So You’ve Decided to Learn Something New Online — Now What?
A strategy for actually getting through that course you just signed up for
While a pandemic is not a sabbatical, your time in isolation can be a unique opportunity to learn something new or improve your skills. But if you’re one of the many people currently trying out online education (Coursera is seeing a 300% increase in students right now compared to this time last year), you’ll quickly realize it’s not quite like regular school. With an online class, it’s easy to get distracted (no one will scold you if you decide to text your friends or stream a Netflix show while watching a lecture), there’s little or no face-to-face interaction with teachers and fellow learners, and keeping up with the material requires a great amount of self-discipline that not everyone has. One study reports that, on average, only 15% of students complete the online classes they start.
In other words, it’s not enough to simply sign up for a class and wait to be enlightened. Here are three things that can help you not only finish the course, but continue to use what you’ve learned long after the final lecture.
Create a hands-on project
Research by Jo Boaler, a professor of education at Stanford University, has shown that…
