okay, so here in california precautionary measures against COVID-19 have become increasingly intense. most schools have closed and are preparing to make the transition to “distance learning” aka online classes. this is a big change for many of us – but don’t panic!
welcome to surviving online classes 101!
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✐ self discipline
this is more of a warning than a tip. working from home means you will have to exercise a lot more self discipline. it can be a little bit boring or lonely at times. you cannot count on motivation from others (professors, classmates, friends, etc.), so you will have to learn some self discipline.
✐create your own classroom
a good way to make the transition is to try and mimic the classroom setting as closely as possible. something that might be helpful is to set up a space designated for work. try to avoid the temptation to work in your bed or on the couch. that trains your brain to be alert in those places and makes it harder to relax/fall asleep. at least during online lectures, try and eliminate distractions that wouldn’t be present in a regular classroom (like tv or netflix playing in the background, or having your phone out)
✐dress for success!
dress in the way that makes you feel most productive. if you’re one of those people who usually rolls into class wearing sweats and still kills it, good for you! if you’re one of those people who needs to put on a full face of makeup to feel alive and ready for the day, do that! even at home!! i personally never wear makeup but if i try to be productive in pjs… disaster. i’ve also found that cute workout gear makes me feel badass while still being comfy.
✐create a schedule
now more than ever you need to figure out how to manage your time. you can use a planner, bujo, google calendar, the forest app, whatever. just make sure you keep track of things like
due dates and TIMES
exam dates
lecture times
hours spent studying
meals (pls eat 3 if possible)
water intake
sleep schedule
✐pack your bag like you usually would
i know this probably sounds so dumb, but when you’re done working clean up after yourself. pack everything up like you would at school, to sort of signal to your brain that academic time is over for now. and then unpack and set up when you’re ready to get to work again. this is just another way to trick your brain into that school mindset while you’re stuck at home.
✐don’t overwork yourself
break up your studying into chunks. being cooped up all day can make us feel like we’re wasting time, but be sure to schedule breaks and reward yourself after a solid study session. i’m a big fan of the pomodoro method, and it can be customized really easily to allow for more or less study/rest time.
✐maintain a healthy sleep schedule
now is the time to develop that healthy sleep schedule we all dream about. staring at a computer all day is exhausting and hard on the eyes and brain, so make sure to give them enough rest and time to recover each night. also, consider investing in glasses that block blue light, even if you don’t usually use glasses. this will keep our eyes young lol.
✐communicate with your teachers and classmates
most of us are making this transition to online learning together. any time you have questions, email your professor. reach out to your classmates at the beginning and exchange emails/phone numbers/social media so you can build a support system. if something goes wrong, screenshot it immediately and reach out to your professor. technology isn’t perfect, and mistakes can happen, just communicate them.
✐turn things in early
this is my biggest tip. when you are relying on online submissions for assignments and digital lectures, you always want to allow extra time to fix any errors you might encounter. your professor will also be much more willing to help you fix a problem two days before a deadline rather than two minutes before a deadline. eliminate that uncertainty by playing it safe with online submissions.
As the beginning of the new academic year fast approaches, U.S. school districts debate the pros and cons of reopening. This map by The New York Timesuses estimates from a study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, which shows the likelihood of students carrying the virus would to arrive at school in the first week.
The highest-risk areas include Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Florida, Nashville, Tennessee, and Las Vegas, Nevada. A study by Education Week uses data surveying 342 schools across the country found that 50% of surveyed districts are offering online classes only, 32% are offering classes in person, and 18% doing a mix of the two.
This map depicts the estimated number of infected students arriving back to schools of 1,000+ in the first week back. All COVID-19 updates will be displayed in a red box.
Source: American Geographical Society, August 5, 2020
I’m in a terribly urgent need to romanticize my life because that’s how I get through it. Online classes might kill me but at least I can die in style.
Waking up five minutes before your class starts and logging into it while still in bed.
Waking up too early before class to complete the readings you forgot to do.
The moment you decide to un-mute yourself and speak out in class even though it feels like your social anxiety might kill you.
The moment you decide not click the un-mute even though you know the answer because your social anxiety might kill you.
