Set Aside Times BEFORE You Start Your Course

I was conversing with a fellow educator recently about online education and the topic of student study time came up. I mentioned that we cover the traditional measure of required student study time for college courses in our book "on page 30 something" (actually it was page 38, as I later checked). My friend asked, "What was the formula?" I told her and she said, "Precisely." She then added that students should have already determined their exact schedules BEFORE they get started. Which days of the week are they willing to give up going to soccer games and helping the kids with homework? What times of each day will they NOT be communicating with their spouse or attending to household matters? And most of all, how many hours each day and week will they be spending on course work and precisely which times? All this should be worked out in advance, she said, or students will not do well. Needless to say, the institution will also suffer because student retention will drop. We completely agree. Be sure you have a time management plan before you get started -- and be sure you allocate enough time. We give you our recommendations, but here is another tool you might use: whatever amount of time first occurs to you as "probably sufficient," just double it!

What to Do When "Kumar" Fails

In the comedy film, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (2004), Kumar is a team player. As in all "team" films, success is assured. But online group projects do not follow movie scripts. Trust us on this! It's not uncommon to have 50% of teams fail. Often, this is due the failure of one or more team members. In the real world, "Kumar" can fail.

Should you simply report "Kumar's" failure to your instructor and assume that will solve the problem? No. Don't be surprised if such a message to your instructor is simply ignored. The point of many team assignments is to see how YOU handle team dynamics. Be prepared to pick up the slack when team members fail. As for "Kumar," some institutions/instructors use the following rule: only those students whose names appear on the final submitted project will receive a grade and the TEAM decides which names appear and which do not.

(Apologies to all our fans named "Kumar." We know YOU can do it. It's just the other guy named "Kumar" you need to watch out for!)

Online Collective Knowledge: Perks and Dangers

In online adult continuing education, it is not uncommon for the collective knowledge of an online class to exceed that of the instructor's. Think of a class in marketing where many of the class members have 10 or more years of practical experience. While the textbook and instructor can provide you with great summaries of current trends or the details of psychological studies, the class members have equally valuable information to share with you about their experiences in the real world. One of the perks of online education is that you get exposure to perspectives from students from many walks of life and many parts of the world. You'll want to access that well of knowledge provided by other students, using the techniques we explain in the book.

There are also some dangers to relying too heavily on collective "knowledge." It's possible for the majority of the class to get on the wrong track in a discussion topic. In the rush to answer discussion questions on time students sometimes rely too heavily on their experience or simply express what is "common knowledge" about a topic without carefully reading the text. Common "knowledge," even "common sense," can be exactly what your textbook is trying to argue against! That is why you'll want to be sure you read the text first and be sure you understand what the instructor wants and what the text says before you launch into a discussion with your fellow students. You need to keep focused on earning points by engaging in discussion questions in the way intended by your instructor and course designer. MANY students fall into the trap of thinking that simply because they have had rip-roaring discussions with their classmates, they are maximizing their chances for the best grades. This is rarely true. Be sure you integrate the knowledge in the text with the collective knowledge of your peers. Collective knowledge is a supplement to the course text, not a replacement for it.

Note: in our book, "text" refers to all the assigned readings of the course, whether they be online articles, a printed textbook, or videos.   

Power to Students…and a Theoretical Kick in the Backside

Our article about the book and the reasons we wrote it has been published in Evolllution, an online magazine about lifelong education. Please participate in the poll next to the article!