This is why a flipped classroom approach (homework before you go to class) makes more sense--not only because you can ask questions, but because it preps students for higher education where they should be reading and testing themselves before a lecture.
I agree. My anatomy and physiology classes were flipped classes. The video lecture was sent to us to watch before class. Every class started with a quiz that we reviewed after the time was up. Then we had an entire class conversation on an important topic. Or we might have to use what we learned to answer a particular situation that would not have been in the lecture but that we should be able to solve if we understand the topic. Finally, any left over time in class was used as free office hours where we could just ask questions to the professor or classmates. I learned sooooo much and more importantly, I learned how to study
Yeah it depends, for example I had a math teacher that did this but instead she would give us homework on new material but didn't give us any notes or instrucitons on how to do it, not even a textbook.
went back to school at an older age. From my previous experience, I've been studying hard before the class. So in the lecture, I can just ask the teacher what i didn't understand and use it more as a consultation period. That way by exam period, I basically understood all the hard concepts and how to solve each type of problem, it was just a matter of practicing a little and reviewing. And you actually naturally pay more attention when you can understand what the teacher is saying Basically gotten 1.0 (or I think it's equivalent to 4.0 in the west) for every technical engineering subject so far (differential equations, circuits etc..)
I tried lecturing for years. As students' sources of distraction multiplied, it became painful and ineffective. We didn't have enough time to cover both qualitative and quantitatve concepts when they couldnt understand the quant stuff until they had a basic enough understanding of the qualitative and hadn't prepared for class. So now I teach via flipped classroom. The only way to get the majority of the class to prepare is to assign points for the prep work and then also have points earned in class for having prepped. In addition to going through practice problems, we have time for a variety of activities that reinforce the most challenging of the concepts. This is my second semester of complete flip, and my in person class this semester is doing statistically significantly better than my online async class. It doesn't have the same interaction and activities, now the challenge is how to build in more active learning and learning challenges to the online course.
Interesting - glad you've found some success with the flipped class. I think online async is hard - it's hard to build a learning community online, especially in a single semester.
- Reflect on personal learning process (0:00) - Understand the limitations of lectures (0:53) - Prepare before attending lectures (2:58) - Actively engage and pay attention during lectures (9:07) - Review and synthesize lecture material afterward (13:42) - Use various methods for effective review (15:48) - Apply concepts to homework as part of review (20:00) - Consistency in preparation and review pays off (21:40)
i feel frustrated. I feel like i know so much about studying better and help ypurself with studying by knowing why it works for your brain! but i am still struggling in college! I know i have to read a chapter in a engaging way, i know i should not feel frustrated when i make a mistake, but i still strugle in aplying all of this knoledge anyway, this is a vent, your channel is so good, love it
It's a perfectly normal feeling to have. I'm probably telling you something you already know, but knowing about something is different than being able to do something. You're building a skill. When you get the feeling of "I know all this stuff but I don't seem to be improving!" it could be a sign to spend more time trying things out, reflecting, and iterating. It's a process. Be patient with yourself. And.... also vent. : )
wow you answered me!! thats so cool! I'll definitely remember that benjamin. To be honest, I'm feeling a change alredy. Hope to make better improvements in my holidays here in brazil. Lots of good vibes for you and thankyou! S2@@benjaminkeep
14:55 YES! Im not the only crazy one!!! I started with singing and than i realized improved my english, than i progressed with saying videos (like yours) and than to my own explanations of stuff (there's more to it). I did this all around the house and while doing the dishes etc, and took care to practice correctly.
I think lectures are the best when they sync up with your own progress, like when the lecturer predicts address a question the exact moment your brain comes up with that question. Most of the time however, I find just reading slides and reading other classmates’ questions + test questions the fastest way to acquire the full picture.
Ur classmates actually give you questions and answers? Wow 😲 my classmates are just jealous of each other and are competing with each other and are selfish
I really do appreciate the edits and acting that goes into this video. It’s something that’s easy to take in stride as a viewer, but I understand that it’s a lot of effort from the production side! Effort very much appreciative, it really helps makes the video engaging and you get your points across clearly :)
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🤔 *Understanding Lecture Learning* - Learning from lectures is a process involving preparation, the lecture itself, and review. - The quality of a lecture alone doesn't significantly impact learning outcomes; preparation and review play crucial roles. - Lecture popularity in higher education is more tied to tradition and economic factors than proven efficacy. 02:56 📚 *Lecture Preparation Strategies* - Preparation is essential before a lecture to enhance understanding during the session. - Examples for different disciplines: researching new concepts in advance for technical subjects, reading and reflecting on assigned materials for humanities. - The goal of preparation is to reduce cognitive load during the lecture, provide a foundation for new information, and facilitate better organization of ideas. 10:02 🧠 *Effective Lecture Attention Strategies* - Paying attention involves more than appearing attentive; it's about engaging with the material. - Strategies include removing distractions, note-taking for synthesis, and focusing on links between examples and concepts. - Lecture attention drops after 10-20 minutes; online lectures offer advantages in controlling the pace and revisiting content. 13:40 🔄 *Importance of Post-Lecture Review* - Reviewing lecture content is crucial for solidifying understanding and connecting conceptual and procedural knowledge. - Methods include free recall exercises, explaining concepts to oneself or others, and testing with practice questions. - Reviewing should ideally occur relatively soon after the lecture to reinforce learning and create connections between different parts of the material. 21:22 📖 *Tailoring Strategies to Personal Learning* - Adjusting lecture learning strategies based on personal preferences, prior knowledge, and available resources. - The importance of balancing preview and review efforts, even in small increments, to yield long-term benefits. - Emphasizing that early engagement with fundamentals pays off over the course of a semester. Made with HARPA AI
It applies not only the lectures of course. If you have a problem you want to solve and you look for info about it then try to do it, that basically is the same thing. The disconnect is that people often to don't attend lectures to learn something, they just go because that's what's expected or they believe it will work toward another, semantically unrelated goal, like getting a good paying job. It's very hard for our education system to avoid that, but for everyone who continues pushing themselves to learn in adulthood it is a paradigm shift that you only learn things relevant to your career, needs and interests, nothing is just abstract information they may or may not come up in an artificial test. You just become better at learning even though your mind is probably much weaker than a student's.
