How to Succeed in Online College Classes
Make a plan to excel
With the COVID-19 pandemic, most colleges have changed their in-person classes to virtual. In the foreseeable future, online classes may become the new normal. They differ from face-to-face courses and can be challenging if you don’t know how to approach them.
The good news is that success in online classes is as achievable as in face-to-face classes.
I conducted a survey at my college on students’ experiences in online classes. Among the 361 students who responded, 21% said they were more successful online than in person, and 50% of them said they were as successful as in face-to-face classes.
There are two kinds of online courses, synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous is when teachers and students are virtually present at the same time, such as through Zoom or Google classroom meetings.
Asynchronous, on the other hand, means students and teachers log into the system and do their work at different times.
In this article, I describe five strategies you can use to succeed in both synchronous and asynchronous classes. These tips come from my research with online teachers and students and my own teaching experiences.
