4 Simple Tricks for Online Classes

By DAVID CHAPEK/Staff Writer

If college students love complaining about something, it’s online classes – and not without reason. One study published by the National Library of Medicine in 2022 concluded that students generally “preferred in-person teaching and reported higher engagement, learning, and understanding during classroom teaching.”

But sometimes, scheduling or availability makes online classes a necessary evil, so here are four tips for success when it comes to online learning this semester.

 

1. Create a schedule and prioritize

Since online classes don’t have a regular schedule, it’s very easy for random assignments to get lost in the chaos of college, so creating your own comprehensive schedule is a must. There are plenty of free online apps that work perfectly for this sort of planning.

Look at each syllabus as soon as you get it, write down every due date (it’s most effective if you include both in-person and online assignments), and set reminders for each assignment.

But don’t just rely on reminders. Every time you go to study, check your schedule and work on the most important project (usually whatever’s due first). If you do this regularly, you’ll never be late for an assignment – even if your professor forgets to remind you.

 

2. Manage time wisely

If you are part of the rare species of college students who somehow manage to start assignments two hours before the deadline and still get a perfect grade, feel free to skip this point.

Otherwise, keeping high grades requires semi-responsible time management. This is even more important in online classes because all homework is done outside of class. In other words, you are 100% responsible for creating time to do all your work.

Sure, it’s tempting to decompress with friends after a hard day of school and work (and besides, that five-page paper on who-knows-what isn’t due until tomorrow).

But it’s not just setting aside time to study – anyone can do that. The trick is to actually study in the time set aside.

Come up with a routine for studying and stick to it. The best tool you have is consistency. Find a block of time that works every day, and whenever that time comes, commit to putting aside whatever else might be going on to focus on studying. In the end, this will maximize your productivity and free up other time for socializing and sleeping (also an essential element of success).

 

3. Find a good workspace

When looking for a place to study, it’s easy to crash on the couch or even your bed. However, your posture and surroundings play a huge role in how productive your study time is.

According to the University of California San Diego, “When you are lounging, your mind drifts out of focus. When you are sitting upright, in a well-lit room, your studying will be the most focused. Every hour of studying this way could be worth two hours of studying on the bed or sofa. That means more time for fun.”

A great study spot many students regularly use is UT Tyler’s library, which is full of tables, desks, and even study rooms. The important things are consistency and minimizing distractions.

 

4. Connect with professors

Everyone’s had a class where the professor just didn’t communicate the material well, and the same thing happens with online learning. Here, however, clarification is not as simple as raising a hand. Emailing professors takes extra time and effort. And if they don’t respond, it’s easy just to say “forget it” and move on, instead of following up or going to their office.

But putting in a little more effort on the front end can save much more time, energy, and GPA on the back end.

Email your professor with a question (any reasonable question, really) during the first week of class. This lets your professor know that you’re engaged and want to succeed.

But even more importantly, it will tell you something about the professor – how fast do they respond? Do they even respond at all? If you have a question later on in the semester about an assignment due that night, it can be helpful to know whether or not to expect an answer reasonably quickly – and getting an answer in time can save a lot of pain.

 

In short, online learning can be a lot more challenging than face-to-face. But with a little more effort during the first couple weeks (creating a schedule, managing time, having a good workspace, and communicating with professors – in short, responsible and consistent learning), it has the potential to be even more rewarding.