Coronavirus and Online learning: 10 tips to cope with it
Now that we are all staying home to stop the spread of COVID-19, we have enough time to self-develop. The majority of students try to find what to do during the time when they should stay home and follow the quarantine rules. There are many options ranging from various funny activities with the family to massive cleanup in each and every room of the house. This is the time when we can finally stop, take a deep breath, and dedicate our precious time to what we have always wanted to do.
Nonetheless, you should be careful. This is not a vacation. You can have rest and chill for a day or two, but if you continue, you will become a couch potato. If you do not want to be a lazy and inactive person for a couple of weeks, you should find the appropriate undertaking for this mandatory “vacation.” Try to be a versatile home-sitter and allocate your free time properly. Do not pay too much attention to chilling activities like watching films or TV series.
The best choice for a student is to take his or her online classes responsibly and make the best of the current situation. In fact, it can be extremely difficult and daunting to set your working mood when you are at home, but if you still need to have your degrees when the quarantine ends, you should be persistent.
Online learning is what you are going to participate in for the next couple of weeks. This is a mandatory step, and you cannot avoid it. Online classes are not fittable for everyone since there are students who lack enough level of self-discipline and fail to cope with the tasks. Online teaching requires full and undivided attention both from a professor and a student. There is a set of traits that you should possess to manage online learning. Thus, you should have well-developed time management skills, willpower, and motivation, for sure. If you feel discouraged or unmotivated, make sure to read our guide and find out how to enhance your productivity.
When I don’t know who can write my essay for me I seek help from professionals. Do you?
1. Understand what are these remote teaching practices and expectations
At first, you should comprehend an obvious thing: online classes are not easier. In some cases, it is even more challenging for a student to get on with the tasks remotely. However, in today’s reality, this is the most convenient and safest way to continue the educational process. Therefore, you have to dedicate a lot of time and concentration as usual.
Apart from the attention, motivation, and commitment, you should realize what to expect from an online university course:
- participation in online classroom discussions and be active in demonstrating your point of view;
- being tech-savvy, as you will work via mobile gadget or computers;
- cooperation with your groupmates;
- being punctual and completing all the tasks following the deadlines;
- maintain self-discipline.
If you understand that following every step is difficult for you, you need to show more persistence and overcome this period as best as you can, since if you mess up with the tasks, it can further have an impact on your exams or tests results.
Therefore, it is better to get prepared for the quarantine and know how to accumulate efforts and improve the productivity, because the time will come and you will have to come back to your normal studying routine with high points.
2. Be sure to use the reliable internet connection
If you are an experienced user of different Internet platforms, you should probably know how often technology glitches happen. If you do not have reliable access to the Internet, you can lose your materials, mess up with an online lecture, or fail to meet the deadlines online. Therefore, your task is to ensure safe document storage on reliable sources, such as Google Documents or Dropbox. This way, you can back up the information you have found or collected.
Being able to save the materials is important, but you have to pay attention to another aspect which is the contact of your instructor or professor. If you lose it, you will not be able to reach them. Therefore, you need to save the contacts of important university or college agents onto your phone, for example.
If you have reliable Internet access, you will always be tuned and informed in terms of any schedule changes or shifts. You will also be able to stay in touch with your groupmates to help each other with difficult tasks.
3. Find Yourself a Separate Study Space to Reach Online Learning Success
When you are at home, you can use any room in the house as a study room. It does not matter what kind of room it is. It can be a living room, a bedroom, your cabinet, or even a bathroom if you find the inspiration working there. However, there should be no noise or possible distractions. You should have enough light and space to feel comfortable doing your home tasks. Do not neglect the place that you decided to be your online learning cabinet. Here you will spend a great amount of your time, so it should be perfect for you.
Another aspect is self-respect. If you want to be fully concentrated on the class, and there should be neither distractions nor interruptions during your studying hours. For this purpose, you should ask your friends and family members to treat your work mode. To ensure silence, you can also turn off your phone for this period of time.
4. Find out your own online studying goals
To be inspired, you should set particular goals and try to keep them in mind. Additionally, you can take a piece of paper and write down what you want to achieve at the end of your remote learning. This is a great tip that will give you a good portion of inspiration during the whole quarantine session.
To make it easier, look through your course plan if you have one. Looking through it, you can note the most challenging items and add them to your goal list. These tasks should be done at first, and then you can move to the easier ones. This way, you will be able to allocate your time correctly and be effective.
5. Create a comprehensive study plan
This is a critical step that you should do if you really want to succeed in your online learning.
Plan beforehand
If you want to get high grades for the tasks, you cannot postpone the task until the last day of the deadline. If you procrastinate and wait too much, you will stress. It will definitely spoil the quality of your paper.
Moreover, if you plan the tasks you have to do, you will know your actual schedule and be more productive. It will help you see how much workload to expect from the day. If you know you will need more free time on a particular day; you will be able to distribute the tasks equally and spend your free time in good conscience.
Create a calendar to make your eLearning even more effective
Being a student means having many classes on your schedule. If you do not keep track of them, you will, for sure, forget about an important exam date or a deadline. To avoid such confusing situations that can harm your academic proficiency, you need a calendar. Here all the information will be put in a structured order. You can have your calendar in a written form and put it onto the wall if it is convenient for you. You can also create an online calendar on your phone or computer and have it with you on hand.
