Learn about the tips and tricks to mastering cyber school.
Students can have the same success in an online school as in a brick-and-mortar school, and they can have more opportunities, too. Students can take small steps to increase their engagement and make the most of their schooling.
They can create a daily routine and find ways to help them stay organized. Parents can get involved in their children’s education by connecting with their teachers and working with their students to create goals. Schools like Commonwealth Charter Academy, a leading K through 12 public cyber charter school, work with families to meet their child’s needs to provide the best education possible. Here are tips and strategies for students and parents to ensure that your child is getting the most out of their education.
Tips for Taking Online Classes
Students can start off on the right foot by establishing a daily routine. This might include washing your face in the morning and eating a healthy breakfast before logging on to start your classes. Stay hydrated throughout the day, because it can help you be more alert and focused.
You should stop to eat lunch and review the notes you’ve taken during your classes. Later on, you might take a break for an hour to do something fun before returning to your lessons and finishing out your day.
It’s also important to include nighttime habits in your daily routine so you can set yourself up for a good night’s sleep and prepare yourself for whatever comes the next day. Do this by setting your phone and electronics away for the night at least 30 minutes before bed, dimming your bedroom lights and making sure your space is dark and quiet when you finally go to sleep.
Establishing a daily routine that touches on things beyond your schoolwork will help you to find a rhythm that works for you and helps you know what to expect every day. Healthy habits like staying hydrated and putting electronics away before bed can influence your online learning and increase your chances of doing well.
An essential part of creating a daily routine is staying organized. You can do this in a variety of ways, and there are many tools to help you do that.
One option is having a planner or an agenda, on paper or online. You can write projects or long-term assignments in your planner the day you get them and make a note of the due dates. Some agendas have monthly calendars included so, if you know of project due dates ahead of time, you can log those there. If you just want a monthly calendar, you can find paper planners with just calendars, dry erase boards, the Google calendar or one of the many homework planner apps available online to stay organized.
If planning far ahead doesn’t work for you, you can focus on daily things. You can do this by making a list. Not only is list-making helpful, but it can be satisfying to cross off tasks as you complete them. Overall, writing down your assignments, especially ahead of time, gives you a visual for how much time you have to complete tasks and helps with your time management.
Time management is another skill that will teach you how to succeed in an online school program. In addition to staying organized with planners or daily to-do lists, set intermediate deadlines for yourself for bigger projects. Divide bigger projects into chunks and assign a deadline for each segment so the big jobs are easier to manage and complete.
Additionally, it helps to prioritize all of your tasks so you know which projects require more urgent attention.While staying on track is important, breaks help with your time management and productivity. If things are beginning to lag and you can’t focus, taking a 10-minute break can give you the time to regroup and establish your focus again.
You can increase your focus and productivity by having a designated study station. Dedicate this spot to in-class learning or studying materials outside class. To help make the most of your study station, make sure that there are no distractions around your area and that it’s generally tidy. If you need music to focus, just make sure that it won’t be distracting with catchy lyrics.
If you maintain your area and keep it organized, you won’t have to spend as much time trying to find that ruler, for instance, you need for your science activity when you could be almost finished with it by now if you only remembered where you had put it.
Even though you attend school online, taking notes is still an important part of the learning process. You don’t have to copy what your teacher says word for word, but it’s important that you write down the most important points of the lesson so you can understand them later. That might mean taking something that your teacher said and simplifying it into your own words. You can add personality and fun to your note-taking by using color coding to separate things like vocabulary words from other material.
If something is confusing, note that with a star or another marker so you can ask the teacher. Even if you don’t ask your questions during class with everyone else listening, you can ask them privately and you will remember what you needed to know because of the notes you took.
Most importantly, participate in class. This will help you learn and will make learning more fun! Ask your teacher to elaborate on a new topic. That’s a great way to see how your class material ties into the real world.
If you don’t have a question, you can contribute your own experiences related to the lesson you’re learning. Other students will be interested, too. It’s OK if you don’t feel comfortable being the only one contributing, but it might encourage others who have the same fears as you and can get everyone more involved.
How Parents Can Help
As a parent, you can participate in your child’s education to help them succeed and troubleshoot when things get difficult. Here are tips and strategies for parents who wish to support their child’s education and success.
Setting goals. One thing that can help your child is assisting them in creating goals. They can be simple, like making a to-do list for their work that day or for larger projects. Writing them down together can help as your student figures out what steps to take to complete the goal, and it can keep them accountable for their work, too. Some students are more proactive about this, but others might need help thinking of a realistic goal and what steps they should take to achieve it.
Establish good work habits. Adding to this, you can help your student develop good working habits. If they seem to be falling behind but are spending a lot of time on their phone scrolling because it’s within reach of their study station, you could suggest that they move the phone to the kitchen and set a timer for when they can have a break to check it.
Make a study plan. Another good habit to teach is making a study plan. Your student might do this on their own but, if they’re not sure where to start, you can help them schedule their time and allot periods to certain subjects so they are prepared to take an upcoming exam or finish the day’s tasks.
Troubleshooting technology. Although a lot of children are good at figuring out technology, technical difficulties are not uncommon. You can sit down together to figure out why their class isn’t loading and look up solutions online. You can also call the school’s support team to troubleshoot software problems.
CCA is always available to assist families, and teachers and staff are always ready to talk with you regarding any concerns about your child and their learning. We understand that it might be difficult to know what to do and how to best support your child’s education. That’s why CCA encourages parents to talk to teachers to stay updated on progress and to problem-solve on how best to support your student if they are having difficulties with their schoolwork.
CCA and its teachers want success for your child and are here for your family every step of the way.
Succeeding in online school starts with small changes. These changes can set the stage for a bright, promising future for students. Some tips and strategies might need to be modified to support students and their needs, which is OK. No two students learn the same way, and CCA strives to work with families to find out how their students learn best. For questions or concerns, call CCA at 844-590-2864 or email [email protected].
