Student Success

Be Proactive

You may be taking an online course because you have a busy schedule that makes attending classes hard. But start the online class knowing that these cover the same material as a sixteen-week course does in an eight-week period, so you'll have at least double the amount of work each week. Set your schedule now for when you will do the assigned readings, participate in discussions, and work on your assignments.  See more on time management in the section below.

Expect that technology will fail at some point. Your Internet may go down; your computer may malfunction. Submit work early whenever you can. Have a backup plan of where you'll go to use the Internet or another computer when problems occur. 

Become familiar with everything provided in the course. Read the syllabus carefully, check the announcements each time you log in (or have them sent to you automatically by setting a notification), read all the postings on the discussion board, read the directions for all assignments carefully. Instructors know that we won't be able to tell you how to do things verbally, so we've included needed information in the course. 

Expect that you will have a personal emergency at some point. You will become ill or a family member will need you, and you just won't have time for your schoolwork. The best defense is to have work done early each week. If you have been a procrastinator in the past, now is a good time to break that habit. It's smart to know what the lateness penalties are on the syllabus since instructors vary in their approach to accepting late work. 

Stay Organized and Practice Good Time Management Skills

Follow the Week by Week Guide in your Canvas class that is posted in Week 1 titled "How to Take This Online Class."

Read more on how to organize yourself and your time for online classes in the Time Management section below.

Be a Good Teammate

Read more on Online Etiquette below.

Be in Touch

In face-to-face classes, teachers can see when students are puzzled and so know when to cover a point in a different way. That doesn't happen in online classes. If your question is about the course material. the discussions are usually the right place to ask about these Online classes will usually have an Instructor's Office or similar area for questions also. Use these when something in the course is not clear. Use email when the question concerns a personal matter such as a question about grades since teachers cannot address grades for one student in any area where other students can view the exchange. 

For most people, one of the hardest parts of being an online student is time management. The structure of class meetings is gone; the lectures get added to all your readings and homework to do "on your own time." While all students may struggle with this, students coming out of a highly structured environment like high school can find this particularly difficult. 

You may find that you underestimate how long things will take, or that you underestimate how important it is to do all the readings and lectures before completing certain assignments. All of this can lead to frustration; maybe you aren't understanding the assignment, maybe you aren't sure why you didn't do well on a test or paper. Additionally, if you are used to having the "safety net" of teachers verbally explaining assignments and reminding you of due dates, it can be difficult to adjust to needing to find and keep track of that information on your own. 

It will be important to start working on finding strategies that work for you to keep track of your classes and manage your time. So, the following are some tips to help you get started. 

Keeping Track of Dates/Assignments/etc.

• Use a calendar or planner

  • You may find you prefer handwriting everything out at the beginning of the week or that you need something that will ding a reminder at you, but find some sort of calendar, planner, or to-do app that works for you. 

  • Some options: a basic paper/notebook-style planner, Apple or Google Calendar on your phone/computer,  To-do list apps (for example: todoist, Any.do)

• Use the Modules page in Canvas (or whatever method your classes are using) to view everything for that week. Write down everything you have to do along with any due dates. Don't forget readings and lectures in your list. Double-check due dates as you write things down. 

• Break down larger projects into smaller parts, and put the smaller parts in the calendar/planner as well as the major due dates. 

  • For example: If you have a research paper due for your Sociology class, you will have to brainstorm your topic, find research, read the research, organize your thoughts/pre-write, write your paper, and then revise your paper before turning it in. So, make sure to include all those steps on your calendar/planner and to give yourself enough time for each of the steps. 

• If you need reminders, set up a calendar that can automatically ping, email, or otherwise notify you on the day you need to start something.

  • Notice, that said the day you need to start not when t's actually due. There are few things more stressful than getting the alert at 10 pm the night before a large project is due and realizing you haven't started it yet. 

