How to make the most of your online courses in 5 simple steps

The world of learning has changed majorly in the past two years.

People took online courses before 2020, but the pandemic brought everyone else on board to join the early adopters in online learning.

Now it is the norm to learn and enjoy social activities online.

When in-person courses were the norm, it was easy to complete courses.

All you needed to do was turn up and follow the course with no other distractions.

There were other people with whom you could socialise.

This would serve as motivation and accountability to not give up on a course.

Online learning has made learning flexible.

You don’t need to figure out how to travel to a course or take large amounts of your holiday allowance off to attend.

This saves you a lot of time and money!

With this flexibility, taking courses from the comfort of your own home, many people (maybe you) are finding they do not complete their online courses.

So, in this blog, we reveal five simple steps to help you get the most out of online courses.

1. Schedule time to complete online courses

When an online course is live, you will receive maximum benefit by attending live.

Put the dates and times into your calendar. This way you will know when the course is and know not to make any other plans then. A digital calendar is better as you can get reminders before a lesson starts. Cannot attend live? Dedicate a time and day you view the recordings. One hour or two every Sunday at 19:00 would soon help you finish your courses.

2. Minimise your distractions

Try not to attend sessions while eating meals, in bed, or in a room where your housemates or family members are watching something else on the television. Choose a place to sit comfortably and not get distracted from your online courses.

Take the course on your computer, not your phone, and close all the other tabs. Try leaving your phone in another room while participating in a session and see how much more you learn from the course.

3. Become an active participant

Why not try turning your camera on? It helps to feel better connected to the teacher and the fellow course participants. If you have a question about the lesson, ask how you would in a classroom: raise your hand (Zoom has this feature).

Maybe your teacher will ask the participants to complete tasks. Are you completing tasks and sharing them with your classmates?

Be active in discussions and if the course is recorded, make sure to comment your questions and appealing points in the forum or comments sections.

4. Don’t enrol in too many courses.

With more people learning online nowadays, more online learning platforms are popping up every week, it seems.

It’s great that we can access information and knowledge in a way that wasn’t possible before. However, try not to get too excited and enrol in every course that sparks your interest. Take it easy and complete one course before moving on to the next.

It may be possible to take two courses because one is on a Thursday night, while the other is on a Saturday afternoon. Ask yourself: is it possible to keep up with both the courses and stay engaged?

Why not make a list of all the online courses you would like to take and then prioritise them into an order of to-do. Start with the first course and don’t start the second course until you have completed the first course.

5. Have accountability.

It’s also good to tell them the days and times you take the course. This way, they know when not to distract you, but also you have someone to hold you to account. How will you feel when they ask you how a session went, and you tell them you didn’t attend?

The best accountability is when you find someone to take a course with you because it works both ways. If you know your friend is taking the course, too, then you want to make sure to turn up just to make sure you don’t get asked why you weren’t there later, and the other way around.

Conclusion

It is easy to enrol in an online course but not always complete. 

Hopefully, our list helps your learning experience and leads you to complete more courses and gain more knowledge. 

You can now enrol in one of MERU International’s online courses – use our tips and enjoy the courses as much as you can. 

Which course(s) will you complete?

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