Kevin Ho | Contributor
Featured image: As drop dates approach, students wonder if keeping their three-hour lectures are worth it. | Courtesy of Leon Ziegler (Flickr)
Let’s face it: staying focused in class is hard—especially in the age of technology, where laptops and cellphones are everywhere you look. Since 2000, when the mobile revolution began, the average attention span dropped from 12 to eight seconds. It is hard to focus when you’re distracted by chatter in the back of the class and a never-ending stream of late students. This difficulty increases with lecture lengths.
Although the average attention span has dropped quite a bit, fourth-year psychology student Shakil Mirza says it heavily depends on the lecture. “I have sat through three-hour psychology lectures once a week, and one-hour biology lectures three times a week. I’ve been alert and more attentive in the latter, because I’d be more interested [and] there is no time to doze off. Even with a middle break in a three-hour lecture, not everyone comes back to class,” says Mirza. One of the perks of hour-long lectures is that there’s no time to stop—so you’d better write notes and stay focused as if your life depended on it.
But what about the dreaded three-hour lectures? How do students possibly stay focused? Are they simply wasting their time? The answer is, surprisingly, that there are some benefits to long lectures. For one, commuting times can be reduced, saving time and money. Rather than travelling to campus several times a week, stacking up longer classes could cut down on days travelling to school, thus saving those pricey tokens. You know that a broke student is willing to do anything to save those valuable dollars.
“All of my courses are three-hour classes, and sometimes they are back-to-back. I actually prefer three-hours lectures over [hour-long] lectures as it cuts down on commute time. But I do often struggle with paying attention. I try to sit close enough to the [professor] that I can engage in discussion, but far enough so that I can slip out easily if I need a break, which is often,” says fourth-year global health policy, management and systems student Anmol Yagnik.
Three-hour lectures allow for more opportunities to spend time with the professor and fellow students to develop a strong connection with them. “I love long lectures as I feel the professors cover more of the material in detail. They are more prone to tell their personal stories regarding the text or theories presented, which I enjoy. It makes it easier to comprehend and more interesting,” says third-year psychology student Waverly Pegelo.
That being said, if you are planning to take or currently taking three-hour-long lectures, try to find a different course offering that can break them down into one-hour lectures. If you cram your schedule with class after class of three-hour lectures, be mindful of the hazards and honest with yourself: are you actually learning and retaining the material, or are you just wasting your time and money? It does depend on preference and on the specific person.
If it is nearly impossible to split your class schedule, here are some tips. Turn off all devices, such as your cellphone and laptop, if possible. This prevents the possibility of opening time-wasting applications. Sitting in the front of the class will keep you focused and be an incentive to not use your devices. Ask yourself if you really need to bring a laptop to take notes. Recent research by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University and the University of California found that writing notes by hand requires a different type of cognitive processing than when typing notes. Since writing by hand is a slower method, it also allows for more time to digest information. Try finding a professor with favourable ratings. One of the more popular sites used for rating professors is ratemyprofessors.com. If a professor is passionate about the subject and teaches the material in a clear and concise way, chances are you will be more attentive in class and learn more about the material. Until then, stay alert!