Time Management

• Plan out your week. Decide on Sundays or Mondays when you have time to do things that week and block off that time in advance. Spending an extra hour at the beginning of each week will save you a large headache in the long run. 

• Make a plan for each online class for the order in which you will complete the work. You will likely have to watch or read the lectures before you complete any assignments.  Figure out what is due when and then plan backward for completing the preliminary work like lectures and reading and then the work of the assignment.  

• Pay attention to how long things take you to complete and adjust accordingly next week. If you find that your Biology lectures are taking twice as long as expected but your English lectures are taking half the time, make sure to keep that in mind for future weeks when you are planning out your week. You may even want to note how long things are taking you. 

Not Missing Things

• Read through all assignments at least twice. Often, when students don't meet the requirements for an assignment, they find they missed a line or sometimes an entire paragraph when they read through the instructions. We're all used to skimming a lot of information quickly thanks to the internet and online spaces, but in classroom and workplace settings, we need to remember to slow down and read carefully. 

• Write down any important requirements, guidelines, or things you will need to remember when working on the assignment. 

• Double and triple-check due dates. 

• When you've completed the assignment, read through the assignment again. Make sure that you didn't miss anything the first time or forget to include something that was required once you got working on it. 

• When you turn something in, get in a habit of exiting out of the assignment and going back in to see that it posted. This step takes only a few extra seconds but can save you a whole bunch of problems in the end. 

In online environments, we are more limited in presenting tone and intent and building interpersonal relations than we are in in-person interactions. Therefore, we must all make an effort to communicate in ways that are supportive and foster an environment of learning (even when disagreeing). 

The following guidelines are helpful for all online environments but particularly for online classes:

Remember the human behind the screen. In-person, we rarely will immediately yell at someone or feel the need to condescend to them. But in online interactions, it can be hard to remember that there's a human being, with emotions and things going on in their own lives and their own experiences, on the other side of every communication. We don't get any real-time feedback if we offend someone or hurt their feelings like we would in person. So, it can help to check yourself in a few ways: 

1. How would you feel if this message was sent to you?

2. Would you send this message to someone you cared about?

Be professional. Treat your online classes as you would any professional environment. If you haven't worked in professional environments (or have primarily worked in jobs where management has not created professional environments, I'm looking at you retail jobs I had when I was in college), then imagine that you are working in the career that you hope to work in someday. Imagine that your classmates are your new co-workers and that you want to make a good impression. 

Over time, most of us will develop a "professional persona" or a version of ourselves that is just a little more polite and professional than our "at-home selves". You may already do this at work, or you might do this with specific family members like a grandparent, aunt, or uncle. Bring that professional persona into your online class environments—use that as a guide for how you communicate with your professors and your classmates. 

Calm down before responding. If you find yourself feeling upset or emotional from something that has happened, like a grade you received, a discussion board post you read from another student, etc. Step away from the computer. Allow yourself time to calm down; go do something else and come back to it. If you want to make sure you don't forget some of your thoughts on the matter, draft an email in notepad or Word and save it for later. Then, once you are calm reread that email and rewrite it so that you are not escalating the situation.  You can't control how other people behave, but you can control your own responses. And quite often, it's a misunderstanding that you can easily resolve with a calm response. 

Be a goldfish. Or have a short memory for both your own personal failings and for others' failings. I'm stealing this line from a show called Ted Lasso (good show, if you get a chance to watch it!). In this show, he plays a (very positive but silly) soccer coach who tells his players to be goldfish because goldfish have short memories. 

In other words, don't hold onto mistakes. Forgive people when they make mistakes, and forgive yourself when you make them. We all do it—whether it's online or in-person, we'll inevitably say something or write something that if we read later we realize was wrong or makes us feel unintelligent or comes off far ruder than we intended. I have definitely been awake, lying in bed at night, replaying really embarrassing and ridiculous things I've said in classes (as a student and as a professor)!  It's good to let these things go for yourself just for your own wellbeing, but for online communications, it's also important to let things go so that we can continue to have professional relationships with one another. 