Most of it, he recognized the same problems, but convinced me to try to incorporate them, at least some of them. I don't see me saying what I did in the past says anything about what I will do in the future
For literal years, its been a problem for me to actually learn from physical lessons therefore I like the recorded format better. Considering how important are physical lectures thought to be here, I was convinced that I were an idiot. Thank you for this video it cleared up my years long misconceptions and its really means a lot to me
Hi Dr. Keep, In a video in the comment section there was a video suggest about how you would study law again with your actual knowledge as a scientist. I hope we will see a video like this! :-))
@BenjaminKeep Sir, what about in dancing [motor skills] where the input [lesson] and output [retrieval] are blurred - does performance later on become reinforced retrieval ? Or in language acquisition where input [listening] is more valuable [Stephen Krashen's language acquisition hypothesis] - does understanding become retrieval ?
Very helpful thank you. Also I wanted go acknowledge the humor in your videos I cracked up a few times. "Why ears?" And talking to the elmo, and the subtle change of toy when referring to a change in audience all got me pretty good.
This was really an excellent video thank you for the tips. I've definitely struggled with the preparation/review aspects. I've sort of gotten good at being present during lectures and then doing my homework while consulting material to get by, but I'd like to feel that I have a better grasp on everything. Looking forward to applying this to my next semester in grad school. Retrospectively it seems obvious, but I didn't really consider using homework review as preparation for the following class, and my professors don't assign reading for my Computer Science program, but in classes where they do give us a syllabus and a preview of the next class's material I think the preview will help a lot.
The problem with this is that every time I "pre learned" for a lecture I had no motivation to attend the lecture, or when I ended up attending the lecture it was just boring. I don't think this is the answer people are looking for. If you learn the material before the lecture (to the point of understanding! not remembering) then no point attending it. However if you don't learn it then my suggestion is to take notes the way you feel like aids you the most to pay attention & understand for the first time & if you don't have printed materials for it (or online) that later you will be able to go back and study from it meaning then focus on writing down as much as possible (by way of summarizing & making questions for example).
hi dr. atty Benjamin! may i ask a question? is making digital flashcards while reading a digital book (so i can copy and paste and easily do a mini recall before pasting the answer) more effective than highlighting on the actual book and rereading the highlights?
Here are two suggestions for things that help me: 1. Get rid of things in your life that train your brain incorrectly to have a short attention span (get rid of TikTok for example). The brain is like a muscle; build up ‘strength’ (concentration) a little bit more with each exercise. 2. Get yourself a book called _Remember Everything You Read: the Evelyn Wood, 7-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program._ Even if you ‘only’ double your reading, comprehension, and retention, it is a total win win at under US$10.
Can you do a video about falling behind in uni. Most people tend to fall behind on uni work. How would someone prevent this or what should someone do when this happens? I really enjoy your perspective on these learning topics. ☺️
I don't think that can be of any use reading the material in advance as the teacher will go through line by line during class (almost all the teachers!), usually they doesn't even come up with new examples and use exactly the same of the text during proofs and demonstrations. As a matter of fact I realized that reading the material or going to the lecture is the same and if you miss the lecture just read the assigned pages. If you read it beforehand, take the attendance and skip the class entirely (also, if you didn't understand during the reading you won't get anything in class anyway). Learning actually happens as you work through the assigned exercises (something unfortunately most teachers overdo and it backfires ending in most students dropping such classes). Maybe in humanities it's different, but that how it goes in math and engineering imho.
Came across it through Envato Elements. It's here: elements.envato.com/abstract-composition-with-growing-pieces-of-crysta-659A3DQ ("Abstract Composition with Growing Pieces of Crystals by FlashMovie
Hi, Benjamin! I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to use deliberate practice and decouple such complex skills as computer programming and software engineering. Your video about focus shifting was very helpful, but it seems like there is more to it that I can't figure out on my own. Thank you very much for your videos. Great content!
applying this to your videos, it would be pretty helpful if we have a look at a script or something to read before hearing the video, it will even be more efficient in revising the ideas and concepts that you taught in the video than having to rewatch the video.
Hi Benjamin, awesome video and content, you have a new fan. I wanted to ask what is a good way to take notes on iPad or in general as a middle ground? I don’t like doing mind maps as Justin sung suggests but I feel like i need to? I don’t like traditional linear note taking as it’s bad for relationships it seems.
What if you're enrolled in a course? And there are yearlong lectures for some syllablus, what would be better? Studying bits whats going to happen in the lecture beforehand or review what happened previously?
Today amount of available information certainly reduces the value of lectures, since you can easily find better 'transmitters'. I would say preparation is the most important part, ideally you define test parameters and information scope, which should save time and ensure 'correct' practice/study over time. My process: I prep for lectures by trying to understand the purpose and components of the information. Secondly, I watch the lecture and try to fill in the blanks. Then, I recall later in the day and, if learnt successfully, add in spaced repetition system.
What do you recommend we do when lecturers simply read off slides that are overloaded with text, or skip slides? This was why I started to skip lectures: do you still think its beneficial to attend in those cases? Or would you say self-study would be a better use of time?
Dr. Keep, I'm training to be an elementary teacher, and I'd love to hear what you have to say about active retrieval and similar with kids in grades k-2.
I wish I had some good advice. Personally, I find just keeping kids on task at the grade level to be challenge enough. 😅 This is just based on personal experience and nothing I've read, but the kids I've worked with have a tendency to alway want to look things up and rely less on piecing things together from memory. I think this is coupled with a fear of being wrong or of misremembering. Introducing more active retrieval at this age could play a role in shaping their future understanding of what learning is. But you need to adapt the practice for the age group - make it easier. I would consider something like a 10-15 minute "let's try to remember what we learned about X" session, either classroom-wide or in small groups. This could be material from the past day, but it would be interesting to go beyond that, too, to material from a week or two before. I suspect there would be higher confabulations than with older children and adults, so you would have to watch out about kids making up random things. But you could use it to set the stage for a new topic you were talking about, and to reinforce what you had taught before. I would also consider how to incorporate retrieval through play or more playful activities. As a random example, something like having the kids look at map, talk about the map, then try to draw as much as they could from memory (and kids could share little parts that they remembered) before revealing the map again. Or a piece of art. Or a skeleton. The whole class could get in on the action as a kind of collaborative game. I don't know. I'm really not an expert with that age group, but I would encourage you to experiment. I think you could come up with some good stuff!
