I did a survey of my classmates' study habits in medical school. Two of the habits most strongly associated with good performance were taking hand-written notes

I did a survey of my classmates' study habits in medical school. Two of the habits most strongly associated with good performance were taking hand-written notes and reviewing them. The worst habit was typing in class. I heard Clay Shirky has even banned screens in his lectures because he found a "second hand smoking" effect: the person next to the person with the laptop had poorer performance. I think a major part of handwritten notes is that it does force you to select what you're actually going to write down, and that is an inherently synthetic activity. Synthetic activities lead to more effective memory formation.