To-do lists
All these planners and calendars are appropriate in the long run, but to know your daily workload, you need a to-do list where all your assignments will be stored. If you resort to this useful technique, you will well prioritize your tasks and make your daily routine an effective one.
Set limits
When you have a list of tasks, you should think over the time for each of them. Base your time limits on the difficulty of the task. If the assignment requires a simple reading of the chapter, you will need less time than to research the topic and develop writing, for example. If you follow your time-limit routine, you will develop self-discipline and won’t have to hurry up. Do not overdo with this task. Pay attention to your mental state to stay afresh and active. If you set tight time frames, there will be too much pressure.
Stay on your schedule
Be persistent and follow the plan that you have created. Procrastination is not the best choice here, as the tasks will only grow in size. It is better to do everything in time and stay organized. If you understand that there is no chance for you to submit the assignment on time, you should contact your teacher and ask for a delay.
6. If you need help, ask for it
Online learning is aimed at self-learning. This way, you are the only person responsible for the results of the studying process and, thus, the results. So if you do not understand the material, you should definitely try one more time and get to the bottom of it. However, if you see that your efforts are fruitless, and you still do not have a clue of what is discussed in a book or a document, you need to ask your instructor for help. Nevertheless, the learning process is remote; your teacher still has the responsibility to explain the material to make you understand it. Do not feel embarrassing asking for help, as hesitating will only make things worse. You will fail to keep up with the pace. Your self-esteem will lower, and you will lose any motivation to go on with the classes.
Therefore, try to be an effective learner and ask the instructor what was confusing for you. To avoid misunderstanding in online conversations with the instructor, think the message carefully, and create it coherently. Include who you are and why you write, describe your problem, and ask what you exactly need. It will save your time and the time of the instructor. Moreover, when you write a consistent letter, the teacher can clearly realize how to help.
When you reach the instructor to help you, he or she also benefits from it and thus understands what the pitfalls of the system are and how the issues can be resolved. Moreover, when you get the idea of the challenging and tough material, you can help your virtual classmates, too.
7. Important rule
Review. Revise. Repeat. When you get acquainted with the material, you can miss something important, and for this purpose, you need constant reviewing practice. When you start revising the material, you train your memory and probably find what you could have previously missed.
A great way to increase your effectiveness and make the process funnier is using flashcards. These are little cards where you write down the main information concerning the subject topic. It can really help you remember more and easier. This way will be helpful if you work alone.
If you prefer teamwork, you can avoid flashcards and incorporate live discussion. When talking about a phenomenon, you can share your understanding and take advantage of what other group mates think. With alternative viewpoints, you will achieve greater results.
Revising the material will keep your mind fresh and open to new material. Common support is what matters in online learning. You should support each other and share your findings among the group mates. There may be shy people who feel uncomfortable asking for help, and your personal notes may help them considerably.
8. Don’t Overdo with Online Learning Success
The best advice that we can give you is being moderate with your online learning. When you get fully immersed in the process, you can neglect an important aspect of your academic success. This is the rest that you definitely need to work progressively and get benefits from your activity. If you want everything to be perfect, you can fail in the end. To be a prosperous student, you have to balance between the workload and the time for yourself.
We are used to overlooking our mental health, but the immune system suffers when we are extremely tired. Now, this is not the best time to endure our bodies. Therefore, you need to be careful in allocating the time for work and pleasure. If you feel uncertain about the breaks, set the timers. You can use your phone to set the alarm and, thus, set the time frames. It will help you sort out the pressure and consume your time effectively.
When we talk about little breaks, we practically mean few-minutes breaks, which are enough to reload your mind and set in a good mood. Do not give yourself too much time to rest, as it will only distract you from the studying groove. Be cautious and take advantage of short breaks.
9. Be Active During Online Sessions
Online learning does not mean complete isolation from other students in your class. You can contact them and ask them to join common work. It will only enhance your learning experience. There is an abundance of ways to reach your group mates and communicate. You can create a group on any social media platform and start an online conversation there. You can also contact your instructor and create common chat to discuss various things concerning the subject and its issues. It is even more beneficial since you are all engaged in the discussion and can generate interesting and never-before-thought ideas.
You should not be a passive witness of classroom discussions, as there will eventually be more proactive students to do better than you. Thus, you can get fewer grades and lose the credibility of your instructor. Be active, suggest ideas, try to generate interesting thoughts, and support what think is right. It will only improve your grades and make you more involved in the discussion.
Show respect to what other students cover, and then they will show respect to your own ideas. Start arguing if you are sure you know the subject and have strong arguments to support your position.
10. Be Motivated To Achieve Online Classes Success
Try to retain the desire to continue learning online material. It can be tiresome sometimes, but if you know what your motivation is, you will succeed. Consider these tips to stay motivated and inspired to proceed with the studying:
- do not be in a rush, manage to create your own studying groove and do it step-by-step at your own comfortable pace;
- remember why you started this course and what you will get in the end;
- praise your ups but accept your downs as well, you will have a lot of them anyway;
- have healthy snacks near you and stay hydrated;
- reward yourself for getting great points or dealing with a challenging task;
- do not forget to have some rest and reload;
- stay optimistic and safe.
These tips are extremely helpful for online learners, and if you follow them, you will make this online quarantine education an enjoyable journey.