HOW TO LEARN AND EARN THE GRADE YOU WANT IN AN ON-LINE CLASS

Joining the Community
Faceless classmates hovering in cyberspace reaching out to learn together--how do they get to know one another? Just as with the face-to-face classroom, you can visit your classmates inside and out of class to get to know more about them. In private emails, take the time to share information. What's the weather like? What are you up to? What's happening at school? If you wish, bring a personal style to your academic communications. Learn to express emotions--those smiley faces and frowns that bring intonation to text. Or use the <> to code asides such as <grin> or even <chagrin> to express emotion. In cyberspace you can take written communication in new directions.

Knowing Your Professor
Who is the professor? What are his or her interests? How can she or he help you learn?

In a face-to-face class, you have to make an appointment to meet with the teacher privately. However, in this virtual course, you can send an email message to communicate privately with your professor.  Even though this course environment is designed to support self-directed and team learning, the professor may jump in to spark your discussions, coach you in key concepts, give you feedback on your assignments, and provide additional guidance and resources.  In addition, you may actually make an appointment with the professor or call him or her at 1-800-TALK-UNA.

 Like raising your hand in class, you can reach out to the prof  through email for help any time you need it. Think of your professor as a living resource. 

How to Sit in the Front
In a traditional, face-to-face classroom, the most interested students sit front row center in the classroom, where the action is revolving around the teacher. These students don't want to miss anything. 

Unlike the traditional classroom, this course has virtual study spaces in the Discussion Area where you will find the action. The contents of these virtual study spaces change as participants make contributions, but all contributions are archived for later review by the learning community.

By regularly surveying, and of course, contributing to these spaces, you can stay on top of the action in the virtual classroom just as if you were sitting front row center.

Virtual Cooperative Learning
Your success in this course depends in part on your participation in cooperative groups. To make the most of virtual cooperative learning, apply the big ideas used in face-to-face cooperative learning:

• Be responsible for your own learning.
• Share your knowledge freely.
• Learn what you can from others.
• Foster interdependence by asking for and giving help.
• Believe that 2+2=5.
• Believe and practice the axiom: We each learn more when we all learn well.
• Express your ideas openly.
• Listen carefully to feedback.
• Be a good critical friend.
• Share responsibility for the summaries of your team's best thinking.

Being an Online Learner
This online course is asynchronous, so you can access all course components, communicate with other participants, and post assignments whenever it is convenient for you as long as you meet the established daily deadlines.

You no longer have to commute in all kinds of weather, then try to find a parking space and walk across a cold, windy campus to get to your class on time. The time you save becomes learning time. You study when you need to, send out your ideas when you have access to the Internet, and check in with the facilitator and other participants on a regular basis.

Although you will spend a lot of time offline formulating ideas and developing your knowledge and skills, you will also need to be a presence in this online course environment by regularly posting your quality ideas. As in face-to-face classes, just being a face is not enough. You must share your ideas and knowledge and respond to your teammates to be an active participant in this virtual classroom.

Learning in an Online Environment

• Learners have access to all sections of the course. 
• Learning occurs through interaction among learners.
• Working in different groups and teams for different purposes promotes learning. 
• Artifacts of constructing knowledge in on-line discussions are valuable to each learner and to the group and team.
• Knowledge learned in the course is applied to personally relevant situations. 
• Reflection by learners enhances learning. 
• Learners take responsibility for their learning within a structure of clear expectations.