Three Needed Skills for Online Learning
“…most online programs routinely fail their students through giving them insufficient instruction on the skills required by this new learning environment.” Taylor Study Method
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These are THE “Three Needed Skills for Online Learning”?
When studying online it is crucial to protect your executive memory by not allowing yourself to be sucked into this ecosystem of distractions.
When studying online, make sure you have access to a good printer. Then print the material you need to read, particularly if it is something important that you’ll need to remember later.
The onus rests on our own shoulders to carefully police our environment for potential distractions. That means that we have to develop the skill of turning off our distractions.
Hardly.
First, skills #1 and #3 are the same: remove distractions. Second, skill #2 isn’t even a skill.
Having almost completed my entire MDiv on-line (and not through Liberty), here are three skills that have served me well over the past 5 years.
#1: The ability to set and manage your priorities (i.e. time management). To be successful in an on-line program, you have to know when reading assignments, class interaction, papers, quizes, and tests are due. You also have to know how to prioritize / manage them all in the time that you have each week alongside family, work, and church responsibilities. If you’re not good at time management and/or organization, you’re going to struggle in an on-line learning environment.
#2: The discipline to begin early and to finish what you begin. To be successful in an on-line program, you have to be disciplined enough to read ahead and get as much done as possible before the class starts. When an 8-week theology class requires you to read 1,500+ pages and write two major theology papers, and that’s on top of learning Hebrew and memorizing 250+ Hebrew vocab words, it’s in your best interest to get your reading done before class starts, even if it’s during summer or Christmas break. This means being a disciplined (self) learner. Discipline also includes the tenacity to finish what you start. Getting your MDiv online can become discouraging because it takes SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO long. During that time you start thinking about all the other things you could be doing with the time and money you’re investing in the program. It’s tempting to take a “sabbatical” from school and to never return.
#3: The ability to nurture relationships. Let’s face it, when you work full-time, take one, two, or three seminary classes a semester, and serve at your church your relationships with your family can be stretched thin. The only way I can successfully complete my on-line MDiv is if my wife and children are supportive. If I don’t find ways to nurture those family relationships I’m headed for big trouble. One way that I have nurtured my relationships with my children during my online studies is to involve them in what I’m learning. When I started taking Greek, I had my 10-year-old son help me to learn and memorize the alphabet. We would have fun singing the Greek alphabet song around the house, much to the amusement of others. When I started taking Hebrew this past semester, I had my 12-year-old daughter help me make my vocab flash cards. She also took delight in quizzing me on the vocab using the flash cards she made for me.
Also, in an on-line learning environment, it’s important (almost essential) to nurture your relationship with the professor. I’ve met several of my professors in person either through my travels or theirs, I’ve had dinner/lunch with a few of them. I keep up e-mail correspondence with them, and I read/respond to their papers and blogs. This helps build meaningful relationships that continue outside of class.
In other words, you need all the same skills necessary for doing it on site, sounds like.
Your post brought back so many memories… how LOOOOOONNNNG it seemed to take. And distraction management… I remember being struck with the realization, about two years in, that I hadn’t read a novel in over two years (much less, watched any TV etc). At some point, I had to make a little time for the distractions, because some of them became necessities for overall sanity… or so it seemed anyway.
I haven’t done an online course yet, but it sounds like mostly the same kind of disciplines are required.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I, too, am doing my MDiv completely online. It is indeed taking SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO long.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[Aaron Blumer]In other words, you need all the same skills necessary for doing it on site, sounds like.
Pretty much. I do think on-line learning is particularly suited for self-motivated, self-learners.
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