@@benjaminkeep Thank you for this reply. There's a lot of ideas I want to try out when I get the chance. My professors have told me that free recall type stuff is developmentally inappropriate in K-2. But they also say that 'think-pair-share,' is a great practice in K-2, and I don't understand the distinction in many cases. I watch the kindergarteners in the first minute of this video and think, "conversational free recall." ruclips.net/video/D2o6MDpL1v0/видео.html I tutor across a wide age range, and since I've started watching your videos a couple months ago, I've changed how I review. When returning to a topic, I used to give a brief mini-lecture recapping what we did previously before getting into problems/activities continuing it. I've started instead asking them to explain it to me before we get into the activity. Anecdotally, younger people have needed more time to think. With an adult, I might count to 10 in my head before they start talking. With a fourth grader, I might count to 30... but then they'll give a real explanation. I introduced this way of doing things by saying things like, "You get better at kicking a soccer ball by repeatedly kicking a soccer ball. You get better at remembering something by repeatedly remembering it," and "the way you get it to stay in your memory forever isn't by putting it into your memory again and again, it's by pulling it out of your memory again and again," and more things like that. I think that's helped create buy-in for the activity.
One thing to realize about group classes is that every class must move at the pace of the slowest student who will actually pass. Unless you're that person, you can learn much faster when you're learning outside of class and beyond the assigned work.
@neptune4375 that's the case up the second year of math, at least at my uni. then there are professors who go as far as to ask the students what they want to learn in the course or if the lectures are too slow. my saying that nobody cares if the students are keeping up is obviously a huperbole, it's very common that the professor assumes some unhinged standards and then we are like "but we don't know spectral sequences", and the prof is like "oh shit really?? ok then I will explain them in more detail next time". but in general it must be specifically requested to go slower or explain something in more detail, the professors will just go as fast as possible otherwise
Hi Benjamin, truly amazing content which can be practically applied across any field of education. What are your thoughts on creating active-recall questions? I understand they are part of 'cued' recall, but would you still vouch on pure free recall over creating questions?
Hi! I do not understand how it works... Why are related concepts easier to remember? Surely there are more single difficult concepts involved, and, assuming linear difficulty, it just stacks up? I am not sure if there is an answer to this here, please correct me if I am wrong
Part of what makes things easy to retrieve from memory is when there is a path there to retrieve it. The comparison isn't to remembering one thing vs many things; it's to remembering things that have a relationship to things that don't have a relationship. And, with many things, the higher-level link can help you to recall the rest. Imagine you try to remember the bones of a squirrel, but to you these are just random labels - it's all separate. But imagine trying to remembering the bones of a squirrel by first remembering how a squirrel moves and eats. It's the latter way that's generally more effective.
First of all you must not assume that the lecture has something to teach you in it. Sometimes they don't, or are erroneous, and you must appreciate this constantly while listening. Learning is as much about learning and unlearning as it is about not learning.
Hi Benjamin, sorry for another question, but this is a bit more related to free recall. When doing all of those free recall sessions, should I be reviewing my notes at all? Maybe review it after class before my free recall session, maybe at the end of the day? I want to maximize my retention and understanding of the concepts.
Hi. I don't know if you did this intentionally but I appreciate that a lot of the stock footage you use feature people of color as lecturers and students. It's subtle imo but it's nice to see
Thanks man. I've been waiting for this video for a while. I know I've left a few comments on your previous videos so its good to finally see a dedicated video on it.
That's why i never lecture for more than 10-20 min at the time and then let them make an assignment where they apply that new knowledge. I teach at university.
Thanks for this here excellent video! I was just wondering if there's a correlation between amount of studying a student does before a lecture, and the number of intelligent questions they ask during the lecture.
I started out making some videos on those issues and I've worked with teachers a decent amount. I still plan on returning to issues in teaching, but in general those videos don't get good traction on RUclips. At least not for me so far.
@@benjaminkeep What you do is you take about three ideas and then repeat them over and over in a book, ideally with lots of graphic design, like sidebars that look like post-it notes. You market it as an entire re-envisioning of classroom practice, that works for K-12, in any subject, and that will always work perfectly if performed "with fidelity". If it's not working, you aren't faithful enough to it, and need to root out more of your old, out-dated methods. Your problem is you keep presenting "another tool for the toolkit" and "Here's a concept. Come to understand it, and it will inform your practice in various ways". While this approach has the benefit of actually being useful, it doesn't get some superintendent excited about making "The Keep Approach" mandatory.
How does someone study a class like English? I am currently in Ap lang and I find it incredibly difficult to apply the concepts that I learn from your videos into my English class and would like you to help me.
Most of the time, it is not possible for me to study before the lecture and even if i do, i can only cover 10% of the chapter. Here, we have 6-7 subjects plus 2 labs and we need to write record and they expect it to be perfect and our lab and theory sessions are not related to each other so we need to study seperately for both and our College time is from 8-4 😭😭 and our professors don't teach well...they don't know how to teach and have stupid rules....can someone suggest what can be done to most effectively study
Kinda similar here. Engineering colleges in India are driven heavily by formalities. Most of the assignments involve mechanically writing things from the textbook, it's very time consuming and absolutely soul crushing. I'm happy for those who get more control over their time while being a student, I think it's how it should be! Just hoped it was the same everywhere...