Don't dox (yourself or others). For anyone unfamiliar with this word, doxxing is when you reveal personal information about someone online. It's often used in online spaces where people use anonymous user names, but even in spaces with our real name, do not attempt to find people in real life or share that information with others. And for yourself, always be careful about how much you share. I'll be honest. I'm terrible at this. I'm an oversharer at my very core, but it's good practice to be careful nonetheless because while it would be amazing if everyone always had good intentions, we all know that's not always the case. 

And above all, try to be kind. It never hurts to treat others with a little extra kindness and compassion, but it can hurt a lot when we do the opposite. 

While writing resources will be essential not only in this class but in many others that will require essays and research papers, its also important to have skills on note-taking and studying. The following resources are for general student success.

Resources at MCC

Macomb Community College offers Student Success Seminars every semester to help you learn the skills necessary to be a successful college student. Additionally, they have a Canvas page with student resources on everything from study skills to stress management. 

• Click here to enroll in Macomb's Student Success Canvas Page. 

Learning Labs at Macomb Community College provide tutoring in many subjects. 

• You can make an appointment at Macomb's My WCOnline site.

• More information on the Learning Labs can be found on this Canvas page. 

External Resources

UNC Chapel Hill

• Includes resources on:

  • Studying

  • Effective Note Taking

  • Procrastination

  • Online and Remote Learning

  • Reading and Annotating Texts

  • Test prep

  • And much more

Canvas Help

If you are having problems with Canvas, I recommend starting with the Canvas help site.

If something appears to be wrong with your account, you can contact Macomb's Canvas Support at 1-877-363-2662.

Microsoft Office

Every Macomb student has free access to Microsoft 365. Instructions and additional information for how to download this onto your computer can be found here.

File Formats and PDFs

You can turn in your papers in .doc/.docx format or .pdf format. I can also open Apple's .pages format on my computer, but your classmates might not be able to open those files for assignments like peer review, so I recommend staying away from that format. 

• Google Docs: Download a .docx or .pdf file by going to File > Download, and then choose Microsoft Word (.docx) or PDF Document (.pdf). 

• Pages: Download a .docx or .pdf by going to File > Export to, and then choose Word or PDF. 

If you are concerned about the formatting or design of your document, you may want to create a PDF instead of attaching a Microsoft Word document. This is particularly useful if you want to use software other than Microsoft Word at any point in the semester. 

• A PDF document is generally created by "printing" to that format instead of printing to a physical printer. It will create a document that looks like what the printed document would look like.

• In most applications, you can go to "Print" and then change the printer to PDF. Then, it will ask you where you would like to save your document.

• For Macs or specific software, I recommend searching in Google how to print to PDF in that particular software. There are plenty of videos and instructions on just about any software out there. 

Other Technology Help

• Don't underestimate Google. Chances are if you are having a problem figuring out how to do something, someone else has had the same problem. A quick Google search can answer the vast majority of technology-related questions about any piece of software (including Canvas). 

• YouTube is another excellent resource, particularly if you are unsure how to do something. 

  • • • Need help with formatting a paper in Word? There's a YouTube video for that

      • Need help formatting it in Word on a Mac? There's a YouTube video for that too

Since many students at a community college plan to transfer to a four-year university or apply for programs, such as nursing, which require an application process, many of you may find yourself needing letters of recommendation in the next few years. Since this can be a confusing process if you haven't done it before, I've put together some advice and links to resources below. 

Summary

• Give your professors at least a month (longer is better). 

• Make sure to choose someone who knows you well and is appropriate for the program/position/etc. that you are trying to get into. 

• Include enough information in your initial request that your professor can make an informed decision about whether they feel they can provide this recommendation. 

• Provide the information and materials to your professor about the program/position/etc and also about yourself. 

