Comment on College core: you sit in the class for attendance then go home and teach yourself
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 15 hours agoThat’s pretty in line with what I’ve read of cognitive science research around learning from lectures.
Though it’s not actually necessary to teach yourself first, at least not fully. The important part is to sandwich things together. You can get a lot of the benefits with just half an hour before and after a lecture.
The short version of it is:
- Before the lecture, write down what you already know about the topic of the lecture, and what you don’t understand. I can’t remember as much about this part, though, to be honest.
- In the lecture, don’t take notes, except perhaps extremely brief notes such as a reference that you want to look up later (i.e. if the lecturer references a particular paper verbally that isn’t on the slides). Focus on engaged listening rather than taking notes (and if you’re neurodivergent, “engaged listening” may involve doing something with your hands, such as crochet or fidget toys)
- The big one is that after the lecture, without looking at notes or your books, you should try to write down as much as you can remember from the lecture, as a free recall test. After you’ve done this, you can look up anything you couldn’t remember.
Though I should note that there isn’t a consensus on the best way to learn. There are some broad themes that research agrees on though. It does seem pretty close to consensus that splitting your learning up into multiple stages is best, and that free recall exercises like this are super powerful. A lot of the specifics are up for debate though