Ciao Benjamin, good work as always 💪🏻 In the scientific field, lectures are, by and large, useless. I repeat it again: lectures are a waste of time. Unless one is lucky enough to encounter a teacher trained to perform the right science-based lecture format, going to the classroom is inefficient. First, reading or studying before lectures - in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics - is unrealistic due to the heavy daily workload. For example, when studying subjects such as Complex Analysis, Topology, or Algebraic Topology, building "prior" knowledge has no logical meaning. Second, a teacher can explain during the lecture only 1/4 of the entire due study program. Hence, if one fails to understand the content, s/he has lost several precious hours that could have been employed by studying from several textbooks, which is a much more efficient process than (often passively) listening. Instead, if one succeeds in capturing the content, then, by definition, s/he will still be required to keep up with the remaining 3/4 of the due study program. Clearly, some introduce a huge amount of topics but I rule them out because, in such scenarios, it is not uncommon that the teacher is literally showing the pages of the book or even reading from the book, in which case one rightly thinks, "why should I spend my time watching someone who copies-and-pastes what's written in the book?" Those scenarios are real-world scenarios, not fantasies. Third, science is problem-solving. This is a concept that's difficult to grasp. You, as a scientist, are supposed to solve problems. Consequently, great attention should paid to actively applying ideas and solving problems. In this sense, recitations are surely important to figure out how experts in the field go about applying principles for solving problems. Fourth, many advocate the importance of the Cornell method. False. Those who want to apply the Cornell method for taking notes on math, engineering, or physics subjects probably never attended a classroom. Its weakness resides in the fact it is based on the (wrong) assumption that one has 27 hours available when one actually has much less. It also taxes working memory tremendously due to the many tasks and potential cues/questions one is required to capture and jot down. If your lectures are mandatory or you love to go to the classroom because your teacher is special, then take the following ideas. 1) Identify the key question (which may or may not be explicitly stated) in the teacher's mind and the purpose, and write it down. 2) Focus your attention on key ideas: theorems/propositions, principles, concepts, or methods, and capture only the assumptions and their purpose. 3) With a clear, central question in your sheet, seek to figure out how the teacher provides the answer/conclusion to this question. That's all: question-concepts-answer. Avoid generating pointless questions that are not (in 100% of cases) central; boring, and difficult to process later on. We can potentially think up 100 questions and that's not smart. Avoid summarizing lectures. Avoid adding processes of any kind. Keep everything simple.
hi Benjamin, great video! I have a question regarding fundamentals, i have discovered that i might not have really strong fundamentals in the subjects that i want to do well in (i just finished my masters in Physics) and now that i want to go over them and review them i seem to either rush through them or be painfully slow and try to go over something that i already know pretty well in great depth that i seem to question what i already knew well or was obvious to me. So is there any way you would suggest that i go over the stuff i already thought i knew but didn't have that good grasp of them or even a 'wrong' understanding of. Also a question on how to improve when i have to improve on my understanding and working of the tools of the subject, any tips on how one should practice problems? I often struggle with getting the balance of solving very challenging problems that take me a lot of time and the easier problems which don't challenge me but are important for me to improve my speed for test correctly
Location, when and duration, provided one knows how s/he learns, are challenges depending on complexity of subject-matter and tools. Took me "that long" to get married and now she lectures me ;-). Be well.
Stop the video and try to understand before the lecture explain. - After 10-15 mins pause the video to understand where you are and what’s coming up next. Review what happened - take out a blank piece of paper and try to brainstorm what you learned then go and fill in what you missed no longer than a day Do the free recall at least once a week You can explain the lecture to a friend, forces you to know what you’re talking about
I literally can't tell if this is a re-upload or not. I've followed your content loosely for a few months, and everything you said sounds like something I've heard before. I know the algorithm encourages re-hashing material; I know it's good for us learners to hear topics addressed multiple times and expressed in multiple ways; I know it's useful for your studies to continuously re-articulate what you know; I'm even aware that i could be projecting false memories in some complicated fashion. But this is still kinda concerning to see.
To be clear, I'm not trying to say, "Boo, get newer material!" Iterating on recitations is important, as is working the algorithm to get the word out. Is just... How do I know which "new" videos are mostly stuff I've seen already?
It's a reasonable feeling to have. And this video does re-hash some of the content I've put in other videos (although I think there's some new stuff too). Many people have asked me specifically for a video on learning from lectures and I pushed it off, in part because I wasn't sure if I had anything new to say. As you say, there is value in re-packaging content - even in a couple days much more people have seen this video than some of the previous videos with overlapping information (e.g., the one a long time ago where I answered a reddit question about it). It's also beneficial for the channel to have overlapping videos (different, but related search terms, smaller videos leading to more in-depth videos on the same topic, etc.) I guess there's not really a way to definitively know whether a new video is 100% new ideas that I've never expressed before. If you watch all of my videos and read my newsletter, then there is going to be some overlap. That said, I try not to put out stale content. But reasonable people may disagree about whether I have or not. : )
@@benjaminkeep That all makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up. And if following you enough to notice this didn't make it obvious, I really appreciate your work. Thanks also for putting it out there.
Commenting for algorithm support: I agree that lectures are efficient, but could it be that it is also a way to gently 'force' students to interact with the material they normally wouldn't interact with?
This is why a flipped classroom approach (homework before you go to class) makes more sense--not only because you can ask questions, but because it preps students for higher education where they should be reading and testing themselves before a lecture.
I agree. My anatomy and physiology classes were flipped classes. The video lecture was sent to us to watch before class. Every class started with a quiz that we reviewed after the time was up. Then we had an entire class conversation on an important topic. Or we might have to use what we learned to answer a particular situation that would not have been in the lecture but that we should be able to solve if we understand the topic. Finally, any left over time in class was used as free office hours where we could just ask questions to the professor or classmates. I learned sooooo much and more importantly, I learned how to study
Yeah it depends, for example I had a math teacher that did this but instead she would give us homework on new material but didn't give us any notes or instrucitons on how to do it, not even a textbook.
@@aaronherrera4400 that’s actually good for learning, evidence shows. Buuuut that anxiety though, yeah.
@@nicholaskeith6614 that’s a golden experience.
BUT NOONE WOULD DO IT. It’s not practical
went back to school at an older age. From my previous experience, I've been studying hard before the class. So in the lecture, I can just ask the teacher what i didn't understand and use it more as a consultation period. That way by exam period, I basically understood all the hard concepts and how to solve each type of problem, it was just a matter of practicing a little and reviewing. And you actually naturally pay more attention when you can understand what the teacher is saying
Basically gotten 1.0 (or I think it's equivalent to 4.0 in the west) for every technical engineering subject so far (differential equations, circuits etc..)
I tried lecturing for years. As students' sources of distraction multiplied, it became painful and ineffective. We didn't have enough time to cover both qualitative and quantitatve concepts when they couldnt understand the quant stuff until they had a basic enough understanding of the qualitative and hadn't prepared for class.
So now I teach via flipped classroom. The only way to get the majority of the class to prepare is to assign points for the prep work and then also have points earned in class for having prepped. In addition to going through practice problems, we have time for a variety of activities that reinforce the most challenging of the concepts. This is my second semester of complete flip, and my in person class this semester is doing statistically significantly better than my online async class. It doesn't have the same interaction and activities, now the challenge is how to build in more active learning and learning challenges to the online course.
