Online Learning Success

copyright Chris LeCraw iStockPhoto.com #000000818351

Online classes can be so efficient. You waste no time in travel or trivia, but only if you manage that time! Here are a few tips for success in the online environment:

1. Post your assignment calendar to keep you up to date, maybe even a little ahead.
2. Go online every day and do something to advance your learning:
   1. Check your school e-mail and your instructor feedback.
   2. Read your lessons carefully; they’re like going to class. If you skipped class, you’d be lost, right?
   3. Savor every reading assignment, and explore every media resource, even if there’s no official assignment checking up on you. I once had a student announce, “I am ‘In It to Win It!’ I paid all this money and I’m going to be here every minute, do every bit of the work, and learn everything I can!” (May I clone Tiffany?)
   4. Work on your written assignments each day, allowing plenty of time to let your first drafts rest. You’ll gather new ideas and perspectives as you go about your life. Then come back to revise.
3. Take time to understand your learning style and play to your strengths. Love your brain for what it does best, and it will love you!
   1. If you’re a visual learner, you probably think online learning is the greatest invention ever. To add to the visual experience, you might print out your lessons or use a white board or mind-mapping program to review concepts or brainstorm for your own writing.
   2. If you’re an auditory learner, you’ll need to compensate for not hearing lectures and verbal explanations. You could record yourself reading your lessons, then listen to your own voice while you reread it.
   3. If you’re more hands on/kinesthetic, the white board idea could also work for you, and you might enjoy using post it notes you can move around or creating your own illustrations, whether high art or stick figures.
4. Set up reminders that suit your learning style. Think like a kid.
   1. Visual: make a paper chain (like a child counting down to a holiday) and label all the links with the lessons and their tasks for the whole course.
   2. Auditory: you could set a timer to announce your scheduled study time, preferably one that plays your favorite psyche up music.
   3. Kinesthetic/hands on: the paper chain might work for you, too. Or you could booby-trap your room to catapult you into your study chair.
5. Reward yourself!
   1. Visual: no one is too old for gold stars. Watch a movie.
   2. Auditory: play your victory music.
   3. Kinesthetic: dance, exercise, or create something.
6. Protect your health. Schedule breaks for fun, rest, and relationships. I used to pull all-nighters in college. (Did you know it compromises your immune system for days afterward?) We all write better and more efficiently when we’re rested, nourished, and active.
   1. A great time to write is right after walking or swimming. Your brain will be rich with oxygen and your thoughts will run smoothly. If you ever feel stuck, get up, drink water, stretch thoroughly, walk a few minutes, and try again. Brain Gym^® is an amazing modality.
   2. Pace your education your way. There’s no reason to die of stress: the number of classes you take at one time and the speed at which you complete them are choices you make.
   3. Include friends and family in your plans and give them reasons to be excited to support your success. Teach them what you’re learning. (Nothing will help you learn it better!) Enjoy time with them between assignments.
   4. Write every day. True, it will develop your writing voice and strengthen the skills, but the most important thing about keeping a private journal is the way you’ll use that writing to rest, reflect, and restore your perspective.
7. Remember that your instructor is part of your support team. If life happens, keep in touch. Be aware of your school’s policies so that if you have an emergency, and need more time to complete an assignment, you know where to request a due date extension.
8. Keep copies of everything! Sometimes technology eats your homework. Sometimes humans make mistakes. So please keep duplicates, and back up your files. A flash drive is wonderful, as long as everything is also stored elsewhere. (Yes, I’m the voice of experience.)
9. Ask for help whenever you have questions or concerns. Your instructor is your first contact, and can also refer you to additional resources when needed.
10. Allow the time and freedom to savor learning itself. I am happiest when I’m learning. That’s what I love best about teaching, both learning to support my students better and learning from them. That’s the magic for me.

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All rights reserved. WritersResort.com

Photo © Chris LeCraw iStockPhoto #818351

Hamlet in Prison

Jack Hitt’s hour-long report  for This American Life on Hamlet performed by prisoners, originally broadcast in 2002, has inspired me all week with its deep insights about Hamlet and encouragement for my own students, a few of whom have come from prison.

Nobody points out the ex-cons in my classes–I wouldn’t know that detail if they didn’t confide in me themselves. A couple have broken my heart by returning to prison or to the streets, but most are determined to take their second chance and become a blessing to their families. Like this reporter, I don’t necessarily want to know what they’ve done in the past. For me, their life begins here and now.

And I’d love to have all of my students think of my class-as one prisoner/performer said of his experience with teacher/director, Agnes Wilcox–”For a few hours a week, we get to feel human again.”

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011

How to Succeed in American Business

Teaching in a multicultural environment often includes overtly explaining American business culture and helping students practice that language. For starters, there’s the direct eye contact, the body language, the smiling, the small talk, the willingness to let people know you’re accomplishing something–while not crossing the line into boasting.

In “Looking at the Bamboo Ceiling,” NPR’s Melissa Block and Michele Norris interviewed Wesley Yang, author of “Paper Tigers: What Happens to All Of The Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-taking Ends?” and Jane Hyun, author of Breaking The Bamboo Ceiling. Both write about “Asian-American students’ over-representation in almost every index of achievement in education . . .  and under-representation in corporate leadership.” They describe the adjustments they have made to be as successful in business as they were in the classroom. They’ve learned to share achievements, and to connect socially through the nonverbal cues.

Hyun tells the story of working on spreadsheets while a colleague seemed to waste a few minutes every day, chatting with the boss. Hyun’s background had taught her to put her nose down, work hard, all alone at her desk; no one taught her that building relationships would also matter.

Yang explains that in many places in the world, if you went around smiling all the time, “you’d be perceived not as a friendly person, but as a crazy one.” He finds it handy to use his “Asian poker face” at times, and jokes that he hasn’t learned to smile, but notes that “the United States has a different expectation, and if you don’t meet that expectation, there will in many cases be a barrier to trust and acceptance . . . your whole life on the basis of something that seems so trivial and . . . can be changed.”

Just as Americans need to learn new communication styles when they work internationally, many of our own students require bicultural fluency to be successful. I tell students from backgrounds where direct eye contact is considered rude that staring at someone’s nose looks exactly like eye contact without being quite as uncomfortable for them. And I encourage them to retain the gifts of their own cultures, and to continue to use their cultural nonverbal traditions at home, while learning to speak “American business” at work and school. These additional cultural ideas make all the difference in American career and social success:

• The American business sense of time requires punctuality and a full day of work all day every day.
• You’re required to communicate. If you can’t come in, or you’re going to be late, you call your boss and make a new agreement. You don’t wander off early without letting people know what’s happening. (You also take the loss on your timecard if you’re hourly, or let people know how you’ll make up the work if you’re on salary.)
• When you make a mistake, you apologize and learn out how to correct it or improve next time. Neither ignoring a mistake nor treating a correction as an attack on your honor will help you work things out.
• Smoking won’t entitle you to extra breaks and won’t be socially acceptable in most workplaces. According to a 2009 Center for Disease Control report, high school dropouts smoked at a rate of over 28%, while those with graduate degrees were down to 5.6%. Yes, that would probably be the toughest adjustment you could make, but you wouldn’t be the first person to quit, and every organ in your 60-year-old body would thank you.

All of these learned behaviors are challenging, but possible. If someone offered you an extra $10,000 a year, or $100K, would you do it? That’s the invitation. You are officially invited to the ball. Feel free to dress up, put on your American business manners, and shine.

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011