The Benefits of Online Learning

By Grace Richardson

Nowadays, quality education isn’t limited to the four walls of a classroom. Modern technology allows us to connect and interact in real-time through the internet, and this has made it possible for kids of all ages to learn from the comfort of our homes. In fact, millions of students — from elementary to graduate school — have been forced to enroll in online classes, due to the health crisis making face-to-face classes unsafe. However, there remains the misconception that the online learning experience can never match up to the good old classroom and whiteboard.

While it's true that there are certain experiences that cannot be exactly replicated virtually (such as the social perks of being around classmates), there are still unique benefits to online learning. And here are some of them:

Online Learning Provides More Convenience and Flexibility

Online learning is divided into two main types: synchronous and asynchronous. "Synchronous" refers to live learning classes that happen at a set time online. It is a convenient option as students don't have to spend time commuting to school, and they can collaborate with classmates and teachers in real time. On the other hand, "asynchronous" online classes provide more flexibility, allowing students to control their own schedules and learning pace. Instructors simply upload all materials, tests, lectures, and assignments for anyone to access anytime. Unlike traditional learning where your child might experience immense pressure trying to keep up with their classmates, online learning allows them to study without being too constrained by time. 

Both approaches are being used by students of all levels, but there is no hard evidence that either option is objectively more effective for students. It all boils down to preference and your child's own learning style. However, online learning hones children's executive function skills, which is what trains our brains to be responsible, creative, solve problems, and achieve goals.

Getting students used to online learning while they're young will definitely benefit them as they get older — especially with virtual colleges and universities growing increasingly popular. In fact, online bachelors degrees have become incredibly diverse, offering courses on Digital Media, Cybersecurity, Data Science, Organizational Leadership, and more. Plus, many schools even offer round-the-clock technical support and the option to enroll during any season with no application fees. On top of this, online students have the chance to connect with industry leaders and faculty experts from far and wide — and all according to students' schedules. With these benefits, we can expect the online learning trend to continue well beyond the pandemic.

Online Learning Hones Your Child’s Communication and Collaboration Skills

Being able to communicate effectively online is an essential skill in the digital age, especially as so many statements can easily get lost in translation. Online classes can give your child a head start in honing their virtual communication skills — training them to relay their thoughts in a clear, coherent, and succinct manner.

Additionally, online schools also require students to participate in discussions with their classmates and professors via various communication platforms. Here, they’ll learn how to get better at pitching their ideas and making strong arguments through discussions or video calls. Further exposure to this communication medium also pushes your child to collaborate and build a rapport with their peers.

Online Learning Broadens Your Child’s World View

The internet truly is the best source of information in the digital age. Besides making it possible for schools to facilitate online learning classes, the internet allows people from all walks of life to be heard via personal blogs, videos, podcasts, and other content that can be uploaded online. Indeed, online learning makes information easier to access for your child, and this can broaden their perspectives on important global issues, improve their cross-cultural understanding, and have the opportunity to connect with people from all over the globe — and it only takes a few clicks.

Online learning can be just as effective as face-to-face classes as long as your child has the drive and dedication to succeed. But of course, your support as a parent is always welcome. In order for them to reap the full benefits of online learning, you have to guide your child through positive reinforcement and motivate them to be consistent with their schedule and goals.

Managing Schedules and Creating Structure for Students

For many of us, it is hard to appreciate the complexity of creating an effective schedule. We have an approximate idea of how long tasks should take given our life experience, we can intuit the best order in which to tackle the tasks on our to do list, and we know how to use scheduling tools to manage our time. Sure we sometimes procrastinate and avoid those tasks, which is only natural, but at least we know how to manage our time in order to know what our deadlines are and meet them.

In contrast, think of how hard it is for kids to develop those skills. For years and years their parents wake them up, help them get dressed and fed before dropping them off at school. Then, teachers take over and establish a set of activities for the school day with structured transitions from one class to the next. After that, those kids are picked up from school and helped through an afternoon of classes or playtime, before dinner, stories and bedtime. But then those young students transition to middle school, high school, and college (or they are quarantined at home thanks to a global pandemic!), and suddenly they have to take a lot more responsibility for managing their time and responsibilities, and they’re largely expected to magically know how.

We assume this transition to independence will be intuitive because children have had endless exposure to “scheduling” for so many years, and for some students the pieces do fall into place. For so many others, though, there is a lot more frustration and a frustrating learning curve. With that in mind, the guide below offers suggestions for how to support children as they learn to manage their time and responsibilities.

Write Things Down!

