10 Ways Get Help from Your Online Professors

By Jamie Littlefield, About.com Guide http://distancelearn.about.com/od/privatestudentloans/tp/Help-from-Online-Professor.htm

Interacting with online professors can be daunting. Often, virtual communication is more difficult than a face-to-face meeting. But, theres no need to fear. Follow these ten suggestions and youll be able to get the help you need. 1. Relax. Your online professors want to help you. Dont be afraid to ask for help when its necessary. 2. Introduce yourself. As soon as you begin an online class, take a minute to introduce yourself to the professor. Say hello in a class chat or drop him a quick email. Youll be more comfortable dealing with someone you know if a problem arises. 3. Seek answers from designated areas first. Professors are eager to help with legitimate problems. But, they dont want to waste time when the answers can be found elsewhere. If you have a basic class question, first seek solutions from the class syllabus, website, and general discussion boards. 4. Re-read your emails. Emails can often be misunderstood. Whenever sending an email to your professor, re-read to make sure that your message is clear and your tone is intentional. 5. Listen. When you receive a response, make sure you pay attention to what the professor is saying. Re-reading his emails will help you avoid missing the details. 6. Approach before the student rush. After a challenging assignment or an important test, your professor is going to be inundated with emails. Anticipate any problems and try to approach him beforehand, when hell have more time to give your concern attention. 7. Ask politely. Even an online professor is in the wrong, its always smart to keep your communications polite. Remember that emails, message board posts, and chat discussions are often saved. 8. Expect fairness. Avoid asking for favors that would be unfair to other students. If you have a legitimate need, your professor will be more willing to work with you than if you just want to whine about a grade. 9. Dont go over his head. In extreme cases, online students may find it necessary to complain about a course to the school administration. But, its almost always best to solve problems directly with the professor. If you have a non-urgent complaint about the course, work with the instructor or save it for the evaluations. 10. If web communications break down, ask for a phone meeting. Sometimes emails and internet chats just dont cut it. If you have a concern that isnt getting solved online, ask your professor to set up a phone meeting. If you live near the schools brick-and-mortar campus you may even want to meet in person.

4 Ways to Balance Family and School

By Jamie Littlefield, About.com Guide

http://distancelearn.about.com/od/managingyourwork/a/familyandschool.htm
Balancing school and family life can be a challenge, even for online learners. While many older adults choose to continue their education through the internet, they often find their study time interrupted by spouses and children who miss them and dont understand the need for alone time. Here are a few suggestions for maintaining good relationships with those you love while studying online. 1. Set some ground rules for all parties. Chances are youll need some peace and quiet to get your work done. Setting specific times and posting a schedule on your office door (or kitchen fridge) can be a great way to form a common understanding and keep resentments from forming. Let your family know when youll be available and when they shouldnt disturb you. If youre in an online chat meeting, for example, you may want to hang a do not disturb sign on the door. Let children know what instances are appropriate for interruption (a stuffed bear causing the toilet to overflow) and which are inappropriate (they have a sudden urge for ice-cream). This street goes both ways, however, and youll also need to set some ground rules for yourself. Be available to your family during your off-hours and give them the attention they need. Let them know that they can trust you to be available when you say you will, and theyll be more willing to wait. 2. Dont forget play time. Online courses can get intense at times, particularly if youre enrolled in more than one. But, dont get so caught up that you forget to have fun. If need be, set aside a family night to play games or find entertainment with your children or a date night to spend a little quality time with your spouse. Youll get much needed relaxation and theyll appreciate seeing you in a less stressful mood. 3. Be an example. If you have school-aged children, use your own studies to set an example for how they can succeed in their own classes. Try setting aside a study time each afternoon when you study along side your kids. Serve a nutritious snack (think smoothie and apples rather than green beans) and play relaxing music. Chances are theyll mimic the study skills you model and their grades will benefit. Meanwhile, youll get a chance to complete your own studies while spending some time with your kids. Its a win-win. 4. Involve your family in your learning. Dont just slink away into the back room and come out, red-eyed and silent, after a few hours of intense studying. Let your family know youre accomplishing something meaningful. If you discover something interesting, bring it up at the dinner table or discuss it while driving your kids to school. Let your spouse tag along on field trips to the art museum or city counsel. Chances are theyll enjoy being involved in this part of your life and youll appreciate the chance to share it.

