I can very well imagine note-taking helps with memorization, but I can't imagine that it helps with concepts, with connection the dots. Your mind has to be able to wander freely for that, when you are busy writing you have to concentrate on that particular task, which is the opposite of a freely roaming mind ready to explore ideas and connections. Just my theory, and I'm certainly biased, since I'm someone who very rarely wrote anything down at university At school we had to, and looking back the results I got from that education support my theory. I never had any trouble at school, but getting good grades and actually caring about the knowledge and connecting it all in my head didn't happen - only now, decades later, when I discovered online learning and took over 70 courses by now am I able to connect it all in a meaningful way. No, I certainly don't have a good opinion about note-taking as a basis for gaining knowledge. The results are too narrow, I think.

What I found that helps - which unfortunately doesn't scale very well given how much students have to learn in a given time - is to teach others. Become a TA. Answer other people's questions, explain stuff. It may be an individual thing, I always work better that way in all parts of life - doing things other people need, I don't have a lot of questions myself and I do much better under this system.