Writing Notes by Hand for Better Processing
When teachers regularly pause during lectures so students can synthesize their thoughts with handwritten notes, content is more likely to stick.
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Go to My Saved Content.In many classrooms, lectures move quickly, leaving little time for students to digest new information. At Cedaredge High School in Delta, Colorado, social studies teacher Dante Markley builds in intentional pauses so his 10th-grade students can stop, think, and make sense of what they’re learning by processing their thoughts in handwritten notes.
He calls this strategy Stop and Think. As Markley introduces new content—like a lesson on labor issues during the Gilded Age—he pauses at key moments to highlight the most important ideas. He then poses one to three questions and asks students to respond in writing. Rather than moving on right away, students take time to think, organize their ideas, and write their responses in their notebooks.
These pauses happen throughout the lesson, giving students regular opportunities to process information while it’s still fresh. Once they finish writing, students signal they’re ready and may turn to a partner to discuss their thinking before continuing.
Handwriting is a key part of this process. As students write, they are doing more than recording information—they are shaping their understanding. Applied science of learning expert Jim Heal of Learning Science Partners explains that writing things down requires students to decide what matters most, organize their ideas, and connect new information to what they already know. “The act of writing is, in and of itself, an act of thinking,” he says.
A 2025 study showed that handwriting activates a broader network of neural circuits than typing does, and it engages multiple modes of processing: motor, sensory, and cognitive. But it’s most effective when students must synthesize their thinking as they take handwritten notes, not just copy down verbatim what the teacher is saying—so the intentional pauses are key.
For Markley, the impact is clear: “Typically, on the areas that they’ve written it down, we have much higher retention.”
By building in time to pause and write, Markley helps students engage more deeply with content as they learn it. In his classroom, writing is more than a note-taking tool—it has become a way for students to process, understand, and remember new ideas.
To find more strategies to help students take better notes, read John Rich’s article for Edutopia, “6 Strategies for Taking High-Quality Notes.”
This video is part of our How Learning Happens series, which explores teaching practices grounded in the science of learning and human development.