I really don’t see the point in going at times. Yes, I get introduced to concepts and the professor can elaborate. Yes, the professor can clarify what is and isn’t important for an upcoming exam.
But I feel like I don’t learn anything. I try to pay attention and engage myself in the lecture, but the nature of a lecture demands that a professor goes very quickly – too quick for me to process anything that the professor says, let alone what the slides themselves are trying to teach. And I feel like the professor and his/her own slides are competing for my attention: just as the professor is elaborating on a slide, I’m too caught up in trying to make sense of the slide itself. I’m not a very auditory learner. I much prefer what’s written or shown visually over something spoken because then I have the time to fully process the information. But the professor can even talk so quickly that I don’t even get that advantage. And I certainly don’t want to record lectures only to listen to them again and pause every 15 seconds to understand what he/she just said. I already suffered through 50/75 minutes doing the same thing, and I don’t wanna waste more time by trying to listen to it again.
So how in the world can I make the most of a large lecture? I get bored out of my mind and I feel much more inclined to just skip and learn everything by myself. The only problem with that strategy is that sometimes the slides don’t make sense themselves, and supplementing the slides with the textbook can be such a major hassle, especially when the textbook is painfully dense.
Read the chapter and slides (if available) before the lecture. Use the lecture to answer questions you have on the material and to (hopefully) identify what the professor thinks is important from the chapter.
Also, in addition to what others have said, there might be subjects that are covered in lectures and NOT readings and vice-versa. I found that quite evident in this history course I’m taking, which is yes, a huge lecture hall.
I feel you. I actually never go to lectures anymore unless it’s a class where the professor does iClicker quizzes for points. I find that I do better just reading the textbook by myself. However if you feel like you have to go to lectures, I definitely second anyone that says to read the textbook beforehand. It really does help you to retain information better.
Try to just type the things that seem the most important.
It’s good to go to lectures, in case the professor covers things that aren’t in the readings.
Is it one particular class that is causing you difficulty or is it all large classes you’ve taken?
I second the suggestion that you review the slides beforehand (if possible) or simply focus on the professor and not the slides themselves. Unless the slides are “fill-in-the-blank,” you aren’t expected to comprehend a wall of text or bullet points in under a few minutes. For me personally, I hardly ever give more than a quick glance over to the slides during the lecture, while 98% of my attention is on the professor. When I write something down, it is only because the professor put special emphasis on it or it clarifies a concept for me that wasn’t clear in the text. I don’t try to write down everything he mentions.
It is true that you could teach yourself the material by reading the book and obtaining the slides, but the role of the professor is to help you because learning by yourself is difficult. And there may be examples discussed in class that are not in the slides.
Have you thought about sitting closer to the front?
Sometimes if I feel too spaced out to pay attention, I record the lecture instead and listen to it later while viewing the slides. It’s nice because I can skip to the stuff I need to focus on and ignore what’s already clear. It’s also helpful for exam review if the information from the textbook is incomplete. If you don’t have a recording device, you can try a phone app.
*And I feel like the professor and his/her own slides are competing for my attention: just as the professor is elaborating on a slide, I’m too caught up in trying to make sense of the slide itself. *
Sounds like your professor’s slides are terrible!
-I’m also a visual learner myself. If the professor is letting you record the lectures, one solution is to record them and kind of tune out what the professor is saying, while paying attention to his slides. Then go back and listen to certain points that aren’t clear for you. Visit office hours if you still don’t understand it. (One thing that could help is a Livescribe pen. It allows you to take notes while it records the lecture, but you use special paper. You can press the pen down near a specific note, and the pen will play back what the lecturer was saying when you took that specific note. Helpful! You can now sync a Livescribe pen with Evernote - it’ll transcribe your notes electronically so you can refer to them on your computer!)
-Have you considered visiting the professor during office hours and letting him know he’s moving a bit too fast? The nature of a lecture doesn’t necessarily demand that the professor go quickly; there are definitely ways to incorporate student feedback and exchange even in a big class. You don’t have to be that direct, but you can mention it in passing - “I’m sorry, I had kind of a problem understanding X - we moved through it so quickly, I missed a major concept.” I appreciated that feedback from my students. (Sometimes I have a tendency to fly through things when I get excited.)
