My argument on why the conventional wisdom on notetaking particularly during lectures is wrong.

00:00 Introduction
1:25 Does the writing process help us remember what we heard?
1:44 Does reviewing notes later help us remember?
2:07 The missing piece.
2:55 An alternative method.
3:56 Is taking verbatim notes useful?
5:02 On paying attention to the right things.
5:46 Taking notes during vs after a lecture
6:46 My recommended practice

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References:

A lot of the recent research on notetaking has been on whether taking handwritten notes or laptop notes are superior. The evidence for one being better than the other is a bit "meh". As mentioned, the idea that "verbatim notes are bad" seems less true for laptop notetakers.

The opening quote comes from:

Flanigan, A. E., & Titsworth, S. (2020). The impact of digital distraction on lecture note taking and student learning. Instructional Science, 48(5), 495524. https://bit.ly/3RiWQWE

The second quote comes from:

Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for notetaking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), 753780. https://bit.ly/3CYdgzf

Experiment 2, here, is also the one that I relate where "no notetaking" performed just as well as any of the notetaking conditions on immediate tests. It's unclear to me why they didn't also use a delayed measure with the no notetaking group. Also, looking at tables 3 and 4, you can see that if students took notes on material germane to the test, then they did well (my second concluding point).

Another recent piece is here:

Luo, L., Kiewra, K. A., Flanigan, A. E., & Peteranetz, M. S. (2018). Laptop versus longhand note taking: effects on lecture notes and achievement. Instructional Science, 46(6), 947971. https://bit.ly/3Qw24xb.

The introduction is a fair summary of the mixed evidence on the encoding hypothesis. Unfortunately, they only used immediate tests here, but there's some interesting material on the relative benefits of handwritten vs laptop notes.

Below is a more direct test of my suggested approach. The results? Notetaking beats testing on immediate tests, but in two weeks testing wins. Testing even beats notetaking + review, suggesting that the storage function of notes is not particularly strong.

Rummer, R., Schweppe, J., Gerst, K., & Wagner, S. (2017). Is testing a more effective learning strategy than notetaking?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23(3), 293. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?do...

And here is another that finds no difference, even though students who took notes during the lecture took more relevant notes than those who took notes after the lecture.

Haynes, J. M., McCarley, N. G., & Williams, J. L. (2015). An analysis of notes taken during and after a lecture presentation. North American Journal of Psychology, 17(1). https://bit.ly/3CUqAEL

And another old piece, same thing, no difference (only the measures weren't great).

Eisner, S., & Rohde, K. (1959). Note taking during or after the lecture. Journal of Educational Psychology, 50(6), 301–304. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/20051...

Certainly students seem to believe that notetaking during lectures improves learning outcomes:

Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Blasiman, R., & Hollis, R. B. (2019). Notetaking habits of 21st century college students: implications for student learning, memory, and achievement. Memory, 27(6), 807819. https://bit.ly/3cKGVBg

On the superiority of free recall / retrieval practice / testing, over restudy, see:

Roediger III, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on psychological science, 1(3), 181210. https://linguistics.ucla.edu/people/h...

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. science, 319(5865), 966968. http://psychnet.wustl.edu/memory/wpc...

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2007). Repeated retrieval during learning is the key to longterm retention. Journal of memory and language, 57(2), 151162. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...