Thanks to the current corona pandemic, most lectures are now delivered online. It seems that this is the new normal for a while. There are many advantages to online lectures, as is apparent in the popularity of massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, learning from online lectures also provides its own set of challenges and requires a different approach to learning than traditional in-person lectures. In the article, I will share my top tips for learning effectively from online lectures.
Be engaged
Imagine the following scenario: You finally managed to get out of bed around noon. After a leisurely breakfast and a relatively short Netflix session, you remember that you were supposed to study. You put on the video lecture and watch it all the way through. Great, done for the day! Unfortunately, this kind of passive learning is very ineffective. Watching the lecture may make you feel like you learned something, but actually learning from it requires active engagement. According to psychological theory, learning means that you need to change your representation of the world. The most effective way to do this is to activate your current understanding before you start the lecture. For instance, note down what you think about the topic before you start: How does the topic relate to other topics in the course? What is your intuition…