Interesting - glad you've found some success with the flipped class. I think online async is hard - it's hard to build a learning community online, especially in a single semester.
- Reflect on personal learning process (0:00)
- Understand the limitations of lectures (0:53)
- Prepare before attending lectures (2:58)
- Actively engage and pay attention during lectures (9:07)
- Review and synthesize lecture material afterward (13:42)
- Use various methods for effective review (15:48)
- Apply concepts to homework as part of review (20:00)
- Consistency in preparation and review pays off (21:40)
i feel frustrated. I feel like i know so much about studying better and help ypurself with studying by knowing why it works for your brain! but i am still struggling in college!
I know i have to read a chapter in a engaging way, i know i should not feel frustrated when i make a mistake, but i still strugle in aplying all of this knoledge
anyway, this is a vent, your channel is so good, love it
It's a perfectly normal feeling to have. I'm probably telling you something you already know, but knowing about something is different than being able to do something. You're building a skill. When you get the feeling of "I know all this stuff but I don't seem to be improving!" it could be a sign to spend more time trying things out, reflecting, and iterating. It's a process. Be patient with yourself. And.... also vent. : )
wow you answered me!! thats so cool!
I'll definitely remember that benjamin. To be honest, I'm feeling a change alredy. Hope to make better improvements in my holidays here in brazil. Lots of good vibes for you and thankyou! S2@@benjaminkeep
Hello may I ask when you have study guide and powerpoints been provided and textbook. How do you know how to answer the question
14:55 YES! Im not the only crazy one!!! I started with singing and than i realized improved my english, than i progressed with saying videos (like yours) and than to my own explanations of stuff (there's more to it). I did this all around the house and while doing the dishes etc, and took care to practice correctly.
I think lectures are the best when they sync up with your own progress, like when the lecturer predicts address a question the exact moment your brain comes up with that question. Most of the time however, I find just reading slides and reading other classmates’ questions + test questions the fastest way to acquire the full picture.
Ur classmates actually give you questions and answers? Wow 😲 my classmates are just jealous of each other and are competing with each other and are selfish
Sorry 😐 ik my comment was unnecessary but I'm just so done with my classmates and professor.... sorry again
I really do appreciate the edits and acting that goes into this video. It’s something that’s easy to take in stride as a viewer, but I understand that it’s a lot of effort from the production side! Effort very much appreciative, it really helps makes the video engaging and you get your points across clearly :)
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🤔 *Understanding Lecture Learning*
- Learning from lectures is a process involving preparation, the lecture itself, and review.
- The quality of a lecture alone doesn't significantly impact learning outcomes; preparation and review play crucial roles.
- Lecture popularity in higher education is more tied to tradition and economic factors than proven efficacy.
02:56 📚 *Lecture Preparation Strategies*
- Preparation is essential before a lecture to enhance understanding during the session.
- Examples for different disciplines: researching new concepts in advance for technical subjects, reading and reflecting on assigned materials for humanities.
- The goal of preparation is to reduce cognitive load during the lecture, provide a foundation for new information, and facilitate better organization of ideas.
10:02 🧠 *Effective Lecture Attention Strategies*
- Paying attention involves more than appearing attentive; it's about engaging with the material.
- Strategies include removing distractions, note-taking for synthesis, and focusing on links between examples and concepts.
- Lecture attention drops after 10-20 minutes; online lectures offer advantages in controlling the pace and revisiting content.
13:40 🔄 *Importance of Post-Lecture Review*
- Reviewing lecture content is crucial for solidifying understanding and connecting conceptual and procedural knowledge.
- Methods include free recall exercises, explaining concepts to oneself or others, and testing with practice questions.
- Reviewing should ideally occur relatively soon after the lecture to reinforce learning and create connections between different parts of the material.
21:22 📖 *Tailoring Strategies to Personal Learning*
- Adjusting lecture learning strategies based on personal preferences, prior knowledge, and available resources.
- The importance of balancing preview and review efforts, even in small increments, to yield long-term benefits.
- Emphasizing that early engagement with fundamentals pays off over the course of a semester.
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this aint helpful at all
It applies not only the lectures of course. If you have a problem you want to solve and you look for info about it then try to do it, that basically is the same thing. The disconnect is that people often to don't attend lectures to learn something, they just go because that's what's expected or they believe it will work toward another, semantically unrelated goal, like getting a good paying job. It's very hard for our education system to avoid that, but for everyone who continues pushing themselves to learn in adulthood it is a paradigm shift that you only learn things relevant to your career, needs and interests, nothing is just abstract information they may or may not come up in an artificial test. You just become better at learning even though your mind is probably much weaker than a student's.
I love your videos bro. Thanks for making. I have not gone to lectures for years now
what
that is not what . . . he is supposed to be
*sigh*
did you even watch it in full 😧
Most of it, he recognized the same problems, but convinced me to try to incorporate them, at least some of them. I don't see me saying what I did in the past says anything about what I will do in the future
For literal years, its been a problem for me to actually learn from physical lessons therefore I like the recorded format better. Considering how important are physical lectures thought to be here, I was convinced that I were an idiot. Thank you for this video it cleared up my years long misconceptions and its really means a lot to me
i am impressed by american's passion towards knowledge
I remember only the things that I'm interested in or have some kind of prior knowledge this is a cycle driven by sustained curiosity.
I’m really glad I came back to rewatch the video after watching it yesterday. I understood it even better. Thank you!
I understand this, it's so effective, i used this before .In my laziness I forgot this, I missed basic skills❤❤tnks
14:46 Same to you keep, me to prefer to do that😅
Just in time to prepare myself to make my studies more efficient next year, thank you for making this topic much more clear 🤝
Hi Dr. Keep,
In a video in the comment section there was a video suggest about how you would study law again with your actual knowledge as a scientist.
I hope we will see a video like this! :-))
This is some quality content and acting skills
@BenjaminKeep Sir, what about in dancing [motor skills] where the input [lesson] and output [retrieval] are blurred - does performance later on become reinforced retrieval ? Or in language acquisition where input [listening] is more valuable [Stephen Krashen's language acquisition hypothesis] - does understanding become retrieval ?
Very helpful thank you.