Our brain is really good at remembering a lot, but we rarely remember everything. Between homework assignments, planning for longer-term projects, after school activities, and the odds and ends that need to be brought back and forth, there is a lot for kids to remember in a day. Keeping track of those tasks in a consistent way in a notebook, or better yet using a tool like Google Keep or Google Tasks which can’t be misplaced as it lives on the cloud, means that it is at least a bit more difficult to simply “forget” about something that needs to be done, especially with the option to set reminders based on time or location! And it goes without saying, checking things off once they are completed is an important part of maintaining an effective to-do list, and this can be done on both Google applications.

Even better, Write Things Down in a Planner!

A daily to-do list is a good, but a daily, weekly, and monthly calendar is even more effective. Students can use Google Calendar or a paper planner to keep track of their classes and related assignments, to note after school activities or social plans, and to remember appointments with teachers or office hours. It seems intuitive, but all too often kids think knowing what they have to do is enough, so the idea of planning when to do it just isn’t important. I don’t think any of us would make the case that everything needs to be scheduled into a specific block of time, but noting a deadline on a calendar, and a plan of what to do each day to meet it is undeniably helpful to stay on track! By using Google Tasks and Google Keep alongside Google Calendar, all of these lists and deadlines can be easily noted on a shareable calendar that syncs across any and all devices, so it is always accessible.

Stick to a routine

Establishing as much regularity as possible with that schedule is also helpful. By sitting down to do work at approximately the same time of day, energy levels will be more predictable which makes it easier to approximate how long tasks will take, assuming a more or less consistent work load. And by completing that work in the same place each day (and no, that place should not be in bed or on a super comfy couch!), students can work more efficiently knowing they have the tools they need within easy reach, rather than always having to search the house for supplies. Routines are predictable, and for learning new skills and developing good habits, routine is key.

While this isn’t an exhaustive guide, it is a great place to start. All of these general concepts can also easily be applied to supporting younger students as well. If they can’t read, use pictures; if they can’t tell time, set alarms or have them cross out activities for the day as they are completed. If you need more guidance, reach out! We are always here to help.

Students of the Digital Age

In a world of supposed ‘digital natives,’ we’ve forgotten that certain computer literacy skills still need to be taught. Although it’s true that kids growing up in a world of omnipresent gadgetry have a natural ease with certain aspects of the digital world that might escape their parents, this does not translate into automatic mastery of the essentials, such as organizing materials, evaluating the reliability of sources, safeguarding privacy, and even typing. Guiding students toward best practices in these areas is a vital part of teaching them to succeed both in and out of the classroom.

For a certain generation of students--those raised on instant messaging in a world of desktop computers--typing practice was a natural part of growing up, and a bit of guidance toward proper technique made all the difference. Nowadays, since most students learn to type in their free time on phones and iPads, touch-typing on a more traditional keyboard is a much neglected skill. As students enter middle and high school, a growing proportion of their work is typed, rather than handwritten -- but for many, this is a laborious process, one that hampers the transmission of thought from mind to page. A few daily minutes of practice with free online resources, including the appropriately named www.typing.com, can quickly improve a student’s approach, saving hours of time in the long run.

Anyone who uses a computer regularly -- which is to say, nearly everyone -- knows the importance of keeping an organized desktop, file system, and inbox. Computers serve as a portal to increasingly vast realms of information, and an important repository for personal data. Without some level of structure, this mix can quickly become chaotic. Parents and teachers can help by explicitly guiding students through the process of building nested folders by school year and subject, on the desktop and in cloud-based systems such as Google Drive. A long term research project might deserve a folder of its own, where source material, drafts, and notes can be stored together. 

Digital time management tools can also be of help to many students; iCal and Google Keep provide electronic alternatives to supplement traditional paper planners and to-do lists, with programmable reminders, color-coding, and the ability to share appointments and tasks. Many schools now have their own version of an online portal for students and parents, where teachers post assignments, grades, and course materials. This should be a resource for students that is checked daily and then processed and recorded in their own planners. 

Finally, students benefit from a clear explanation of the guidelines for evaluating the reliability of different sources online, and for keeping their own information safe from potential hackers or other unwanted eyes. In an online world without clear editorial standards, students need to understand how biases function and be guided toward reputable sources, learning to be wary of taking what they read at face value. Parents should also have a plan for discussing how to choose and manage passwords around the internet, what information to share and what to keep private, and how to deal with the dangers of operating in the public forum of the internet, while feeling like you’re in private. 

New Beginnings

Summer is winding to a close, and that means it’s time to head back to school. As with any fresh start, the new school year brings with it new opportunities, along with new pitfalls. How can you set your student up for success in the new year? 

