How to approach watching lectures

[ElJanitor]

Hey guys, so I've been perusing this forum as to the best way to watch lectures. I've realized that it takes me too much time to watch a 1-2 hour lecture, not leaving me with enough time during the day to revisit my notes.

During the lecture, I take very detailed notes, almost to the point of transcribing what the lecturer is saying. Only reason for this is that the lecture slides don't always include the extra information my lecturer talks about.

In some classes, especially Anatomy, the lecture slides will have only pictures or a couple of bullet points of info, but there will be mechanisms/relationships/pathways that aren't on the slides. This forces me to keep pausing and rewinding.

So I was wondering if you had any tips/methods to approach watching lectures?

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[OnePunchBiopsy]

1.) Don't go to in-class lectures (unless they REALLY help you)

2.) Watch them online at a speed that is comfortable for you. Some lecturers speak very slow and warrant the 2.5x speed, but many at my school are good at 1.8-2.0x

3.) Distill the lecture into a format that is easiest for you to review for the exam. Notecards, flow-charts, Anki, whatever. These notes will be your primary source to study for the exam, so there should be no need to look at the lecture again or re-refine these notes further.

4.) Review. Do this with your lecture notes, drawing on a whiteboard, going through notecards, or doing practice questions. For me notecards were always best for topics that I needed to cram, and questions were best for long-term retention.

5.) Take breaks. I always gave myself 1 day/week of doing nothing and this really helped during Step 1 prep.

 

[sholamd]

Pre-read.
Learn about the topic using your school's written materials or resources you find independently. The lecture should be reinforcing material you already are familiar with - this makes the lecture work for you, rather than you scrambling to learn new material at a breakneck pace during the hour. Check out my podcast on Cardiac Murmurs - I go through exactly what you should be doing before lecture and how you should be using lecture to maximize efficiency. I think this will help you a lot.

 

[Redpancreas]

1.) Don't go to in-class lectures (unless they REALLY help you)

2.) Watch them online at a speed that is comfortable for you. Some lecturers speak very slow and warrant the 2.5x speed, but many at my school are good at 1.8-2.0x

3.) Distill the lecture into a format that is easiest for you to review for the exam. Notecards, flow-charts, Anki, whatever. These notes will be your primary source to study for the exam, so there should be no need to look at the lecture again or re-refine these notes further.

4.) Review. Do this with your lecture notes, drawing on a whiteboard, going through notecards, or doing practice questions. For me notecards were always best for topics that I needed to cram, and questions were best for long-term retention.

5.) Take breaks. I always gave myself 1 day/week of doing nothing and this really helped during Step 1 prep.

You always give great thoughtful advice, just disagree with point #3. I used to do that but medical school exams are so broad and detailed that my using my own transcription even with a low led error rate would still be inefficient for an exam.

OP, I think it's complete BS if you're school doesn't offer comprehensive notes. Are you sure what you're writing down is 100% necessary for exams? Anatomy is mainly origin, insertion, action, supply, and relationships all of which can be can be arranged in a non-prose form that may look like incomplete notes.

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[cbrons]

Dont ever go to in class lectures. If your school tests off an NBME qbank, you dont even need to watch your schools lectures or read their (probably terrible) notes. Just get the highest quality online lectures and books and review the subject yourself. Far more efficient and youll do better than your peers.

Only prob is if the school tests you on a bunch of pointless factoid garbage from their powerpoints.

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[IslandStyle808]

Dont ever go to in class lectures. If your school tests off an NBME qbank, you dont even need to watch your schools lectures or read their (probably terrible) notes. Just get the highest quality online lectures and books and review the subject yourself. Far more efficient and youll do better than your peers.

Only prob is if the school tests you on a bunch of pointless factoid garbage from their powerpoints.

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My last few tests were like this so I had to focus on their powerpoints. A lot of 1st order BS, with just a slight change of wording for the correct answer than what was taught in class to make it seem like 2nd order...

 

[ElJanitor]

You always give great thoughtful advice, just disagree with point #3. I used to do that but medical school exams are so broad and detailed that my using my own transcription even with a low led error rate would still be inefficient for an exam.

OP, I think it's complete BS if you're school doesn't offer comprehensive notes. Are you sure what you're writing down is 100% necessary for exams? Anatomy is mainly origin, insertion, action, supply, and relationships all of which can be can be arranged in a non-prose form that may look like incomplete notes.

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Yeah, it's such a time drain just to transcribe what the lecturer says. I'm actually not sure if what I'm writing down is completely necessary since it's the first time our class has had this lecturer.

 

[ElJanitor]

1.) Don't go to in-class lectures (unless they REALLY help you)

2.) Watch them online at a speed that is comfortable for you. Some lecturers speak very slow and warrant the 2.5x speed, but many at my school are good at 1.8-2.0x

3.) Distill the lecture into a format that is easiest for you to review for the exam. Notecards, flow-charts, Anki, whatever. These notes will be your primary source to study for the exam, so there should be no need to look at the lecture again or re-refine these notes further.

4.) Review. Do this with your lecture notes, drawing on a whiteboard, going through notecards, or doing practice questions. For me notecards were always best for topics that I needed to cram, and questions were best for long-term retention.

5.) Take breaks. I always gave myself 1 day/week of doing nothing and this really helped during Step 1 prep.

Thank you for your reply!

 

[Lola Thomas]

Hey I used to transcribe every word in certain lectures like anatomy and physiology because otherwise I would come back and not understand a diagram without the words. I would have the same problem where I would not be able to review the same material later. I then learned that since I type pretty fast or at an okay speed, I could attend the anatomy lectures in person and that would make it so I definitely finished that lecture in 50 min. For the physiology lectures, our school allows us to view last years class lectures so I would watch those ahead of time and thus I would not be behind. Unfortunately, that resource may not be available to you.