How important is the act of writing his own script for the learning outcome?

Question

There are several styles of delivering a lecture:

• The lecturer uses the blackboard and the students write their own lecture notes.
• The lecturer uses the blackboard and also provide a script so that the students are not forced to create their own script (but they can when they wish).
• The lecturer uses a slide show and uploads it to his homepage. In those lectures the student normally doesn't create his own script.

Each lecture style differs in the question, whether the students have the possibility to write their own script or whether they are forced to do so. How do those ways to lecture influence the learning outcome?

To make my question concrete: Is there any research investigating how important the act of writing his own script during the lecture is for the learning outcome? Is it advisable to give the students the possibility to write their own lecture notes or should they forced to do so?

Answer 1

In the following I will try to answer the question asked in the headline and to provide support that is equally applicable to all three styles distinguished in the question.

Based on my own experience as a student as well as during a lifetime as a teacher (mathematics and mathematical sciences) I have become convinced that writing is an important tool to digest learnt contents and to fix it in the memory. This may not concern every student but certainly more than 80 %. In order to stimulate this behaviour I have allowed my students to use one page as a crib during exam. And I have told them in the first lesson about this chance to gain an advantage. The only condition: The sheet must be originally handwritten by the student herself.

The optimal result is this. The student will write much of the stuff immediately after the lesson. During the semester he will have to drop more and more because of limited space. Therefore she will repeat to write the most important and most difficult things again and again. In addition this method is also practically relevant because also in their later professional life the students will be allowed to consult literature.

EDIT

It is common wisdom that writing supports memorizing. But there are also written sources supporting this standpoint. Google shows about 10 million hits for memorizing by writing like those given below:

• The very act of writing things down helps to get them lodged into your long-term, ... Memorizing facts for tests by writing them out several times.

• Memorize abstracts. If you're memorizing abstractions, such as the value of pi, write down the individual numbers or steps on each flash card. Then personalize ...