-Sit in the front and ask questions if you need to. Sitting in the front can increase your engagement and lower the probability of distractions (especially if your classmates are online shopping and Facebooking).
In response to recording the lectures…I really HATE doing that. Because that means I have to go back at the end of the day and listen for at least 1 hour to a lecture that I already went to. I’m NOT a great listener, tbh. Sitting down and listening in ANY form for an extended period of time – be it in a lecture or in my room listening to a recorded lecture – bores the heck out of me. I tried sitting in the front, and it makes no difference.
Typing doesn’t help either, because no matter how quickly you type, you will always be able to speak words faster than you can type them. And when I try to type, I’m always worried that I might have misspelled something in my haste and typing makes me focus on the words themselves rather than what they mean.
And about rewriting my notes afterwards…that is WAYY too time consuming. I’m usually done by around 8 pm every weeknight after classes, EC’s, and student jobs. I’m not trying to be stubborn and throw out everyone’s advice, but there truly must be SOMETHING to help me learn more efficiently. Reading beforehand sounds like the idea that’s winning right now, but that’s assuming that I have time to do it after finishing all of the current days’ assignments and whatnot.
It sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate! If you find that you’re having trouble keeping up with your classes, you might want to consider dropping some of your EC’s or student jobs.
The fact of the matter is that lectures aren’t necessarily designed for students to have time to learn and process all of the material during the lecture period. As you’ve rightly pointed out, in most classes, it’ll be too much material covered too quickly for you to really learn it during class. That’s why you have to study outside of class to help you learn the material. How you do that is really up to you. You can read the textbook, you can go through your notes again, you can go through the slides, you can ask your TAs and professor for help, etc. You’ll HAVE to do work outside of the lecture time in order to fully understand the material, and if you’re having trouble finding time to do that, then perhaps you should try letting some extra activities go temporarily so that you can focus on your schoolwork.
As for how to make the most out of your lecture time, it really just depends on how well you learn. Try different things to see what works for you. I’m not an auditory learner, so I would type notes during class when the professor is lecturing. I understand that you may not be able to type as fast as someone speaks, but you’re not trying to get their lecture down verbatim. You’re just trying to get enough down that you can remember what the professor was saying. Write down key points or key ideas or key phrases. As for worrying about spelling things wrong, well, I just wouldn’t care. The beauty about typing is that you can go back, figure out the correct spelling, and change it as if nothing happened. That’s really not that big of a deal. Then when I was studying, I would go through my notes and the slides to help solidify the material. A lot of times I’d edit my notes to make sense of them because sometimes they are really rough if there was something I was trying to write down but didn’t really understand. If there was something that still didn’t make sense after reading the slides and going to the lecture, then I would look it up online or read that section of the textbook or ask the professor/TA. You can also do the same with handwritten notes, if you prefer them. You just have to be a bit savvier about what you write down because you can’t write as fast as you type. Basically, I would write down the idea of what the professor was saying, and then I would process it later. Focus on what the professor is saying, not what the slide says. You can read the slides later. The point of lecture is to get what the professor is saying.
Are slides available before the lecture? That can be helpful for you to read beforehand and/or take notes directly on the slides. If they are not available, you can ask the professor if it would be possible to make them available. Perhaps, you could also discuss with your professor strategies for you to make better use of the lecture time, if you’re having trouble benefiting from them.
The point of recording lectures, in my opinion, is not to re-listen to the lecture from beginning to end. The point is to use the lecture as an additional reference. When you’re studying and going through your notes/slides/textbook, if there’s something you really don’t understand, then I would go back and listen to that part of the lecture specifically.
But, really, there are some lectures that you really don’t have to go to. It’s okay to skip lecture if you’re not getting anything out of it, but you always risk missing something so I wouldn’t recommend it until you’re confident in how you learn best and in how beneficial or not beneficial the lecture is.