THE BRIDGE TO COLLEGE
4 Easy Tips to Improve Online Learning
Time travels on, things change, pandemics happen … and online learning becomes more prevalent.
Unfortunately, students are neither trained nor practiced at online learning. The adjustment is tougher than just turning on the computer.
When COVID-19 caused China to close its schools, our Asian clients became very anxious. “What will happen to my child now that they only have this inferior kind of education?!”
Relax. Online education is not inherently inferior. Although it is very different from classroom learning, it is also the same.
For students, most of the time in a classroom is spent absorbing material through the ears and eyes. Online, most of the time is spent … absorbing through one’s ears and eyes. Both formats rely primarily upon auditory and visual learning.
Yet there are two significant differences between classroom and online learning. The social component of school does not exist when studying at home. Also, being enclosed in a classroom with few distractions (and someone watching you) is not the same as being in a home environment that has more personal distractions, more comfort, and more mobility. Even when you do not see distractions, you feel them. In high school, you cannot just get up and walk a few feet to the refrigerator whenever your body or your boredom suggests you deserve a snack.
Here are four easy tips to improve your online learning:
First, remove the personal distractions. If your computer has video game hardware or software attached or installed, remove or disable it. Keep your cell phone in a different room while you study online. Switch up the usual place where you use the computer by moving to a less-familiar location, perhaps the dining room (where others can see you working, or not working).
Second, if you find that the instructor or materials provided by your school are inferior, find additional sources to supplement your learning. Because a different “voice” can lead to different “listening,” other explanations of your coursework. Remember that AP partners with Khan Academy and that IB also utilizes many educational partnerships. Use Google (or whatever service works best for you) to find explanations, instructional videos, YouTube, edX, Coursera … the sources are virtually limitless. If you need help from a person, get a tutor. Do not let inferior instruction limit your future!
Third, recognize that online education requires a different (and perhaps greater) focus than what happens in the classroom. Although you may be physically present in school for seven hours per day, it is physiological impossible for most of us to focus all that time. Online, we are (or should be) always fixated on the computer screen. More focus stresses your mind and body in ways you may not expect. Therefore, plan on shorter study sessions. Forty-five minutes of quality studying, repeated a few times a day, will likely lead to better learning than “chaining yourself to the desk.” When it comes to online learning, prefer quality over quantity.
Fourth, be aware that changing from a tightly-structured day to a non-structured day is something you likely have not encountered before, at least not in this way. Our former students universally complain that time management is by far the greatest challenge of the first year of college. However, even college students have the structure of scheduled classes. If you suddenly switched from being in-school to being at home, you have lost many of your structures. Create new structures that cannot be avoided. Scheduled events involving other people give you organization, a timetable of when you must do certain things. Meetings that are not solely within your control – even group chats with your friends – create “before, during and after” frameworks that make it more difficult for your days to slip away unproductively.
Just because you are not in school does not mean you cannot acquire knowledge. Quality learning is more dependent upon the learner than the instructor.
Robert LeVine is the founder and CEO of University Consultants of America, an independent educational consultancy assisting students around the world with applications to colleges, universities and graduate schools. For more information, call University Consultants of America, Inc. at 1-800-465-5890 or visit www.universitycoa.com