Open-mindedness, working well on my own, accepting responsibility for meeting deadlines, being an adept reader, and possessing good writing skills are several personal strengths I bring to the online learning process. Procrastination and time-management stand out for me as areas I need to improve. Through this course I discovered new resources and strategies which will support my growth in these areas… term-at-a-glance planning and daily schedules which reflect my priorities will help me be more successful in future terms. I also appreciated the information we discovered about the library and making contact with advisors and instructors.

As a visual learner, I am going to attempt to hone my reading and annotation skills. I think becoming a more efficient reader will make my study time more beneficial. I will also incorporate some of the note taking systems we explored, particularly the Cornell Note Taking system and annotating texts.

I plan to take advantage of the Success Counselors available to Ecampus Students to continue and develop new strategies and fine-tune existing strategies for time management. I am particularly interested in this resource as I continue to juggle numerous personal and academic responsibilities. I am also excited to explore the possibility of working with Ecampus to develop a resource that would be available to all Ecampus students, facilitating their involvement with different campus activities, departments, or clubs. This project has sparked a bit of excitement for me that I haven’t felt in a term or two and it’s a great fit with my professional goals.

At this point, I’m trying to determine if I will enroll in Summer Term or Fall Term as my next term. I have about ten courses left to finish my degree, which should be easily attainable were I to take a course or two during Summer Term. However, I’ve been dedicating much time to a family issue this term, and I’m uncertain how life will look as Summer Term begins. My highest goal for my next enrolled term is to successfully complete each course I begin. I know I need to have a plan in place to reach that goal. Long-term goals include completing my degree, finding a job I love, and flourishing as a mother, employee, friend, and partner. I appreciated the SMART Goal Setting tools we explored this summer. Developing a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely goal is a fantastic skill to add to one’s toolbox. My personal challenge is trying to decide which goal to focus on now and which to delay. I believe the Success Counselors may be able to offer me some insight that will make this process feel more manageable. For now, I know that the more specific, realistic, and attainable a goal is, the more likely I will be to reach it.

Thank you, Brandi, for a fun term of great information and support.

Three weeks down, seven to go; midterms approaching and projects on the horizon….

The past three weeks have been full of introspection and some self-discovery. For instance, I’ve known I’m a visual learner for many years but I’ve had some difficulty hitting my stride in some of my distance education courses. The readings and exercises of the past two weeks have helped me make the move toward taking notes while I’m reading (as I would do during a lecture if I were sitting in a classroom), which I know will help fix the important terms and concepts in my mind.

This isn’t my first term with online learning, but last term was a tough one for me and I was hoping to find some tools to help me get through my last few terms. I am not one to explore journaling, goal setting, etcetera on my own (I feel as though I’m always running!!) so I appreciate that this course requires some dedicated introspection and thought and I even had an epiphany while doing the case study exercise last week! (Which, frankly, surprised me!)

The discovery was in regard to my peak and valley times. As a night owl, I generally do my best work between 10 pm and 1 am. This began as a teenager and has continued throughout my life, being especially valuable now as a divorced mother, I can accomplish great things after everyone else is fast asleep. However, I received some feedback from a well-intentioned friend who suggested that perhaps I would be better served to go to bed earlier, get up earlier, and accomplish things before others awoke. I tried this Winter term and rediscovered that I am really not very accomplished at getting up early for the sake of getting up early. I didn’t realize until I worked through the case study, that I effectively robbed myself of about 17 hours a week of prime study time which led to a sort of vortex where I couldn’t figure out why I could not accomplish anything and got very self-critical.

After this discovery I found a free downloadable scheduler that breaks the day down into fifteen minute increments and I took about ten minutes to plug all my scheduled activities into it (two kids to two different schools, chauffer to dance, Scout meeting, etc) and what I found was pleasantly surprising- it seems as though I may have quite a bit of study time, if I get more organized and structured about using it. For instance, I know it’s more difficult to study when my nine year old is home, so perhaps I’ll use that time to grocery stop instead.

I know when I feel stressed I tend to have difficulty focusing, so I have identified a goal of trying to be more structured, though I’m still working on the SMART parts of the goal. I also know I feel better when I run, so I’m prioritizing that in my schedule as well. And, finally, I want to journal, but have always struggled with it, so I plan on trying some of the suggestions from our text over the next few weeks because I’m contemplating some big life decisions right now and think I could benefit from the outlet and process!

Cheers!

Jessica