At Smarten Up, we place a real emphasis on executive function skills — the skills that help students work smarter to meet deadlines and learn most effectively. If students can start the year on the right foot with regards to the organizational of their materials, task management, and engagement with their class materials, they will be in a better position to learn and thrive this year. Likewise, if students begin by procrastinating on readings and test review, lose track of their materials, or miss an odd homework assignment, they’ll quickly start to slide down a path that will only get more difficult as they fall further behind. 

Practically, this means insuring that students have a plan for managing their work with some sort of physical or digital planner, that they have all of the organizational infrastructure they’ll need to keep work and notes from different classes in order, and that they are held accountable to the systems they plan on using. The first few weeks will involve proactively figuring out where and when homework is posted for each class, navigating the rhythm of a new class schedule and the internal schedule of quizzes and assignments for each course, and getting to know the standards and requirements of each individual teacher.

Students should also be reminded of the importance of relationships with these teachers; behavior in the first few weeks of school can form impressions that last for the whole year. If students can demonstrate a willingness to work diligently, ask interesting questions, and support their classmates’ learning, they’ll earn a relationship that can pay off when they need a bit of extra help or flexibility with a deadline. For high school students, these relationships are also key for college applications as recommendation letter season rolls around. 

As part of building a positive relationship with their teachers, students should establish a channel of communication that is respectful and direct, without intruding unnecessarily on the teacher’s time. It can be very useful for students to be in touch with teachers over email when they need to ask a clarifying question about a major assignment or upcoming test, but given the informality of most digital communications, students will often need some coaching to understand the requirements of a more ‘professional’ email, with correct grammar and punctuation. As a young classroom teacher, I regularly received emails with no capitalization or punctuation from students—and while I was more forgiving than many of my older colleagues, in the worst case these emails risk being perceived as rude or lazy. Parents can help guide these emails with younger students, while supporting a movement toward self-advocacy that will serve them in high school and college.

The new year should be an opportunity for a fresh start for students—part of our role as parents and educators is ensuring that this fresh start includes an awareness of the extra work—not explicitly assigned or explained—of forming good habits and relationships. These executive function skills are central to being a strong student, and we often assume that students understand what it means to be “organized” or “prepared.” Now is a great time to begin to have that dialogue with your child, and should he or she be resistant to help from a parent, our amazing team of Smarten Up coaches are always here to help!

Learning to Learn

Our primary goal at Smarten Up is to help students become learners. We want them to learn how to read and do math, to learn about the history of our world and the science behind it, and to learn about themselves. To do this, we empower them with a robust set of tools and strategies that they can use to tackle the wide range of challenges they are likely to face in their academic careers and beyond. The key to making this happen is teaching students the difference between “knowing” and “understanding.”

Tests, quizzes, writing assignments, and classroom discussions are tools that teachers use to evaluate how effectively students have learned the material. As we know, assessments range from multiple choice and short answer questions to word problems and essays. The former evaluate a student’s rote knowledge—how well she can recall a definition or perform arithmetic; the latter gauge children’s ability to use information in order to answer a question or solve a problem. 

Genuine learning occurs when students can build their understanding of a given concept from the ground up, from knowledge through evaluation. It is the difference between cramming for an assessment by memorizing a collection of vocabulary terms, and learning those words in context, with the support of graphic organizers, outlines, mnemonic devices, and other memory aids. While the latter may take more time and effort before the test, that energy will pay off when it’s time to study for a midterm or final exam. Even if a child doesn’t remember everything, she will have an efficient set of familiar, useful resources to fill in the gaps. By taking the time to learn and understand the information the first time around, students can avoid the chaos and anxiety that comes with last-minute scrambles or disorganized efforts (or both).

This is where it becomes most important for us to teach our students about themselves as learners. We need students to understand the difference between working smart and working hard (or not so hard in some cases).  They’ve been told to create outlines before they begin writing an essay, though they often don’t do it. Teachers ask them to annotate as they read, but their books often show either pristinely clean pages or ones that are so filled with highlighted text and underlined sections that they are impossible to navigate. They have to study for a test or quiz, and often they simply reread the relevant information and declare themselves “prepared.” They are told to create a plan of attack for short-term and long-term assignments, and they simply open up their portal to look at what is due the next day. 

A large part of this disconnect is due to a lack of understanding. Students know what they should do, but they don’t always understand why or how to make those extra steps meaningful. The goal of Smarten Up’s March blog posts will be to share our favorite tips, tricks, and strategies for helping students learn how to become learners. 

