I have just decided/realized that lectures are not an ideal way for me to learn. Like how in “Don’t make me think” the author states that almost no people read pages from top to bottom, I would like to be able to do things like that when I’m learning. However, lectures do not allow that, I am forced to sit through the entire lecture, being bored at some parts, or confused at others, I am completely unable to go through it at my own pace.
This also creates dependencies on previous lectures that can be fatal to a student. For example, when I was taking Algebra in high school I missed the introduction to functions and that really messed me up, it took me a few weeks to really start to understand the concept. If I had known about wikipedia than maybe it would not have been so bad.
In all fairness to teachers, the dependence on lectures is forced by practical concerns (mostly relating to money) such as teacher to student ratio and time.