5 Study Secrets
http://distancelearn.about.com/od/studyskills/a/testtakingtips.htm

Most students hate tests. They hate the feeling of trying to remember the answer to a question, worrying that they focused on the wrong material, and waiting to receive their results. Whether you learn at a traditional school or study from the comfort of your own home, chances are youll have to sit through many a test-taking experience. But, there are a few tricks you can learn now to avoid the worry before youre in the heat of the moment. Give these five proven study tips a try and see how much better you feel during your next exam. 1. Survey your textbook or workbook before you read. Take a couple of minutes to find the glossary, index, study questions, and other important information. Then, when you sit down to study, youll know where to find the answers you are looking for. Make sure you read any study questions before you read the chapter. These questions let you know what you can probably expect in any upcoming tests, papers, or projects. 2. Attack your textbook with sticky notes. As you read, summarize (write down the main points in just a few sentences) each section of the chapter on a post-it note. After you have read the entire chapter and summarized each section, go back and review the post-it notes. Reading the post-it notes is an easy and fast way to review information and, since each note is stuck in the section it summarizes, you can easily find the information you need. 3. Use a graphic organizer to take notes when you read. A graphic organizer is a form you can use to organize information. As you read, fill out the form with important information. Then, use your graphic organizer to help you study for the test. Try using the Cornell notes worksheet (you can download an example at Jim Burkes website). Not only does this organizer let you record important terms, ideas, notes, and summaries, it also lets you quiz yourself on that information by folding the answers upside down. 4. Make your own practice test. After you finish reading, pretend you are a professor who is writing a test for the chapter. Review the material you just read and make up your own practice test. Include all vocabulary words, study questions (theyre usually at the beginning or end of the chapter), and highlighted words you can find, as well as any other information you think is important. Take the test youve created to see if you remember the information. If not, go back and study some more. 5. Create visual flashcards. Flashcards arent just for primary students. Many college students find them useful as well! Before you take a test, make flashcards that will help you remember important terms, people, places, and dates. Use one 3x5 index for each term. On the front of the card, write down the term or question you need to answer and draw a picture that will help you remember it. This will help ensure that you grasp the study material as youll find that its almost impossible to sketch something you dont really understand. On the back of the card write down the definition of the term or the answer to the question. Review these cards and quiz yourself before your actual test.

Study Tips for University Students

http://blog.educaedu.com/en/2010/06/01/study-tips-for-university-students/
Everyone has their own habits and rituals when the time comes to prepare for a test. Some study in the early morning, others in the afternoon and some late at night. There are those who prefer to study with a group or those who study alone. Each person creates habits according to their personality. We can, however, give you some study tips that are helpful for everyone. * Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) differentiates between people who are visual, auditive and kinesthetic learners. If you are more visual you will find it useful to use bright colors to highlight and take notes when studying. If you are in the second group, reading outloud could be quite beneficial. The last group, the kinesthetic group, will find it most helpful to write or read while they are walking or doing some sort of movement. Take some notes while you are running on a treadmill at the gym. * Trust your instincts. This will prove useful during multiple choice exams. If you do not know the answer, go for your first instinct. Sometimes over-thinking things will steer you off track. If you have studied, your brain will guide you to the correct answer. * Sleep well. There are many people who pull all-nighters to prepare for an exam. It is actually less productive for you for two reasons: One is that your brain works less when it is tired, it processes less. The second reason is the intrinsic relationship between sleep and memory. Brains remember more when they have time to rest. So, even though it doesnt seem like it, you are studying while you sleep. * Eat healthy. Studying is an activity that requires a lot of energy. Make sure your diet helps you replenish and fuel your body for the long study sessions. The idea is not to die of hunger or to get so full that you cannot even breathe. Apples, nuts, brown rice and fish are some recommended items for these situations. * Sound of body, sound of mind. Your level of attention decreases after just 40 minutes of focusing. The best thing to do is to have a short physical activity that wont wear you out. A quick jog or walk will allow you to rest your brain for a couple of minutes. * Your personal image speaks a thousand words. We do not know if this phrase is necessarily true, but it does make sense. One should dress for success. If you feel prepared and professional, you will be more confident when it comes to sitting down and doing the test. Also, your professors will see that you are taking their class seriously. * Two ways to communicate. It is not only expressing yourself with words, but also your gestures, posture and tone of voice. This needs to be taken into account during oral exams. You can show confidence in yourself and in what you are saying. Speak slowly and firmly. * Our final advice is to take exams how they really are: one more moment to learn something. When you do not know the answers, take advantage of the fact that your professor is there and ask them to explain it to you once you have finished. These are our recommendations. Some of them you will find applicable to your situation, and others no. Is there anything we missed? Happy studying! Tags: Studying, Tips Written by: Murphy Scott

Reading Strategies
Reading Efficiently by Reading Intelligently
http://www.mindtools.com/rdstratg.html

Whether they're project documents, trade journals, blogs, business books or ebooks, most of us read regularly as part of our jobs, and to develop our skills and knowledge. But do you ever read what should be a useful document, yet fail to gain any helpful information from it? Or, do you have to reread something several times to get a full understanding of the content? In this article, we're looking at strategies that will help you read more effectively. These approaches will help you get the maximum benefit from your reading, with the minimum effort.

