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How to Make Most Out of Your Online Classes

Written by CB Community

Online learning comes with many advantages, such as convenience. You are now able to learn at many colleges regardless of their locations and your ability to access the facility.

You can also plan your classes around your daily schedule, be it work or family dynamics.

There are, however, many other external factors that can make it such that you don’t get the most out of the classes if you don’t put in the effort.

Here are some ways that you can make the most out of your online classes:

1. Create a Schedule 

Online learning means having to schedule your classes around your daily routine.

For example, you might be attending classes with one of the most top-ranked colleges while working shifts and caring for your family. It may sometimes be challenging to juggle the different roles that you play. 

The challenges that come with failing to create a schedule that you stick to mean that you may not get the most out of your online classes. You may miss important videos and live instructions that will directly impact your performance.

You should create a schedule for each day that you intend to attend class accordingly to make sure that you get the most out of the classes. 

2. Analyse Your Productive Hours

Your productive hours are the times during the day where you can focus without external distractions.

For example, if the mornings include rushing through traffic to get your side-hustle, these might not be your most productive hours in terms of online learning.

Another example may be that the afternoon requires you to attend sporting activities, or you may live in a location where temperatures soar during the day and make focusing difficult, so these would not be the best hours to dedicate to studying.

You will have to find the hours where you are most attentive and in-tune with the material presented online.

This may not always be feasible, but you may have to be as flexible as you can to try facilitating the productive hours to be included in your schedule. 

3. Clear Your Working Space 

You have to make sure that your working space is clear of clutter and distractions. You will struggle to get the most out of your online classes if you are constantly distracted by gadgets in your workspace.

For example, if you are trying to attend class with your tablet on your working space, as well as your phone, you will get distracted every time that one of the gadgets buzz.

Gadgets on your workspace also remind you of people you may have intended to communicate with, and before you know it, you would have spent most of your allocated time on your gadgets rather than attending class. 

4. Open Necessary Tabs 

Smiling girl student wear wireless headphone study online with skype teacher, happy young woman learn language listen lecture watch webinar write notes look at laptop sit in cafe, distant education

If you open tabs other than the ones that are required for your classes, you run the risk of switching to other tabs that aren’t supposed to be included in your time.

For example, if you have YouTube and Facebook pages open simultaneously with your e-learning platform, you may switch tabs to attend to the notifications that grab your attention.

You have to be disciplined enough to only pay attention to your learning material and leave other social networking and entertainment sites for later. 

5. Ask Questions 

You should never shy away from asking questions regarding any topic, theme, or technical instruction you receive.

You must make it a point to familiarise yourself with the various help channels or centers, as well as people that you can communicate with when in need.

Failing to do so may result in you missing out on crucial information and misunderstanding requirements. 

6. Revise Your Work

Attending classes and forgetting about the lessons once you sign out defeats the purpose of the learning process.

You must make time to revise the material that you would have engaged in class.

Some platforms offer revision hubs and you should make the most out of those channels before or after class, and in your free time.

You can find different methods of revision such as flashcards, downloading revision material from various learning platforms, forming study groups, and practicing on past exam-papers. 

Conclusion

Making the most out of your online classes requires determination, commitment and focus.

You should create a schedule that accommodates your daily routines and make sure to stick to it.

You must also find the hours in which you are most productive, and clear your working space from clutter and distractions.

Never shy away from asking questions on the online channels regarding your work and technical processes that come with e-learning.

About the author

CB Community

Passionate members of the College Basics community that include students, essay writers, consultants and beyond. Please note, while community content has passed our editorial guidelines, we do not endorse any product or service contained in these articles which may also include links for which College Basics is compensated.