Online learning offers a lot more flexibility in the way that you learn and the location from which you learn and is ideally suited to students who love to be a little bit more independent and take on a bit more responsibility for their online learning.
Space
The first thing you need to do when you’re studying online is to establish a dedicated study space. Wherever you are going to be studying you need to clear your desk, make sure you set up your laptop, get everything in place and keep it tidy and organised.
You want to have a single place where you have a routine of going to study and make that place look beautiful and attractive so that you actually want to go there and study.
Schedule
The next step is going to be to set yourself a study schedule: you need to get into a routine for your studies. One way to do that is by working with a learning coach to work out what’s a good time for you to study and when are you going to take your breaks.
Make sure you get some outside time and you have plenty of time to study but also a balance and plenty of time to relax as well.
At Highgrove Online School we have learning coaches that work with students every week in one-to-one coaching sessions to help them set up their study space and study routines.
If you want to find out more about this watch the video and follow the link in the description.
Team
Another really important thing is to build your network. It really helps to be studying alongside other people.Tthis is why the dropout rates for asynchronous courses where there aren’t other people working alongside you are so high and yet we have so few students drop out at Highgrove because you’re in a community, so sign up to an only school and make the most of that.
Make sure you reach out to others, make sure that you become friends with your classmates, develop your study network and encourage each other.
Partner
The last thing is finding an accountability partner. For many of our students that’s their learning coach, somebody who meets with them weekly, sets them down to see what they’ve done, what they haven’t done, how are they going to improve, how are they going to stay on top of their work. Sometimes it’s a mom or dad, sometimes it’s a friend. The important thing is that you’ve got somebody who you’re checking in with week after week who’s going to help you keep up with your goals and achieve what you want to do with your education.
And of course one really key thing is to make sure you ask questions and ask for support when you need it.
