UNIV 1001 — Online Education Strategies

My experience during this course and my top tips for you.

📚 My Course Experience

Hi! I would like to share with you my experience during this course. UNIV 1001 Online Education Strategies is the first course that you will take during UoPeople Foundations. When you start UoPeople Foundations, you are automatically enrolled in two courses: UNIV 1001 and a second course from your major (In my case, Computer Science).

💡 Note: This course is a prerequisite for every course at UoPeople, so be sure not to drop or withdraw from this course if you intend to continue your studies next term.

My overall course experience was really great! 😃. The course has a main book assigned. Each week you will have a reading assignment. You will read one or two chapters of the book per week and you will also have additional readings to complement your learning.

I really recommend taking this course very seriously, with an open mind. Be open to the new study and time management techniques that you will learn during these weeks and be willing to incorporate them into your daily routine. Please trust me, this will be very important for your future as a UoPeople student. I’m currently taking “Principles of Microeconomics” as I write this article, and the note-taking methods that I learned in UNIV 1001 have been incredibly useful since I started this new course.

✅ Topics Covered

During the course, you will learn about these main topics:

- Learning Styles

You will learn how to take full advantage of your learning style(s). I found that I learn best by using visual resources, by writing, and by applying what I learn.

- Advantages of Peer Learning

At first, you may not be aware of the advantages that the peer learning model brings to the learning process both for the peer receiving the feedback and the peer providing the feedback (I didn’t know about them when I started this course either! 😵).

Peer learning has been a really great experience for me so far because it has helped me to reinforce concepts from the past weeks. In every course at UoPeople, almost every week you will submit a written assignment that your peers will grade the next week and you will have to grade three peers as well following a rubric.

💡 Note: If you feel that the grade assigned by your peers for your work is not fair, you can contact your professor through direct message and ask him or her to review your assignment and provide a fair grade according to the work submitted.

- Academic Integrity

Plagiarism can take many forms. When I started this course, I didn’t know what plagiarism was or how we could commit unintentional plagiarism. You will learn the APA style rules for references and citations to avoid committing plagiarism in your future work at UoPeople.

Adding reliable sources to your work is completely fine, and even encouraged. But not citing or referencing where you obtained an idea or quote qualifies as plagiarism. You will learn so much more about this topic during the course.

✏️ Tip: Did you know that you can plagiarize yourself if you submit your previous work for a different course without asking your professor if he or she allows it? No? I didn’t know about this either! 😵

- Time and Stress Management

You will learn time and stress management techniques to help you balance work, study, and leisure. This is a very important unit that you should definitely try to apply to your daily life. I’m still testing different approaches to optimize my time management techniques, but during this course, I learned helpful tips and tricks. ⏳

- Critical Thinking and Critical Reading

Critical thinking and reading are two of the most important skills that you will need during your college journey. In your assignments. you will sometimes be asked to discuss very broad questions and you will need to learn how to choose the point of view that you support. You will need to provide evidence on why you chose it and use it to support your claims. 💡

During your college journey, you will need to determine the reliability and usefulness of the information you find and use in your work. This is covered during the course 👍

- Self-directed Learning 📚

You will learn about the importance of self-directed learning in the UoPeople educational model and how motivation is a key driver for your academic success. This learning model relies primarily on your discipline to study and your willingness to dive deeper into the topics presented every week.

UoPeople offers a very innovative approach to traditional learning, but with flexibility comes responsibility. Time management and organization are key to succeed. In addition, motivation is key in the UoPeople learning model because you will need to feel that spark and feeling of happiness when you start reading a topic to understand it and dive deeper into it. You will need to push yourself forward through challenging stages in your learning process and overcome difficult personal situations while following strict due dates.

- Note-taking Strategies ✏️

For me, this was probably one of the most important topics covered in the course. Incorporating a new note-taking strategy into my learning process was extremely important for me. I personally chose to use the Cornell Note-Taking Strategy. I find it extraordinarily useful. In the video below (video found in YouTube), you will find a short description of this method.

Basically, you divide each page in your notebook into three main sections: one third of the page to the left, two thirds to the right and a box at the bottom. In the right column, you write your main notes will all the details that you wish to include (I suggest using as little words as possible and focus on diagrams and keywords). In the left column, you write questions to help you study. Finally, in the box at the bottom, you write a summary of the entire page in your own words. I usually write the summaries a few days after my initial note-taking session to go through the content one more time.

Using this note-taking strategy has definitely increased my productivity. I totally recommend it! 👍

⏰ Time Investment

I would recommend allocating at least 15 hours per week per course at UoPeople. If you are completely new to the subject (like I am right now with Introduction to Economics! 😅) you will definitely need more study time and you will need to take much more detailed notes. After taking 4 courses at UoPeople (I’m taking my fourth course right now) I can confirm that you will need approximately 15–18 hours per week per course.

🔧 Assignment Structure

During this course, you will have these types of assignments:

• Discussion Forums Assignment.
• Written Assignment.
• Learning Journal.
• Peer Assessment (every week after a written assignment).

In this course, assignments have a minimum number of words that you need to meet. I usually like to submit assignments that are at least twice the minimum length because I think that this adds more depth to my analysis.

💭 Key Takeaways from this Course

I think the most important takeaways from this course for me were:

• The use of the Cornell Note-Taking Strategy.
• Keeping an open mind to accept and incorporate new learning techniques into my learning process.
• Incorporating active reading techniques to my study routine.
• Breaking tasks into smaller subtasks.
• Writing more specific to-dos for my daily schedule instead of very broad to-dos to be able to meet them during a limited time frame.

💡 My Top Tips for You

Have Fun

I suggest having fun during this course 🎊😄. It’s your first course as a UoPeople student and it might be your first online course ever. I had previous experience with online learning and loved it completely, but if this is your first time taking an online course, you may need to get used to the dynamics of online learning, the benefits, and challenges involved.

Read Carefully

Read the main textbook carefully and analyze what strategies you may like to incorporate to your study routine. You will find questionnaires for self-assessment in the main textbook. Use them as a tool to diagnose your current skills, conditions, and possible improvements.

Keep an Open Mind

I suggest keeping an open mind during the course about topics like peer-based learning. After reading the research presented, I was gladly surprised to learn about the benefits it brings.

I really wish you good luck with your UoPeople journey. I really appreciate your claps 👏 if you liked my article.

Follow my publication to find more articles on my journey as a Computer Science student at UoPeople. 👍

(Article written in April-May 2019).