Very interesting. As a teacher I don't actually think taking notes is as useful for students as we or they like to think. The old definition of teaching was a process by which the notes of the teacher were transferred to the notebooks of the student without passing through the head of either party. Although notes are obviously useful as an aid-memoire, I contend that it's far more more useful for students to concentrate on what I am saying, and the classroom discussions and so on. They need to be proactively listening, which is hard, perhaps impossible, to do while worrying about whether you're recording what the teacher has said accurately.

As a teacher I give out summary handouts so that students can concentrate and take an active part in the lesson. When I taught in schools, I would do the same, but also encourage students to develop their own shorthand if they felt they would need a reminder.

I realise I am (as usual) in a minority of one here, but I think note-taking in lectures or lessons is a form of distraction and, if the lesson is constructed properly, supported by resources, ought to be completely unnecessary.

So there!