Valuable Strategies to Optimize Your Success

Once you register to take an online course, you may feel both excited and anxious as you examine the course space and glance at the syllabus. The course will likely introduce many new concepts, offering a new perspective on some familiar themes. No matter how compelling the content, what brings a class to life is how actively you engage with your mentor and classmates; essentially, you get out of an online course what you put into it, before, during and after the semester.

Time is fleeting; sometimes, regardless of how much we accomplish in a given day, it still doesn't seem like there is enough time to do everything we set out to do. As an adult college student, you're balancing multiple responsibilities in addition to your course work; many of you are working full-time jobs, raising a family or have various other commitments. We are all given the same amount of hours and minutes in the day, so how do you make the most of your time?

Taking an online course can be an enriching educational experience. In the online course space, you have the ability to share perspectives with various classmates and host in-depth discussions on relevant course topics. There are many key takeaways and memorable moments that can emerge from a dynamic discussion forum if you allow yourself to be an integral part of the conversation.

When completing a written assignment, drafting a final paper or posting to an online discussion forum, you want to ensure your writing reflects the ideas you are trying to convey. The key to effective writing is clear thinking. You must have clear thinking in order to deliver clear communication so readers understand your message.

At Thomas Edison State University, your course and TECEP^® exams are primarily taken online. Even after you’ve studied, gathered your pen and scrap paper (and whatever else your syllabus or test description allows) and logged into the online proctoring service, you might still be unfamiliar with this new testing experience.

To take quizzes and exams at TESU, you’ll use our online testing platform. At the beginning of each quiz or exam, you will see several introductory screens that provide basic information about the time you will have to complete the assessment, materials allowed and types of questions you will see (such as multiple choice or essay). Then the assessment begins. Remember that most exams consist of several sections of questions. Once you finish a section, you will not be able to return to it, so be sure to review your answers in the current section before moving on. Your score will appear in the gradebook after your mentor has had a chance to grade essay or any other open-ended questions.

Testing Resources

Fortunately, many courses offer resources to help you prepare for exams. Besides formative quizzes that provide a chance to review the basic concepts you’re learning, you may have access to an exam study guide that lists concepts that may appear on the exam. In addition, the exam study guide explains the tasks required on the exam and provides links to helpful test-taking advice. 

Select courses even contain an interactive study guide to help take studying a step further. These study guides are an online tool organized by topic, which provides you with a list of main points related to the topic, a place to take notes and at least one sample exam question. You can save those study guides online, download them as a file or print them. On top of that, some courses include practice exams. These contain questions that are similar to those that appear on the exam and are an excellent way to get used to taking an exam in the online environment.

Visit our Testing Resources page and discover all the resources that are available to you.

We understand the benefits of social media. Updating our Facebook status, sharing a photo on Instagram and tweeting up-to-the-minute news comes as second nature to some of us. Increasingly, social media is the way we deliver and consume our news. And whether or not you choose to engage, it’s hard to deny social media’s influence on society. 

With that in mind, we offer an opportunity to explore how social media could be useful to you. We accomplish this by offering a few social media activities in our courses such as creating a group Wiki page, blogging and storytelling through podcasting.
 

Wikis allow you to discuss, share, critique and create with group members in a snap! Collaborate with other classmates by adding content to shared pages. You can even respond to what others post by using the comments feature at the bottom of each page.

Say goodbye to the days of sending numerous emails back and forth to team members or getting lost in a paper trail of lengthy discussions. A wiki solves those issues since content is updated and shared on the same page, allowing each team member to contribute to the group seamlessly.

Do team members work or live in different time zones? No problem! A wiki automatically saves your work whenever you post. Similar to other cloud-based collaborative tools, each team member can contribute to the wiki on his or her own time and schedule using the most updated version. A wiki makes team collaboration so easy!

Podcasts are a reinvention of traditional media. As they grow in popularity, you will find it important to be able to utilize this form of digital media. Using a podcast, you have the potential to communicate more personally with a larger audience. In addition, podcasting is an on-demand technology that’s both convenient and easy to consume. Podcasting is also a time-efficient form of communication because members of your audience can listen while doing other things, such as driving, cooking or cleaning.

Well-constructed podcasts are more than just a person talking; background noise helps tell the story. Podcasts that simply consist of a person’s voice can be dull. Using background noise (also known as ambient noise) helps the listener feel more connected. For example, if a podcaster is talking about something pertaining to a restaurant, ambient noise of dishes and cutlery rattling helps place the listener in that moment. Background music can also give a podcast more dimension. Overall, creating a podcast is a great way to practice oral communication and audio recording skills!

Blogging is an effective means by which people communicate about particular issues, establish credibility and construct online identities. Blog entries provide you with the opportunity to practice and refine your communication skills and offer another platform to engage in discussions of important course topics.

Everyone in the class is encouraged to read blog entries and then comment on them, making the activity a rewarding experience for all. It’s the perfect space to express your ideas where others can read, comment and add value to the discussion.