Education Articles from College Matching Service

Electronic resources abound, and they can be of very high quality. The best way to find peer-reviewed, high-quality journal articles is to access them through your online library, or to purchase the articles through an article provider. However, there are excellent sources that are both accurate and of high quality on the Web, and they are often free and not password protected.

Whether you are looking for journal articles, monographs, factual information, or high-quality publicly available resources, the same principles apply. Narrow your topic, make sure your search terms are relevant and focused, make sure your articles and your topic are in alignment, examine your sources for bias and distortion, and finally, make sure that your online class provides sufficient support and background for your argument. Let’s expand the steps and look at them again. It is useful to look at each of the stages individually and to think about how and why you will be engaged in activities.

Create an annotated bibliography. As you download and read your articles, you can keep track of them by creating an “electronic notebook” which would consist of a citation of your sources. Create an entry for each source. Use the appropriate style (MLA, APA, CBE, Chicago, etc.). After you have completed that, be sure to write a one-sentence overview/summary of the article and how it relates to your topic.

Update your outline. Re-examine your thesis. Look at your argumentation structure. Does each paragraph and subsection help support your thesis? How does your research fit? Determine where you have gaps, redundancies, or where your sources take you on a tangent.

Fill in the gaps. Make a list of the places in your paper where you need additional support for your argument. Then, after eliminating redundancies, map where you need to fill gaps, and where your argument needs additional support.

Here are some references that distance learners http://collegematchingservice.com/ can use when doing their online class thesis.

• Weblogs and personal/corporate Web sites. Some are absolutely brilliant. Others are dismal. One can use the information, but it must be approached with care and extreme caution.
• Term paper repositories. Needless to say, we have not mentioned termpapers.com and other places that will sell you a term paper, or will allow you to share term papers with others. These are not the only unreliable sources of information in the Internet. It goes without saying that you should not use these, unless you’re just determined to commit academic misconduct. You could cite them correctly, but they probably aren’t the best source, unless your paper is about the traffic in term papers online.
• Summaries, overviews, and study guides. I, like everyone else, love Pink Monkey. However, I would think twice before actually citing it in a paper. I think that the best way to use Pink Monkey, Cliff Notes, Wikipedia, etc. is as a point of departure. Use them to gain an appreciation of your subject and to orient yourself. However, the information can be very imprecise and inaccurate, particularly in their plot summaries. They leave out details and discussion points that may be precisely the ones that you need.
• Student postings, peer-to-peer downloads of notes, texts, etc. These are excellent if you’re interested in seeing how students write papers, and they can serve either as guides or as cautionary tales.
• Parody Web sites. Believe it or not, some students have actually cited information from parody sites as fact! The Onion.com comes to mind. This is a site that masquerades as a legitimate news site, but is, in fact, pure parody. How can you tell if a site is a parody, or so biased that the information it contains is unusable? Compare the information with others. Does it seem outlandish or extremely biased? Look at least three or four sites.

Most e-learners have mixed feelings about group work and the activities they’ve had to do with their classmates. Perhaps you’ve had the same experience: you loved going to the discussion board and sharing ideas and discussing the course readings. But, when you had to work with the same individuals on an online class group project, it was another issue altogether.

Admit it when there is friction between group members. Get it out in the open. Then, develop a productive solution. Potential problem: The way team friction manifests itself can be subtle. Group members disagree, express frustration, or stop communicating altogether. Some team members are deliberately obstructive, or criticize work, endlessly debate small points, or refuse to contribute at all. Instead of working on the problem, the energy of the group is spent in conflict resolution. Some may drop out. Others find they become passive when they believe that their input does not matter, and they let the dominant team members do the work. Solution: Define the roles as well as the tasks. Provide guidelines for team-member roles, and describe actions to be taken by each member of the group.

Continuously review the tasks and see where you are with the deadlines. Potential problem: Tasks are vague, poorly defined. Although the outcome may be defined and described well, the individual tasks are not clearly defined, nor are they delegated in an effective manner. Tasks are repeated needlessly, or done with contradictory results. Solution: Define and describe the tasks in terms of what needs to be done, how to do it, and how to present the results.