Timeline

Before you do anything else, make sure you give yourself a reasonable timeline. Writing letters of recommendation takes time for your professor. For some context, one letter can take me several hours to write to make sure that I am doing the student justice. I'll look back through their coursework, brainstorm what traits that I think will be most important to highlight, write the letter, and then revise it. Just like any type of high stakes writing, this takes time. And you don't want a rushed letter of recommendation—that situation will not do you justice. 

Here's a good timeline for asking for a letter of recommendation:

• 2 months before the deadline: Figure out who you want to ask and get your materials in order (see Materials section below). 

• 6 weeks before the deadline: Ask your professor(s) for the letter of recommendation; if they agree, offer to meet with them and send the materials to them.  Additionally, ask if they would like a reminder at some point. 

• 1 week before the deadline: If you haven't received the recommendation or heard from the professor, send a follow-up email. Do not pester with daily/weekly emails through this process, but sometimes, unfortunately, things fall off people's radars unintentionally, so a one-week (polite) follow-up is generally appropriate.  

Now, sometimes things come up suddenly, like a scholarship, and most professors understand that. However, you still need to be reasonable in that they are going to try to squeeze this work in between all their other work, so two weeks should be the absolute minimum timeline. And that timeline is a "rushed timeline," so while a professor may be able to get it done in that time if they understand that you didn't have much warning on needing this (like a scholarship opportunity that popped up suddenly), they will be less willing to move their workload around if this was lack of planning on your part. In other words, for any letters needed for getting into a program or school, make sure you give your professors plenty of time. 

Additionally, by asking early, if you have a professor turn down your request, you will still have enough time to ask someone else. 

Who do I ask?

It is important that you ask a professor: 

• Who knows you and your strengths

• Is an appropriate professor for this particular letter of recommendation. 

Make sure to ask someone who will likely feel that they got to know you and your strengths during the semester(s) you took them. If you didn't participate in the class or did the bare minimum, it will be hard for the professor to honestly say that they know enough about you to give that recommendation. 

Additionally, make sure that you are asking the right professor for the position/program. For example, if you are trying to get an internship at a bioengineering lab, a recommendation from your English teacher will likely not be considered a strong recommendation. For general university admittance, any professor will usually be fine. But if you are trying to get into a specialized program, scholarship, internship, or position, make sure you are asking professors who are in that field or adjacent to that field. 

Initial Request

Make sure to approach your initial request as a question and not an assumption that they will write you a letter of recommendation. If a professor feels that they do not know you very well, they might not feel comfortable recommending you. 

For your initial request, I recommend that you include the following information: 

• The class and semester you had that professor (we have many students in a year and sometimes it takes a minute to place a name with a face). 

• What you are applying for that requires the recommendation. 

• When the recommendation is due. 

• A brief explanation of why you want to get into this program/school/etc. (e.g. Why should they write the recommendation for you?)

Materials

The information and materials you should provide your professor may vary with the program, position, or reason that you need the letter of recommendation. However, the following should always be provided: 

• Any details you have about what you are applying for and what they are looking for. You can often link the professor to this information or copy and paste the blurb that you received from this program/scholarship/etc. 

• Who this should be addressed to (if specified), where it needs to go, and any important dates.  

• Your personal deadlines—if it's currently February and the deadline for the program is June 15th, if you would like to have your materials in by April 30th, be sure to specify that. Just make sure you are giving the professor enough time. 

• Why you want to be accepted into this program/get this scholarship/get this internship/etc. Why does this matter to you? How does it help you reach your goals?

• Any other information that might be useful, such as your transcripts (if the scholarship requires certain grades/achievement), a reminder of a particular project you did in that professor's class that is worth mentioning, what you think your strengths are as a student and why this would be a good fit for you. Basically, the more information your professor has about you, the easier it will be for them to write a good quality letter of recommendation. 

Additional Resources

How to Ask a Professor for a Letter of Recommendation

The Dos and Don'ts of Asking Professors for Recommendation Letters

How to Ask Your Professor for a Letter of Recommendation (with template emails!)