The “Silent Teacher”: Learning by teaching via writing a verbatim teaching script

Learning by teaching others is a potent educational strategy, but its implementation is typically cumbersome. This study (N = 108) investigated “silent teaching”—writing a verbatim teaching script—as a convenient approach for independent learning, while assessing whether the teaching benefit is a production benefit. Learners studied a science text on the Doppler effect using one of three learning methods: (1) generating and studying their own notes (restudying control), (2) preparing to teach and then verbally teaching (verbal teaching), or (3) preparing to teach and then writing a verbatim teaching script (silent teaching). On a conceptual knowledge retention test 1 week later, participants who wrote teaching scripts performed as well as those who taught verbally; both teaching groups outperformed control learners. Verbal and silent teaching significantly increased social presence and elaboration to comparable extents, relative to restudying. “Silent teaching” is a promising and efficient alternative learning approach to traditional verbal teaching.