Bond with your team-members. Ask group members to post photos, details about themselves that they’d like to share, and to start a discussion board or forum in which they discuss current events and items of interest. Potential problem: No sense of community. There is a failure to bond, and hence a failure to thrive. Collaborations with this problem sometimes never get off the ground.

Clearly identify the work required. Determine what the final outcome will look like. Avoid generalities and be specific early on. Potential problem: Collaborative papers require “blending” rather than stand-alone components. The collaboration is expected to produce a paper that flows as though it were written by a single person. This can pose a monumental, even insurmountable, challenge because individual voices, writing styles, even format can be completely at odds. Further problems surface when individual team members resent the way that their work has been edited. Solution: Develop structures that allow individuals to insert their own work in sections clearly identified as pertaining to them. Do not try to blend or mesh the parts.

Identify the tasks that you will need to do in order to accomplish the goal. Potential problem: Irrelevant activities. Group members may resist doing activities they perceive to be irrelevant to the overall goal or objective they envisioned when joining the group. Even those who go ahead and do the activities may feel resentful. Solution: Let the team members know how their work ties into the final objective (the project), and how it ties into a larger world as well.

Having group online class activities may be such a hassle, but it will definitely be helpful in your development as a learner.

Keep active in your online class. Visit your course on a regular basis, just like you were going to class. Keep up on the discussion postings, turning in your papers on time, and do the readings. It will make you feel more connected if you are in the mindset of a regular student. If you’re struggling to stay focused check out Alistapart.com and Davecheong.com for some great articles. (Hint: Make sure to respond to e-mails as you would like others to respond to yours.)

Talk to others about your course. Let your friends and family know you are taking an online course and share some of the things you are learning. Sharing will not only help you feel less isolated, it will help you absorb the information and make your online work more exciting. (Hint: Don’t bore people with your knowledge, just share a little about what it’s like for you.)

Use the course chat room or instant messaging. If it’s available, get to know your fellow students in the class chat room or through instant messaging. Ask your buddy to meet you at a certain time and use that time to informally discuss the class. Invite others into the conversation by sending an invitation to all your classmates – some may come and some may not. Your professor may notice and admire your commitment to the course which could translate into a better grade. If you have a team assignment, pick the chat room or instant messaging for one of your meetings. (Hint: Some chat rooms have a record feature and your professor and all your classmates can read the transcript, so keep your comments positive!)

Chatting during an online class may be a breeze, but it can even be a lot easier if you do these measures:
Be on time. Just be on time for your chat. In fact, be a little early so you can get the feel of the chat room. If you are going to be late, make sure you let your professor know ahead of time or see if you can reschedule. When you come to a chat late, it’s like coming to a class late, everyone, including the professor, notices. (Hint: Most class chats are recorded, so the professor has the exact time you entered the chat in the transcript!)

Have your references on hand. Make sure you have your paper, your textbooks, and any other documentation readily available, so you can refer to it to support your ideas or you can check your interpretation with the other students in the chat room. (Hint: If you want to reference something specific in a reading you know the whole chat room is using — like the textbook, just refer to the page; don’t type the whole thing in.)

Avoid disruptions during the chat. A chat room where the professor asks a student a question and gets no response, especially if the student has been responding quickly, indicates the student isn’t there. It gets uncomfortable for everyone, so make sure your chat has your full attention. If given the option, select a chat time where you know you will not be interrupted, avoid the temptation to check your e-mail or you’re my space page while in the chat room, and keep focused. (Hint: If the chat is just not moving fast enough for you, make notes on a sheet of paper about the ideas you are having during the chat.)

Expect the unexpected. Even with the best of technology, something can go wrong. You could lose power, others could lose power, the website could go down, you might have to miss because of something unexpected at the last minute, etc. If something happens, don’t panic. E-mail your professor as soon as possible. Be open and honest and ask how you can make up for your absence. (Hint: If the professor lets you copy the transcript and interject your comments — don’t destroy the flavor of the chat by over stating your position because you have time. Just write your comments and ideas exactly as if you had stayed in the chat. No one likes a show-off.)

