For many parents, helping their children learn to manage their time is a challenge. As a parent of an online student, you may have additional concerns about how your child is managing their time when it comes to learning and studying. Thankfully, online learning can help your child develop the invaluable skill of time management. With the right strategies and tools, your child can gain confidence in managing their studies - and even enjoy the process! Let’s take a look at how online learning can help your child master their time management skills.
The Benefits of Online Learning
Online classes offer a unique learning environment that can help your child become more organized with their studies. For example, online classes provide your child with the tools to easily plan out their goals for the semester, prioritize assignments and tasks, and better manage their time. With online courses, your child can also benefit from the flexibility of studying remotely. This allows them to work on projects at their own pace and prioritize tasks based on significance or difficulty. As a result of this flexibility, students learn how to take ownership of their education and develop better habits when it comes to managing their time.
Strategies for Time Management
An important way to maximize the flexibility of online school is to work with your student to create a daily schedule. Having a daily schedule is one of the most important tools your student can use to manage their time effectively. A daily schedule creates structure and reduces stress. It frees up the student’s time by letting them know WHEN they will accomplish their daily tasks and moves them toward their goal of successfully finishing their work each day. Using a planner is another wonderful tool for time management. Planners can be especially beneficial when preparing for tasks such as studying for tests, writing papers, and completing projects. The student can schedule the due date in the planner and then break the task down into manageable steps (such as research, taking notes, creating an outline, and writing a paper) and record the individual steps in the planner in the days leading up to the due date. Planning helps evaluate the order in which your student will approach parts of a larger task and which parts should get the most time.
Developing Self-Discipline
In addition to developing good daily habits for managing time effectively in an online course, it’s important for your child to build self-discipline for long-term success in their studies. To do this, you can encourage them to take initiative when it comes to completing assignments and staying focused on the task at hand. Additionally, helping them create positive study spaces at home or remotely will give them a comfortable place where they can fully focus on learning without distractions or procrastination taking over. Limiting distractions is an important part of creating a positive study space. Have your student reflect on the type of space they learn best in (Quiet or with music? Alone or with people around? Bright lights or dim lights?) and then have them brainstorm ways they can use these preferences to create a dedicated area for studying.
Balancing Technology Use
Since online classes rely heavily on technology use, it’s important that your child finds a balance between using technology responsibly while studying from home or remotely without becoming overwhelmed by distractions or too much screen time. Setting up ground rules such as limiting social media usage during study hours or turning off notifications when studying will help keep your child focused and motivated without becoming distracted by technology use while studying from home or remotely.
Conclusion
Time management is an important skill that every student needs in order to be successful in any learning environment - especially one as unique as an online course! Creating a positive study space, setting rules around tech use, creating a daily schedule, and using a planner are all powerful tools that will improve your students' focus, strengthen their growth mindset, and lead them to academic success.
Enlightium Academy is a private Christian online school that serves homeschooling families by offering a Bible-based, flexible, accredited, teacher-supported, and affordable education from the comfort of your home. For any other questions about Enlightium, please call (509) 319-2288, or visit EnlightiumAcademy.com.