When it comes to online learning…

I naturally possess the skills of written communication, ability to learn new tools and technologies quickly, strong work ethic, ability to handle pressure, and organization.

The areas I have identified as ones that I’d like to improve on are time management, maintaining my drive, and planning ahead when personal commitments interfere with my typical school schedule.

I plan on using my learning in this class to support my success by writing up a 10-week-calendar with all of my school due dates and personal commitments at the beginning of week 0 for each semester. I will post it and add to it as I make new appointments, travel plans, plans for outings during usual school hours, etc. I also plan to print all of my syllabi, highlight important info, and post them by my school work area so that I see them on a regular basis. I learned to use a syllabus as an important tool throughout the term instead of an overview at the beginning of the term. I will also be using the research tools we learned about on a regular basis. I learned to embrace making goals instead of being annoyed by them (lol), because I am the one who is making them be whatever I want them to be. Previously I saw goals as tossing a want up into the air as something to reach toward that I may or may not accomplish. Setting SMART goals helps me to look ahead and maintain my drive to get the outcome that I want. Goals were vaguely in my thoughts, but weren’t thoroughly thought out. I was still disappointed when I didn’t meet a vague goal I had in mind, and not planning it out was allowing me to slack off and lower my standards in some situations.

The specific tools, tips, and strategies I will use…

With my learning style in mind, I will use audio books when available to appeal to my auditory learning style and take stress off of my eyes from reading on the computer so much. I will avoid procrastination that doesn’t appeal to my interpersonal skills because I am rushing near the due date to interact with other students on discussion boards, instead of having time to interact. I will listen to quiet lyric-free music to help keep me free of distraction and appeal to my musical learning style. I will use the Prezi presentation tool suggested this week in other classes down the road. I love the look of the presentations and how easy it is to use. I will also use the SMART goal writing strategies to keep myself on track.

The OSU resources I plan to use are…

I want to get involved with Psi Chi Honor Society for my student involvement. It seems like the perfect organization for me because I can gain online psychology resources, network online with others interested in psychology, and have occasional opportunities for in-person contact with the other students in the organization. For academic support, the resources I plan to use at OSU are home-delivered library books, NetTutor, and Success Counseling.

My goal for the upcoming term and longer-term outlook…

My short-term goal is to improve upon my first semester and get all of my assignments turned in next semester. I missed some due dates while traveling, and that snowballed quickly into me trying to recover and still do my missed assignments so I knew the material for exams while doing the next week’s workload. As a full-time student with 4 young children, I don’t have much flexibility in the amount of time I have to complete my work, and accumulating more work than I can complete in a week left my head spinning and added a lot of stress. (Not to mention that I’m worried what my GPA will look like.) I have written up a SMART goal that helped me to see how I will accomplish staying on task, because when I do, I get good points on assignments. I just need to get them done on time!

My longer-term outlook is specific in that it is to become a member of The Psi Chi Honor Society for students who have a psychology major or minor, but because the membership requires a certain grade-point average and number of psychology credits before you can join, it aids in my overall goal of keeping on task during each semester to meet those subgoals.

Specific steps I took this term to be able to identify my goals were…

Reflection prompted by this class really helped me identify what I could work on to improve and encouraged me to meet accomplishment goals that I can be proud of while at OSU. Making the SMART goals helped me make my goals and then think about how I will actually accomplish them. Also, reflection on why I was struggling helped me identify my goals, because I was then able to pinpoint areas that I could improve upon.

Hello fellow Online Learning Success bloggers!

The first couple weeks of online learning has been wonderful, tiring, engaging, and sometimes a race to get everything finished. I feel like I’ve learned so much in such little time, which is amazing, and also speaks to the amount of information my brain has (hopefully) sponged up in the last 2 weeks. I’m very happy that I’ve chosen to attend OSU, and I’m really impressed with the online courses overall.

Strengths:

The strengths that I’ve noticed are my determination to do well, my organization, my ability to break big assignments into smaller, doable steps, and my dedication to fitting in schoolwork where I need to as a stay-at-home-mom. Choosing to take the kids to the park on a sunny day and move studying to later is a nice flexibility that allows me to attend college, but I have to follow through and study that evening instead of relaxing or getting something else done.

Surprises:

As far as surprises, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how similar to on-ground classes the online learning program is at OSU. I’ve also been surprised at how well my four classes seem to touch on similar topics, creating a beautiful tapestry of learning that spans from statistics, to psychology, to my world religions class. It almost seems more than coincidental how well they all line up, like this is an intended part of the learning experience. Have you noticed a flow of topics within your own classes? Do you think that OSU makes it a point to have topics they like the professors to touch upon each week to encourage flow in the learning?

Struggles:

The struggles that keep me mindful of the challenges of online learning are those moments in my statistics class where I’m just not getting it and I can’t ask the teacher to explain it another way or have her look over my shoulder to quickly see what I’m doing, as they would in a classroom setting. I appreciate discussion board Q&A, but usually I’m hoping for a more immediate answer while doing these assignments. I’ve thought about trying NetTutor. Have any of you given it a try?