Also I wanted go acknowledge the humor in your videos I cracked up a few times. "Why ears?" And talking to the elmo, and the subtle change of toy when referring to a change in audience all got me pretty good.
This was really an excellent video thank you for the tips. I've definitely struggled with the preparation/review aspects. I've sort of gotten good at being present during lectures and then doing my homework while consulting material to get by, but I'd like to feel that I have a better grasp on everything. Looking forward to applying this to my next semester in grad school. Retrospectively it seems obvious, but I didn't really consider using homework review as preparation for the following class, and my professors don't assign reading for my Computer Science program, but in classes where they do give us a syllabus and a preview of the next class's material I think the preview will help a lot.
Can you explain and give more strategies of utilizing deep processing ?
I have a couple of videos I'm working on that relate to deeper processing. Not coming out soon, but I'll get there.
The problem with this is that every time I "pre learned" for a lecture I had no motivation to attend the lecture, or when I ended up attending the lecture it was just boring. I don't think this is the answer people are looking for. If you learn the material before the lecture (to the point of understanding! not remembering) then no point attending it. However if you don't learn it then my suggestion is to take notes the way you feel like aids you the most to pay attention & understand for the first time & if you don't have printed materials for it (or online) that later you will be able to go back and study from it meaning then focus on writing down as much as possible (by way of summarizing & making questions for example).
hi dr. atty Benjamin! may i ask a question?
is making digital flashcards while reading a digital book (so i can copy and paste and easily do a mini recall before pasting the answer) more effective than highlighting on the actual book and rereading the highlights?
Yes, that sounds more effective than highlighting and re-reading.
Here are two suggestions for things that help me:
1. Get rid of things in your life that train your brain incorrectly to have a short attention span (get rid of TikTok for example). The brain is like a muscle; build up ‘strength’ (concentration) a little bit more with each exercise.
2. Get yourself a book called _Remember Everything You Read: the Evelyn Wood, 7-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program._ Even if you ‘only’ double your reading, comprehension, and retention, it is a total win win at under US$10.
Can you do a video about falling behind in uni. Most people tend to fall behind on uni work. How would someone prevent this or what should someone do when this happens?
I really enjoy your perspective on these learning topics. ☺️
Call Newport straight A student book addresses this. He interviewed the best students at ivy league schools. Hopefully this helps you.
You can use spaced repetition and other stuff. I kinda cant avoid the sense that is going to be like rereading if youre not careful.
I don't think that can be of any use reading the material in advance as the teacher will go through line by line during class (almost all the teachers!), usually they doesn't even come up with new examples and use exactly the same of the text during proofs and demonstrations. As a matter of fact I realized that reading the material or going to the lecture is the same and if you miss the lecture just read the assigned pages. If you read it beforehand, take the attendance and skip the class entirely (also, if you didn't understand during the reading you won't get anything in class anyway). Learning actually happens as you work through the assigned exercises (something unfortunately most teachers overdo and it backfires ending in most students dropping such classes). Maybe in humanities it's different, but that how it goes in math and engineering imho.
thank you for your service
What i like about these videos that they are also for entertainment not just learning
Don’t forget me when you get famous 😜
(While I watched the whole video, I really want to know:) Where did you find the video with all the fragmenting triangles at 1:20? It’s beautiful!
Came across it through Envato Elements. It's here: elements.envato.com/abstract-composition-with-growing-pieces-of-crysta-659A3DQ ("Abstract Composition with Growing Pieces of Crystals by FlashMovie
@@benjaminkeep Thanks so much! The video really got me thinking about how I can refine my (newbie) teaching approaches!
I love the B-rolls. They are really funny. I swear I would have lost focus if not for these little snippets in the video.
Hi, Benjamin! I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to use deliberate practice and decouple such complex skills as computer programming and software engineering. Your video about focus shifting was very helpful, but it seems like there is more to it that I can't figure out on my own. Thank you very much for your videos. Great content!
applying this to your videos, it would be pretty helpful if we have a look at a script or something to read before hearing the video, it will even be more efficient in revising the ideas and concepts that you taught in the video than having to rewatch the video.
Thanks a lot for this video! In my current training format im forced to go to lectures and haven't been very good at learning from them yet.
Hi Benjamin, awesome video and content, you have a new fan. I wanted to ask what is a good way to take notes on iPad or in general as a middle ground? I don’t like doing mind maps as Justin sung suggests but I feel like i need to? I don’t like traditional linear note taking as it’s bad for relationships it seems.
Very good and important stuff...
The 1+1 = 2 joke was too good 😂
Enlightening video, sir. keep it up!!
What if you're enrolled in a course? And there are yearlong lectures for some syllablus, what would be better?
Studying bits whats going to happen in the lecture beforehand or review what happened previously?
Today amount of available information certainly reduces the value of lectures, since you can easily find better 'transmitters'. I would say preparation is the most important part, ideally you define test parameters and information scope, which should save time and ensure 'correct' practice/study over time. My process: I prep for lectures by trying to understand the purpose and components of the information. Secondly, I watch the lecture and try to fill in the blanks. Then, I recall later in the day and, if learnt successfully, add in spaced repetition system.
What do you recommend we do when lecturers simply read off slides that are overloaded with text, or skip slides? This was why I started to skip lectures: do you still think its beneficial to attend in those cases? Or would you say self-study would be a better use of time?
Dr. Keep, I'm training to be an elementary teacher, and I'd love to hear what you have to say about active retrieval and similar with kids in grades k-2.
I wish I had some good advice. Personally, I find just keeping kids on task at the grade level to be challenge enough. 😅
This is just based on personal experience and nothing I've read, but the kids I've worked with have a tendency to alway want to look things up and rely less on piecing things together from memory. I think this is coupled with a fear of being wrong or of misremembering. Introducing more active retrieval at this age could play a role in shaping their future understanding of what learning is. But you need to adapt the practice for the age group - make it easier.
I would consider something like a 10-15 minute "let's try to remember what we learned about X" session, either classroom-wide or in small groups. This could be material from the past day, but it would be interesting to go beyond that, too, to material from a week or two before. I suspect there would be higher confabulations than with older children and adults, so you would have to watch out about kids making up random things. But you could use it to set the stage for a new topic you were talking about, and to reinforce what you had taught before.
