom, and checking in with the students/audience.
20 Sept 2026
The tools for writing notes: School supplies edition
Choosing notebooks and pens that make you want to take notes by hand, the value of keeping your notebooks, considerations of accessibility in classrooms using handwriting and no technology. by Betsy Levy Paluck
20 Sept 2026
Why am I reading to my college students?
Professor Betsy Levy Paluck explains her class experiment, in which students use no technology but a notebook and pen while she reads them her book-in-progress on the social science of normalization.
20 Sept 2026
An Experiment on social gravity
Intro to show: Betsy Levy Paluck is a social psychologist studying normalization and how to change social norms, described in her forthcoming book Social Gravity. This fall, Betsy is teaching a very non-normal class, based on her book. Students put all technology away and sit with a notebook and pen while she reads her book manuscript to them. Is this a good idea? A bad idea? More importantly, how can a psychologist help students to develop their attention span, their focus, note-taking, and listening skills to thrive in this class and to complete it by proposing their own ideas for changing what is normal in their college classrooms? This channel chronicles this classroom experiment: Field Notes on Social Gravity.
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