Studying to Understand

For many students, quizzes and exams are a source of anxiety and, sometimes, disappointment. But with care, planning, and sustained effort, it is possible to prepare with confidence. What is the best way to study for a test? 

1. Treat every assignment and reading as a part of your preparation

The most important element of test preparation comes in the weeks (and sometimes months) before a test, as a student remains actively engaged with lectures and homework assignments, moving from knowing to understanding as they learn so that, when it comes time to study, they are already beginning from a place of confidence, rather than starting from scratch.  The test is not a separate, stress-charged event in this model, but the natural culmination of weeks of learning. In concrete terms, this means that students should be taking clear notes and creating study materials as they learn the content, keeping up with readings and assignments, and independently reviewing at the end of every shorter unit.

2. Distributed Practice: spread out your studying

Studies have shown that if you believe a test will require four hours of studying in the week of the exam, it is much more effective to split up this time into smaller chunks, spread out over multiple days, than to cram all four hours on the night before the exam. So…

3. Make a study plan

It isn’t always easy for students to manage the many tasks that are thrust upon them - to use time wisely, set up a study plan well in advance of the test, with a schedule for studying that splits up the content over multiple days and a specific plan for which study strategies to employ. 

4. Mix it up: use a variety of strategies

Different types of content (and different types of tests) will require different strategies - and students should also consider what strategies work best for their specific learning strengths. The more that you can approach a subject from different angles — with flashcards written in your own words, illustrated histories, timelines, online video resources, practice problems, poetic adaptations, mnemonics and memory aides, etc — the more you’ll move from knowing to understanding. Your goal should be to absorb new information with context, thinking about it as a story, rather than memorizing in isolation, by rote. Use a timer to focus for specific periods, and switch between strategies. Take active breaks, drink water, and eat healthy snacks!

5. Get a good night’s sleep

It is tempting to believe that staying up late to cram will help you conquer the test - but the truth is, giving your brain the rest it needs is more important. This is another reason why it’s important to distribute your studying across multiple days!

6. After the test, reflect!

Your job isn’t over when the test is done - take a well-deserved break, of course, but then take time to reflect on the study process and the test itself. Think about what worked, so that you can use it again next time. What areas can you identify for improvement next time?

This Smarten Up study strategies planning sheet is a great resource to create this sort of structure for students!

View fullsize

View fullsize

Executive Function and Learning 101

While learning seems like a fairly automatic process, it is actually a pretty complicated one.  That’s because in order for a piece of information to really stick in the brain, and stay stuck, we have to make sure that it gets to the right “place.”  That way, when we need it to answer a question on a test, connect a string of ideas in an essay, or find our way from school back home, our mind knows where to find that piece of data in order to help us solve the problem at hand.  So the question is, how to we make knowledge more sticky?

You can think of your brain like a giant closet, and yourself like a shopaholic.  All of the items you see in the store are like the data coming into your sensory memory.  You will purchase what looks good, and pass on the rest.  Then, your working memory will kick in to either decide if you want to return an item you are not so hot on, or if it is appealing enough to place in a pile with other similar articles or objects.  Last, once you have sorted through your purchases and identified “the keepers,” it is time for you to put everything away some place safe where you will be able to find it again.  This is like your long-term memory building schema.  Whether you sort your items by color, use, size, or shape doesn’t matter, so long as there is an organized system that you can rely on to track them down whenever necessary.  The stronger and more thoughtful that organizational strategy is the better.

When we learn, our brains are constantly working through this process.  Whether in a classroom, or sitting at home, we tune out distractions and extraneous information, focus on identifying the main ideas and supporting details or explanations, and create a strategy for building that information into a sticky schema.

For the brainiacs this happens fairly automatically; their minds are like a giant gob of super glue - everything just sticks.  The process isn’t quite so simple for those hard-working A students; instead, this group knows how to use subject-appropriate mnemonic devices, graphic organizers, and other processing tools to sort their knowledge into well-defined, easily accessible chunks. Lacking an organized system for schema development, the last group of students, will try really hard to remember everything, but lose most of it in the process.  Some bits of knowledge will be passed over by the sensory memory as unimportant, other ideas won’t make it past the confines of working memory, and the parts that stick in long-term memory just won’t be enough to build a useful schema come test time.

That's why it is so important for instructors and parents to teacher their child how to learn.  Any successful person has developed a repertoire of organizational and study skills over the years. Some are super efficient, others are less useful.  But, the point is to have a "toolbox" full of strategies, and to understand when, where, and how to apply each one.