One of the first things that I learned when I started taking classes online was that not all classes are created equal. When I attended school on campus, I had plenty of time to meet my instructors in person in the classroom and between classes. Not so when taking classes online; usually the first time an online student even knows who their instructor will be is when they get the welcome email from the instructor two or three days before the class begins. I have found that by responding to that welcome email, asking how the instructor prefers to be called, and asking any questions that I may have concerning the class has given me more information than I initially ask for.
By responding to this initial email,
- you will be able to gage more or less how long it will take for the instructor to respond to any concerns that may arrise during the class,
- the format that the instructor prefers emails and postings to be posted in,
- how the instructor prefers to be addressed (believe it or not, instructors are just like us and some will actually feel insulted if not addressed by their first name),
- ways to work with or around assignments that are concerning for good reason,
- as well as having the added benefit of allowing your instructor know that you are an interested student.
In addition to responding to the welcome email, there are other ways to make the most out of online classes. We all know that classes online are a lot faster paced than on campus classes, so the best way to keep ahead of the game (or sometimes just keep up in the faster paced classes online) is to always keep your reading up to date in the class, and start each assignment as soon as you have finished the last assignment. I used to have the bad habit of starting an assignment either the day before or the due date of that assignment; this is absolutely the hardest way to do the assignments, and usually results in less than optimal grades. By starting the assignment several days ahead of time, and shooting up to 5 times the required number of shots, you give yourself much more to work with in the final cut. Another way that starting ahead of time can help is by giving time to have your written portions proofread by another and can also cut down on spelling and grammer errors by giving you more time to think about what you are writing before it is time to turn it in. (Proofreading is one of the items that the tutoring link can help with, though I hear it usually takes a day or two, so please allow plenty of time before the assignment ids due.)
A big deal with the online classes is that a part of the grade for every assignment is critiquing the work of other students. Different classes will require critiques on different numbers of classmates, and some assignments will require more than others even in the same class. The best way to handle the critiquing process, in my experience, is to start the critiquing process as soon as you and at least one other student have turned in the assignment. It is also important to remember that even if the other student has turned in an assignment that you may find distasteful, all critiques must be polite and should include vocabulary words from the week of the assignment. Also, please remember, the instructor is the only person in the classroom who has the authority to tell a student that they need to redo the assignment, even if you may think that they should.
Most of all, enjoy the class; it's so much easier to perform well in a class that you enjoy, so find any way you can to enjoy what you are doing. Though some classes are easier than other to enjoy, we can always find something enjoyable about almost any situation we find ourselves in.
