by L.C.

Created on: February 11, 2010

I have taken six online courses through high school: philosophy, history from the 16th century, business, French literature, earth sciences and the psychology of human development. As such, I can safely say I have quite a bit of experience taking online courses. If you are considering taking an online course or are currently enrolled, you might have several questions regarding the learning process, the workload, and how to succeed.

It goes without saying that the most important thing in online learning is independence. Most online courses follow a format where each day has a lesson that must be completed, and the teacher should provide a calendar indicating what work is due which days. You should be absolutely certain to at least be on time in the course, and if you ever have a chance to advance, take that opportunity at once. I finished my philosophy course in five weeks, giving me plenty of time to work on my other courses. You do not want to fall behind in your online course. This will cause you to become confused, irritated, unmotivated and ultimately uninterested in the course. It is hard to success when you have this sort of negative attitude.

Ultimately, from my experience the workload of online courses is not any more or less than that given in a classroom. Teachers generally understand that not everyone is taking an online course because they want to. Schedule conflicts, sport tournaments which result in lengthy absences from school, or a course not offered at school can all be reasons why a student has to take an online course. Furthermore, teachers will understand that not every student has the time to advance rapidly in the course, and that for some students independent learning can be a real challenge.

As such, I have noticed that most online teachers are pretty lenient when it comes to correcting. This doesn’t mean you can slack off and expect to get good grades, but that you shouldn’t stress yourself too much when it comes to your online course. I have a friend who was constantly checking the calendar to make sure he had stuff handed in on time, was always worried the assignments weren’t sent to the teacher, was always wondering if he had a test coming up he didn’t know about, and just had an overall bad experience the entire semester. He was completely incapable of self-directed study and of feeling confident without having a teacher there every day assuring him he was progressing just fine.

In order to avoid this, you

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>