I would also consider how to incorporate retrieval through play or more playful activities. As a random example, something like having the kids look at map, talk about the map, then try to draw as much as they could from memory (and kids could share little parts that they remembered) before revealing the map again. Or a piece of art. Or a skeleton. The whole class could get in on the action as a kind of collaborative game.
I don't know. I'm really not an expert with that age group, but I would encourage you to experiment. I think you could come up with some good stuff!
@@benjaminkeep Thank you for this reply. There's a lot of ideas I want to try out when I get the chance.
My professors have told me that free recall type stuff is developmentally inappropriate in K-2. But they also say that 'think-pair-share,' is a great practice in K-2, and I don't understand the distinction in many cases. I watch the kindergarteners in the first minute of this video and think, "conversational free recall." ruclips.net/video/D2o6MDpL1v0/видео.html
I tutor across a wide age range, and since I've started watching your videos a couple months ago, I've changed how I review. When returning to a topic, I used to give a brief mini-lecture recapping what we did previously before getting into problems/activities continuing it. I've started instead asking them to explain it to me before we get into the activity. Anecdotally, younger people have needed more time to think. With an adult, I might count to 10 in my head before they start talking. With a fourth grader, I might count to 30... but then they'll give a real explanation.
I introduced this way of doing things by saying things like, "You get better at kicking a soccer ball by repeatedly kicking a soccer ball. You get better at remembering something by repeatedly remembering it," and "the way you get it to stay in your memory forever isn't by putting it into your memory again and again, it's by pulling it out of your memory again and again," and more things like that. I think that's helped create buy-in for the activity.
One thing to realize about group classes is that every class must move at the pace of the slowest student who will actually pass. Unless you're that person, you can learn much faster when you're learning outside of class and beyond the assigned work.
your teachers adjust the pace to the slowest students? ours don't care lol students are supposed to keep up
@neptune4375 that's the case up the second year of math, at least at my uni. then there are professors who go as far as to ask the students what they want to learn in the course or if the lectures are too slow. my saying that nobody cares if the students are keeping up is obviously a huperbole, it's very common that the professor assumes some unhinged standards and then we are like "but we don't know spectral sequences", and the prof is like "oh shit really?? ok then I will explain them in more detail next time". but in general it must be specifically requested to go slower or explain something in more detail, the professors will just go as fast as possible otherwise
Hi Benjamin, truly amazing content which can be practically applied across any field of education. What are your thoughts on creating active-recall questions? I understand they are part of 'cued' recall, but would you still vouch on pure free recall over creating questions?
Hi!
I do not understand how it works...
Why are related concepts easier to remember? Surely there are more single difficult concepts involved, and, assuming linear difficulty, it just stacks up?
I am not sure if there is an answer to this here, please correct me if I am wrong
Part of what makes things easy to retrieve from memory is when there is a path there to retrieve it. The comparison isn't to remembering one thing vs many things; it's to remembering things that have a relationship to things that don't have a relationship. And, with many things, the higher-level link can help you to recall the rest. Imagine you try to remember the bones of a squirrel, but to you these are just random labels - it's all separate. But imagine trying to remembering the bones of a squirrel by first remembering how a squirrel moves and eats. It's the latter way that's generally more effective.
First of all you must not assume that the lecture has something to teach you in it. Sometimes they don't, or are erroneous, and you must appreciate this constantly while listening. Learning is as much about learning and unlearning as it is about not learning.
Hi Benjamin, sorry for another question, but this is a bit more related to free recall. When doing all of those free recall sessions, should I be reviewing my notes at all? Maybe review it after class before my free recall session, maybe at the end of the day? I want to maximize my retention and understanding of the concepts.
Hi. I don't know if you did this intentionally but I appreciate that a lot of the stock footage you use feature people of color as lecturers and students. It's subtle imo but it's nice to see
I do think about it from time to time. TBH, there's a lot of stock footage with diverse casts these days, so stock video creators deserve the credit.
Thanks man. I've been waiting for this video for a while. I know I've left a few comments on your previous videos so its good to finally see a dedicated video on it.
That's why i never lecture for more than 10-20 min at the time and then let them make an assignment where they apply that new knowledge. I teach at university.
Problem is that students are so tired after a full day of lectures that they don't have the energy for actual work afterwards...
Thanks for this here excellent video! I was just wondering if there's a correlation between amount of studying a student does before a lecture, and the number of intelligent questions they ask during the lecture.
thank you
0:30
you should do a video on teachers and how they could improve their teaching methods.
I started out making some videos on those issues and I've worked with teachers a decent amount. I still plan on returning to issues in teaching, but in general those videos don't get good traction on RUclips. At least not for me so far.
@@benjaminkeep What you do is you take about three ideas and then repeat them over and over in a book, ideally with lots of graphic design, like sidebars that look like post-it notes. You market it as an entire re-envisioning of classroom practice, that works for K-12, in any subject, and that will always work perfectly if performed "with fidelity". If it's not working, you aren't faithful enough to it, and need to root out more of your old, out-dated methods.
Your problem is you keep presenting "another tool for the toolkit" and "Here's a concept. Come to understand it, and it will inform your practice in various ways". While this approach has the benefit of actually being useful, it doesn't get some superintendent excited about making "The Keep Approach" mandatory.
How does someone study a class like English? I am currently in Ap lang and I find it incredibly difficult to apply the concepts that I learn from your videos into my English class and would like you to help me.
Most of the time, it is not possible for me to study before the lecture and even if i do, i can only cover 10% of the chapter. Here, we have 6-7 subjects plus 2 labs and we need to write record and they expect it to be perfect and our lab and theory sessions are not related to each other so we need to study seperately for both and our College time is from 8-4 😭😭 and our professors don't teach well...they don't know how to teach and have stupid rules....can someone suggest what can be done to most effectively study
Kinda similar here. Engineering colleges in India are driven heavily by formalities. Most of the assignments involve mechanically writing things from the textbook, it's very time consuming and absolutely soul crushing.
I'm happy for those who get more control over their time while being a student, I think it's how it should be! Just hoped it was the same everywhere...
@@danielfernandes1010 how did you identify that I'm talking about engineering colleges in India? 😂🤣
@@danielfernandes1010 so true 😐 I Just wish that we have better education system in future
@@Storyteller05-m5h I study in one, and your description perfectly matched my experience. :p
@@danielfernandes1010 haha 🤣😆 lol 😂
Ciao Benjamin, good work as always 💪🏻
In the scientific field, lectures are, by and large, useless.