Taking naps in between class breaks.
Wondering if the pandemic has made you dumber.
JSTOR, Academia, and other websites are your life now.
Doing extra readings that you found while you were down the internet hole.
Handwriting turning into a scrawl because no one else needs to read it.
Reading whenever you want, even while in class.
Classes that make you feel connected with the world even from so far away.
I would like to take a moment of your time to let you know that this blog will start posting only once a month, on the first Saturday of the month. The second Saturday will still be Color My Cartomancy spreads, until they run out (there’s only a handful left!).
The change is due to my mundane life–I am persuing an online degree and have a lot less time for anything but…
Most of my teaching in 2020 and 2021 was done online. Like many people, I had to learn how to teach a lot of my face-to-face classes in online contexts. My institution used Zoom for this, and even in 2022 and beyond I will continue to teach some classes online. I think this is great. So many of my students used to have a horrific commute just to attend a single class, or would miss classes because of unavoidable commitments. Of course, there are many ways studying online is a terrible experience too. One particularly fraught online experience is classroom discussion. An experienced teacher can manage a classroom full of group discussions pretty effectively by moving around the room and keeping an eye and an ear on each group. Students usually feel sufficiently private at tables, but also have the buzz of the classroom to help the discussion along. Online classes take all of that away from everyone.
Over the last two years I’ve developed a way of managing breakout room that makes the best of a bad situation. My students regularly tell me my classes are some of the best they’ve done online, and when I share this method with colleagues they tell me they’re going to borrow it – so I thought I would write it up in case you are also still managing group work in online tutorials and workshops.
Step 1: Set the context
I don’t make my students have cameras on (you’re making a lot of assumptions about people’s access to technology and privacy for online study), but I explain to them the benefits of seeing colleagues faces. I also encourage students to use the chat box and to play around with the reaction button to help me calibrate to the mood of the room. If you get good at running an online classroom with multiple streams like this, you know some of the multitasking joy of doing live broadcast radio! But I l also get this isn’t for everyone.
Step 2: Giving students control
I let people select their own breakout group, which is an option in Zoom. I then explain how they should sort themselves out. The number of rooms I set up and how I assign them vary depending on the size of the class, but let’s say I have a group of 20 to keep numbers manageable. I set up 5 breakout rooms and tell students the following:
The final room is the quiet room: no one speaks, you just work through the activities in a companionable silence.
Rooms 3 and 4 are for groups of friends to move into. Start messaging them now to arrange to work together!
Rooms 1 and 2 are for people who want to meet new people or chat with a random group of people in the subject. Start with room 1 and when there are four people in there start room 2.
I work backwards to flag that I’m committed to supporting the most exhausted students and it’s not an afterthought, but also I like the last room being like the quiet space up the back of the library.
For people in rooms 1-4 the maximum is 4 people. Four is a good number for conversation – more than that and the conversation starts to fragment into smaller groups, which is hard to hold together in an online space.
Step 3: Running rooms
Online classes need much tighter guidelines and expectations than face-to-face classes, since it’s harder to change the flow of things. I make sure tasks are very clear and the time they’ll be in the rooms is also very clear to them. I also tell students I expect them to spend the first 2-3 minutes at least on small talk (not in the silent room!), online classes can really miss that human connection sometimes.
Sometimes we have to do a bit of on-the-fly juggling, if two groups vie for the same breakout room or there are more people in the quiet room than usual – but often students get the hang of this after a few weeks and get good at managing the breakout rooms themselves.
I also let students know that after 10 minutes I’ll come to each room to answer questions and check in, or they can ping me or return to the central room to ask questions too. Sometimes I’ll use something like Google Docs or Slides where I can see students adding content in real time, which gives me an idea of who might need more help or encouragement.
Why this set up?
This setup for breakout rooms gives students a little more control over their learning experience.
Some students are tired or find online classes incredibly stressful. I like providing them the chance to just get through the material, with a bit of solidarity and a central place I can check in with them.
Some students really miss the chance to sit at a table with their friends and catch up. I know I do!
Some students miss the chance to get to know new people at university. Some of the friends I made in undergraduate tutorials are still some of my closest friends today, I like to give my students some small chance of having that experience too.
