Does anyone know how to be more efficient with watching video lectures?
Because of the pandemic, I have been taking several online courses through a local 4-year school. Some of my professors record their lectures, and post them online to view. In one class, microbiology, the lab is live and done in class, and so are the exams (in class), but lectures are recorded. I find that it takes me hours to go through just one lecture, far longer than the recorded time of the video. For example, if I watch a 1 hour video lecture, it takes me 3-4 hours to finish it. Why so long? Because I write lecture notes on what I am watching. I watch the video, pause the video, write lecture notes, restart the video from where I left off. I also sometimes rewind the lecture and re-listen to it. In this microbiology class, the professor has an accent (she’s grew up outside the U.S.)
Fortunately, I can speed up the video a bit to 1.25x or 1.5x to save some time.
In a math class last summer, I had a similar problem. It took me hours to get through one hour long lecture. In that class, however, the video player that the professor used did not allow the viewer to change the speed of the video; I could not speed it up. So, for a 1 hour video, I would spend up to an entire day just trying to finish it and write notes. Nevertheless, I did poorly in that class because I spent so much time watching the lectures to understand the material and do her practice problems.
Can anyone provide advice on what is the “best” way to watch online lecture videos? The tremendous amount of time is hurting my grades.