Tips for Better Online Learning

Tips for Better Online Learning

One of the key ideas behind the ASQ CRE certification is the need to learn enough to pass the exam. Then you are expected to continue to learn to maintain your certification. It is the key idea of ongoing professional development that central to the CRE program, and many other certification programs.

Over this past year of COVID-induced restrictions, the ability to attend local chapter meetings or conferences has changed. While many events are now done online, it’s another Zoom meeting after a day full of such online meetings.

A recent article by Anant Agarwal, the founder and CEO of edX titled, “What I’ve Learned About Learning — 5 Hacks for Success” caught my attention. Anant provides a few tips to improve your online learning — and I would say any learning. A little research on how to best learn online also found “Tips for Successful Online Learning” that helped inform this short summary.

Partner

Find others interested in the topic and take the course together. Besides adding a touch of peer pressure, it enables you both to reflect on the key points of each lesson.

The ability to take the time to reflect and connect the lesson to your prior experience and current situation help cement the knowledge in long-term memory. Plus, you can check your understanding, ask questions, and get another point of view to further help you master the information.

Practice

Watching a video or reading the book is a start, just a start. To get the most from the course, you need to do the work of practicing. Do the homework, rework the examples, give the process a try. Practice, practice, practice.

Even better is to practice and get feedback from your study partners, instructors, or friends. Make improvements and try again.

Pace

One advantage of online, self-paced courses is you can set your own pace through the course. For a fixed schedule course, plan to set aside ample time to attend (not just plan in the background) lessons, and do the homework, and practice.

Besides the formal lesson work, also plan on time to meet with your study group for…