College students know that keeping up-to-date with online classes’ work can be hard.
Although the self-pacing core of these classes can be beneficial during busy weeks, it is easy to procrastinate and fall behind.
With so many simultaneous commitments (in-person classes, extracurriculars, jobs, internships, social life, gym and six to eight hours of sleep), online classes may not be considered a priority. That’s okay. But they can’t be totally forgotten. Just like any other course, online classes directly impact students’ success in college. Failing an online class can hurt students’ GPAs and compromise their learning process towards a degree. So, it is important that UF students take advantage of the freedom these courses offer – and not be taken down by them.
Here’s a list with five tips to help you hold yourself accountable when taking online classes, stay on track and ensure quality learning.
- Self-assign fixed time slots to work on the class
Sometimes, the best way to deal with online courses is to pretend they are regular, in-person classes. Establish specific times of your week for you to work on your online class and nothing else. These periods should be built into your schedule/routine and separated from whatever other compromises you may have. No excuses. You should treat these time slots as if you were to spend them at a lecture hall watching an in-person class with mandatory attendance. No matter how many assignments you have to do or how much you feel like rotting in bed, you still should take this predetermined period to work on your online class.
Doing so will help you avoid pushing online work back until the last minute. Although asynchronous classes may be flexible, you still have deadlines to meet. And it is totally on you to make sure you get your work done in time. So, assigning specific time periods to work on class material every week is the best way to ensure your progress is constant.
- Actively use a calendar
This can be in whatever format you prefer. Like using Google Calendar? Perfect! Prefer a paper planner? Go for it!
The key point here is to make sure you have all important dates/events for the class (e.g., quizzes, exams and assignments deadlines) marked down somewhere of easy access. When taking online classes, you won’t have a professor constantly reminding you of due dates. Therefore, you have to assume this responsibility!
But remembering all dates can be challenging and overwhelming when you have other classes and extracurricular responsibilities. So, use calendars to make your life easier. It won’t take you too long to enter these events into a calendar, and you’ll benefit from it all semester long. After all, nobody wants to miss an important exam.
- Watch all lectures
Everyone knows they should watch their lectures, right? Isn’t this common sense? Well, not so much when it comes to online classes. Although “watching lectures” may seem a basic point to make, it deserves special attention in the context of online courses.
Because online classes don’t register attendance, many students don’t watch recorded lectures. Or, when they do, students often speed up the videos. Although this “tactic” may save time for other classes and activities, it comes at a high cost. Skipping lecture videos, or accelerating them, can seem beneficial in the short term, but it doesn’t compensate in the long term. That’s because, later, you will have to spend extra time studying to understand topics you didn’t dedicate much time to before. And, once the class’s content has accumulated, it can become quite overwhelming and frustrating to catch up.
Also, if we are in college, it means we should want to learn – and we are all paying pretty high prices for this education. So, we should try our best to take the most out of all classes, including the online ones. After all, watching online lectures is a core part of this learning process.
- Use personalized strategies to enhance focus
It can be really hard to stay focused on online classes. The lack of face-to-face interactions makes any and all distractions significantly more appealing. It takes a lot of effort to concentrate on a laptop screen when there is so much going on around you. Phones ringing, notifications buzzing, people talking… the list goes on and on.
So, it is fundamental to develop personalized strategies to enhance your focus when working on online classes. These tactics may vary a lot from person to person. Some people might need total silence to fully concentrate, while others might prefer having some type of background noise (maybe music or ambient conversations). This is the process of self-discovery: you should identify what works the best for you! And, once you figure this out, then all you should do is stick to the plan and watch yourself succeed in your online classes.
- Remember you are not alone
Online classes’ absence of in-person interactions can make students feel isolated. I’m sure we can all agree that a laptop screen doesn’t seem personal at all. Consequently, watching a lecture through this screen doesn’t facilitate connections between students and professors. Instead, it makes students feel as if they were responsible for learning all content by themselves. And, because this idea can be quite overwhelming and stressful, it may demotivate students from working on their online classes.
However, it is important to remember you aren’t alone at any time. Even if working remotely makes it seem like you are by yourself, know that there is always someone who can offer you support. This person could be your assigned professors/instructors or even other students enrolled in the course. So, whenever you feel lost or scared in an online class, don’t shy away from asking for help. All it takes is an email.
Final Note
Online classes are a challenge for us, college students. And, unfortunately, there’s no way of running away from them. Actually, the tendency is for the amount of exclusive online classes to increase over time. So, we must do our best to police ourselves and take the most out of this learning format.
Follow these five tips, and your experience with online classes in college will be much more positive.