Should You Take an Online Course?

Should You Take an Online Course?

Before you decide to take an online course or to enroll in a cyber school be sure that you understand what is expected.

Successful Cyber School Students:

• value learning alone

• help build a sense of community

• communicate through writing in a challenging environment

• share class work, experiences, and reflections

• identify problems and tell the instructor when experiencing problems

• work 10 or more hours per week per course reading and writing on the computer

• meet all course deadlines and requirements

• commit to the concept that high quality learning can occur during an online course

• use technology effectively

• apply learned lessons

Online instructors can use many methods to inspire, challenge, and stimulate students, but these techniques lack the everyday face-to-face human contact that a regular classroom offers. Online instructors promote motivation by relating the course to prior experiences, to current workplace activities, and to student academic goals. Online instructors promote motivation by assigning grades to all activities and assignments. The online student must make motivation a top priority, and one way is to help build a sense of community among classmates and the instructor.

Graphic Organizers

Graphic Oganizers 

Go to Graphic Organizers from the textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin. Try the Five W's Chart, the Inverted Triangle, the KWL Chart, the Observation Chart, Persuasion Map, Sequence Chart, and T-Chart.

Go to Write Design Graphic Organizers for an excellent description of the five main types of graphic organizers (Star/Web, Chart/Matrix, Tree/Map, Chain, and Sketch. This site also offers graphic organizers to do the following: 1. Analyze, 2. Brainstorm, 3. Compare and Contrast, 4. Evaluate, 5. Hypothesize, 6. Interact, 7. Sequence, and 8. Visualize. So decide what behavior of the eight you are doing and click on the word to find the best graphic organizer for your task.

Go to Scholastic's site click on their downloadable graphic organizers. Also click on the Checklists for Strategies -Students/before reading, /during reading, and /after reading. Print the checklists and use them "before reading," "during reading," and "after reading." Remember the race in the "How can I become a better reader?" posting? These checklists will help improve your reading.