The important thing I’ve noticed is: it’s not the same students in the same rooms each time. Some weeks even the most sociable students need a break, or sometimes your friends didn’t make it that week and you’re up for meeting someone new.
This is my default for running breakout rooms, but I do shake things up occasionally. I’ll randomly allocate students to breakout rooms for some tasks, telling them I’m intentionally shaking things up and giving them some icebreaker tasks. I usually only make groups of 3 in these weeks to give them more time to get to know each other.
Managing breakout rooms is one of those times where thinking like a has helped me improve my teaching. Thinking about breakout rooms as interactional spaces, and how we generally prefer to interact has helped me refine my classroom management.
If you have any success using–or refining(!)–this process, please let me know!
I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up classes online for those who either can’t get to a teacher, have no metaphysical (etc) stores near them, or just aren’t connecting to local people.
I’ve finally had a student. She also signed up in part because she has anxiety in classroom settings, and she has a really hard time setting up a babysitter for her children.I’d love to set this up for other people too! I had my manual written, but it’s meant for in-class learning. Meaning handouts and filling in gaps through group discussions.
I’m looking for people who want to learn Reiki (currently level 1 and level 2. I haven’t written a master manual yet). I need people who are kind of willing to be guinea pigs as well since you’d be my first students. I need someone who will make lots of notes in my manual, questions you have about how I’ve written things, not afraid to edit my grammar, and willing to just be completely open and honest with me.
If anyone is interested, have questions, comments, concerns, etc. please drop me a message! Or if you just want to talk about energy healing, we can do that too. lol Thanks everyone!
Alright guys. It’s pretty clear to me to that locally the place I teach and do energy work out of is not promoting everyone the way they should and the percentage they take is a lot. I wish I could teach out of my home, but I live with roommates and pets….but I would love to teach online classes!
I have no idea how, what, where, how much or any other details would be. I figure I’ll work that out slowly. So my questions are:
Is anyone interested in taking classes pertaining to energy work, psychic stuff, grounding, Reiki (specifically or non-specifically), etc?
How much would you pay? No really, what can you afford?. For an hour class? Two? All day (meaning probably 5 or 6+)
What times/days work best for you?
What kind of classes are you interested in?
How would you like to take these classes? Mail, Email, Skype, some sort of other live class platform?
Would an online psychic party be a thing (like those online home-based business parties)?
Just realised that the school uniform can’t be enforced in my online classes! I’m either showing up to this video conference looking fly as FUCK or I’m putting on a Homestuck graphic tee and not brushing my hair. I haven’t quite decided which yet
Kids don’t have to wait to get their dream job.Inthis JAM online course, kids 8-14 can write, direct, & produce their own animated short with help of Adventure Time writer and professional animator Julia Pott.
The course is FREE for kids who register before August 31, 2016. Kids who complete their final animation by August 31st, 2016 have an opportunity to be shown on Cartoon Network’s platforms.
Its June 9th it’s summer break for me and i’m stuck doing online classes which turn into me creating outfits and sketching i love you all feel free to me message.Oh im also thinking of restocking my shop and adding clothing so let me know what you think also these fringe tops are my current obsession.
PEOPLE WITH ADHD WHO HAVE ONLINE CLASS I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED A BREAKTHROUGH IN FOCUSING TECHNOLOGY:
This extension lets you doodle on any webpage just like you would doodle on a piece of paper in class to focus. I just added it to my chrome and it’s been a godsend. I watched an 11 minute video on LDAP servers without getting distracted once! I don’t know if other browsers offer this specific app as an extension but I know for sure it’s offered through chrome. I hope this helps other people as much as it’s helped me!
Something’s shifting these days and I’m excited to see where it goes. Reading a lot of Lynda Barry, thinking a lot about being a perfectionist, wondering about how to disentangle my Kid Self from my Be Good at Art OR ELSE Self. Where does it come from? Where could it go from here? What exactly is the deal with mid-career burnout? Do I need permission more now than I did as a baby cartoonist in 2010? Do we ever STOP needing permission? HMMMM HMM HMM.