Think About What You Want to Know

Before you start reading anything, ask yourself why you're reading it. Are you reading with a purpose, or just for pleasure? What do you want to know after you've read it? Once you know your purpose, you can examine the resource to see whether it's going to help you. For example, with a book, an easy way of doing this is to look at the introduction and the chapter headings. The introduction should let you know who the book is intended for, and what it covers. Chapter headings will give you an overall view of the structure of the subject. Ask yourself whether the resource meets your needs, and try to work out if it will give you the right amount of knowledge. If you think that the resource isn't ideal, don't waste time reading it. Remember that this also applies to content that you subscribe to, such as journals or magazines, and web-based RSS and social media news feeds - don't be afraid to prune these resources if you are not getting value from some publishers.

Know How Deeply to Study the Material

Where you only need the shallowest knowledge of a subject, you can skim material. Here you read only chapter headings, introductions, and summaries. If you need a moderate level of information on a subject, then you can scan the text. This is when you read the chapter introductions and summaries in detail. You can then speed read the contents of the chapters, picking out and understanding key words and concepts. (When looking at material in this way, it's often worth paying attention to diagrams and graphs.) Only when you need full knowledge of a subject is it worth studying the text in detail. Here it's best to skim the material first to get an overview of the subject. This gives you an understanding of its structure, into which you can then fit the detail gained from a full reading of the material. (SQ3R is a good technique for getting a deep understanding of a text.)

Read Actively
When you're reading a document or book in detail, it helps if you practice "active reading" by highlighting and underlining key information, and taking notes(member-only article) as you progress. (Mind Maps are great for this). This emphasizes information in your mind, and helps you to review important points later. Doing this also helps you keep your mind focused on the material, and stops you thinking about other things.

Know How to Study Different Types of Material

Different types of documents hold information in different places and in different ways, and they have different depths and breadths of coverage. By understanding the layout of the material you're reading, you can extract the information you want efficiently.

Magazines and Newspapers

These tend to give a fragmented coverage of an area. They will typically only concentrate on the most interesting and glamorous parts of a topic - this helps them boost circulation! As such, they will often ignore less interesting information that may be essential to a full understanding of a subject, and they may include low value content to "pad out" advertising. The most effective way of getting information from magazines is to scan the contents tables or indexes and turn directly to interesting articles. If you find an article useful, then cut it out and file it in a folder specifically covering that sort of information. In this way you will build up sets of related articles that may begin to explain the subject. Newspapers tend to be arranged in sections. If you read a paper often, you can quickly learn which sections are useful, and which ones you can skip altogether.

Reading Individual Articles

There are three main types of article in magazines and newspapers: y News Articles - these are designed to explain the key points first, and then flesh these out with detail. So, the most important information is presented first, with information being less and less useful as the article progresses. y Opinion Articles - these present a point of view. Here the most important information is contained in the introduction and the summary, with the middle of the article containing supporting arguments. y Feature Articles - these are written to provide entertainment or background on a subject. Typically the most important information is in the body of the text. If you know what you want from an article, and recognize its type, you can get information from it quickly and efficiently.

Make Your Own Table of Contents

When you're reading a document or book, it's easy to accept the writer's structure of thought. This means that you may not notice when important information has been left out, or that an irrelevant detail has been included. An effective way to combat this is to make up your own table of contents before you start reading. Ask yourself what sections or topics you are expecting to see in this document, and what questions you want to have answered by the end of the text. Although doing this before you start reading the document may sound like a strange strategy, it's useful, because it helps you spot holes in the author's argument. Writing out your own table of contents also helps you address your own questions, and think about what you're expecting to learn from the text.

Use Glossaries with Technical Documents

If you're reading large amounts of difficult technical material, it may be useful to use or compile a glossary. Keep this beside you as you read. It's also useful to note down the key concepts in your own words, and refer to these when necessary.

Further Reading Tips

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The time when you read a document plays a role in how easy the reading will be, and how much information you'll retain. If you need to read a text that is tedious, or requires a great deal of concentration, it's best to tackle it when you have the most energy in the day. Our article, Is This a Morning Task?, (member-only article), helps you work out when this is, so that you can schedule your reading time accordingly. Where you read is also important. Reading at night, in bed, doesn't work for many people because it makes them sleepy (which means that you may not remember the information). Everyone is different, however, so read in a place that's comfortable, free of distractions, and that has good light - this is important even if you're reading from a screen. It can be helpful to review the information when you've finished reading. When you're done, write a paragraph that explains, in your own words, what you just learned. Often, putting pen to paper can help strengthen your recall of new information, so that you retain it more effectively.