Before you can get started on any online school assignments, you need to find a place to study. A separate space for your online class will help you stay focused on your work, and keep your study materials organized. This area should be designated only for academic work and test taking. If it is possible, keep your work area clutter-free and comfortable. Ideally, you would want an entire room designated for you to study, so that you can stay on task and be at par with your timelines.

Prevent distractions. Distractions are plentiful, especially if you are a parent. A message board on the door or outside of your home office will help with communication (especially with older children). Signs like “Studying until 7:30,” or “Preparing for exam at 8,” will tell your spouse or kids what to expect, and prevents any unnecessary questions or interruptions like, “What are you doing?” or “Are you going to be done soon?”

Keep everything close at hand. Have enough storage space to keep extras around. Items like: a dictionary or thesaurus, pens, pencils, notepad paper, printer paper, highlighters, 3-hole punch, stapler, book flags or sticky notes, etc.

Coping with noise. The perfect room is one that is completely sound-proof, but that would require renovating! If noise is a problem, consider purchasing a white noise or sound machine for your home office. These machines produce sounds that drown out other distracting noises and can help keep you focused when you’re reading, posting to your discussion board, writing and studying.

Getting into an online course may be very simple; however, there are numerous educational aspects to consider that the enrollee should think about and ponder on.

Class size is as important in online education as it is in a traditional college classroom. Investigate average class sizes at the institutions you are considering.

Find out about the faculty in the program(s) of interest to you. What degrees do they hold and from what institutions? What experience have they had “in the field”? How long have they been teaching? Have they had prior experience teaching online classes? Get answers. And, if more than one or two faculty hold degrees from the college at which they are teaching, be careful. It is often a bad sign.

How easy does a college make it for you to contact your instructor or a tutor if you have questions or need help? The level of support offered to students varies considerably from college to college. Choose one in line with your needs and expectations.

One of the great things about online degree programs is that you can begin almost anytime. So, don’t let anyone (including a college admissions officer) rush you into beginning until you are ready to put in the time and effort required for success.

It is very important that you do the proper research and really think about what you want for your online course because it will dictate the way things will work out during the duration of your study. Taking into consideration the different aspects above will greatly help you in this endeavor.

In life we have to set up a list of priorities so that for every decision in life that we make whether how big or how small that decision is, we have a guide on to what to choose. A good example in making good choices is deciding where to study and what degree to pursue. These decisions are what define a person in life because he is deciding for his future and he should be happy with the outcome of his decisions no matter what.  Another choice that we are blessed to be given is to decide whether to study in a regular campus or the alternative of an online class where we have the option of studying on our own time. This may be a tough decision in the start but because we have set out our priorities then it would be easier for us to choose. Just like in other decisions we can decide when and where to study and to set out our utmost of important priorities in an online class.

For online classes we first set priorities and pay close attention to what your instructor says about priorities. Remember that we enrolled in online classes for our benefit and we should take these classes seriously so that we do not waste out time and the time of the professor provided for us. For some students who will try out online classes, this can come out as something easy because we control our time but for other people, students and enrollees, this can be very challenging, particularly when you are alone. If you haven’t had online courses lately, the first part of the course may be daunting. This will ease up so don’t you worry.

There are thing one should know when it comes to online classes. First up for you to do is to take time to review all the help files available. You can never really be too careful and sure if you have to learn something and it is indeed better to study prepared because it gives to time to absorb initially and then analyze because you already have the basic knowledge about the topic at hand in your online class.

For the first don’t, do not read material just once. Multiple reading, line-by-line readings are among the keys to understanding mathematics. Do not be ashamed if you have to repeat certain lines over and over again just for you to get a grasp, a firm grasp even of what you have to understand. It is not a speed-reading contest; rather it is a learning experience and an educational attainment that is of personal in nature. Remember, you are doing this for yourself and no one else so study, read over and over again until you have gotten the right message.

Patience is the key and even if you are reading for learning or reading just for fun, people really do tend to dead particular lines over and over again. That is just normal so do not be bothered by this. Another do is to spend some time just navigating your way through the online class and making sure you can figure out what the buttons are for. Just because we are all expected to have already learned the basics of a computer system does not mean that all buttons work the same way. One has still to familiarize himself with all the key buttons and tabs and tool bars so that come study time, we do not get left behind.