I repeat it again: lectures are a waste of time. Unless one is lucky enough to encounter a teacher trained to perform the right science-based lecture format, going to the classroom is inefficient.
First, reading or studying before lectures - in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics - is unrealistic due to the heavy daily workload.
For example, when studying subjects such as Complex Analysis, Topology, or Algebraic Topology, building "prior" knowledge has no logical meaning.
Second, a teacher can explain during the lecture only 1/4 of the entire due study program.
Hence, if one fails to understand the content, s/he has lost several precious hours that could have been employed by studying from several textbooks, which is a much more efficient process than (often passively) listening.
Instead, if one succeeds in capturing the content, then, by definition, s/he will still be required to keep up with the remaining 3/4 of the due study program.
Clearly, some introduce a huge amount of topics but I rule them out because, in such scenarios, it is not uncommon that the teacher is literally showing the pages of the book or even reading from the book, in which case one rightly thinks, "why should I spend my time watching someone who copies-and-pastes what's written in the book?" Those scenarios are real-world scenarios, not fantasies.
Third, science is problem-solving. This is a concept that's difficult to grasp. You, as a scientist, are supposed to solve problems. Consequently, great attention should paid to actively applying ideas and solving problems. In this sense, recitations are surely important to figure out how experts in the field go about applying principles for solving problems.
Fourth, many advocate the importance of the Cornell method. False. Those who want to apply the Cornell method for taking notes on math, engineering, or physics subjects probably never attended a classroom. Its weakness resides in the fact it is based on the (wrong) assumption that one has 27 hours available when one actually has much less. It also taxes working memory tremendously due to the many tasks and potential cues/questions one is required to capture and jot down.
If your lectures are mandatory or you love to go to the classroom because your teacher is special, then take the following ideas.
1) Identify the key question (which may or may not be explicitly stated) in the teacher's mind and the purpose, and write it down.
2) Focus your attention on key ideas: theorems/propositions, principles, concepts, or methods, and capture only the assumptions and their purpose.
3) With a clear, central question in your sheet, seek to figure out how the teacher provides the answer/conclusion to this question.
That's all: question-concepts-answer.
Avoid generating pointless questions that are not (in 100% of cases) central; boring, and difficult to process later on. We can potentially think up 100 questions and that's not smart.
Avoid summarizing lectures.
Avoid adding processes of any kind. Keep everything simple.
read a broader range of textbooks on the same subject . Lectures are waste of time
Wow
12:49
hi Benjamin, great video!
I have a question regarding fundamentals, i have discovered that i might not have really strong fundamentals in the subjects that i want to do well in (i just finished my masters in Physics) and now that i want to go over them and review them i seem to either rush through them or be painfully slow and try to go over something that i already know pretty well in great depth that i seem to question what i already knew well or was obvious to me. So is there any way you would suggest that i go over the stuff i already thought i knew but didn't have that good grasp of them or even a 'wrong' understanding of.
Also a question on how to improve when i have to improve on my understanding and working of the tools of the subject, any tips on how one should practice problems? I often struggle with getting the balance of solving very challenging problems that take me a lot of time and the easier problems which don't challenge me but are important for me to improve my speed for test correctly
LOVE IT!! FIRE CONTENT
love this vid! it would be awesome if you could speak more from a Jurisd Doctor perspective too:)
Location, when and duration, provided one knows how s/he learns, are challenges depending on complexity of subject-matter and tools. Took me "that long" to get married and now she lectures me ;-). Be well.
it is too hard for paying attention to youtube videos including this video 😢😢
i think if i run out of time,i just jump to the summary and read all the thing
Stop the video and try to understand before the lecture explain.
- After 10-15 mins pause the video to understand where you are and what’s coming up next.
Review what happened - take out a blank piece of paper and try to brainstorm what you learned then go and fill in what you missed no longer than a day
Do the free recall at least once a week
You can explain the lecture to a friend, forces you to know what you’re talking about
nice video please dont use bugs on videos especially spiders or snakes.
teachers talk like they were never students themselves, mind boggling.
I literally can't tell if this is a re-upload or not. I've followed your content loosely for a few months, and everything you said sounds like something I've heard before. I know the algorithm encourages re-hashing material; I know it's good for us learners to hear topics addressed multiple times and expressed in multiple ways; I know it's useful for your studies to continuously re-articulate what you know; I'm even aware that i could be projecting false memories in some complicated fashion. But this is still kinda concerning to see.
To be clear, I'm not trying to say, "Boo, get newer material!" Iterating on recitations is important, as is working the algorithm to get the word out. Is just... How do I know which "new" videos are mostly stuff I've seen already?
It's a reasonable feeling to have. And this video does re-hash some of the content I've put in other videos (although I think there's some new stuff too). Many people have asked me specifically for a video on learning from lectures and I pushed it off, in part because I wasn't sure if I had anything new to say. As you say, there is value in re-packaging content - even in a couple days much more people have seen this video than some of the previous videos with overlapping information (e.g., the one a long time ago where I answered a reddit question about it). It's also beneficial for the channel to have overlapping videos (different, but related search terms, smaller videos leading to more in-depth videos on the same topic, etc.)
I guess there's not really a way to definitively know whether a new video is 100% new ideas that I've never expressed before. If you watch all of my videos and read my newsletter, then there is going to be some overlap. That said, I try not to put out stale content. But reasonable people may disagree about whether I have or not. : )
@@benjaminkeep That all makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up. And if following you enough to notice this didn't make it obvious, I really appreciate your work. Thanks also for putting it out there.
“Monocoital bacchanalia” lmao
Commenting for algorithm support: I agree that lectures are efficient, but could it be that it is also a way to gently 'force' students to interact with the material they normally wouldn't interact with?
listen at x1.75 speed, dont waste time.
Listen at normal speed, don't lie to your brain :)
Damn, didn’t think you were cultured like that. I, too, have seen one of Pasolini’s films and thought… about it.
1 min
most lectures i've been to were just vacuous crap . better to spend more time in the library
Obviously you can take this too far -> reviewing 1+1=2 🤣 although I think the mathematicians spent a ton of time reviewing that recently.
Sleek editing!