Tips for online school

By Erica

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Dear Diary, 

Today is day 404 of online learning. Once again, I woke up, brushed my teeth, ate breakfast, sat down at my desk for school, and that was basically what my whole day consisted of. Hanging out with friends, going to volleyball practices after school and making conversation with classmates in the hallways were all things that were gone as soon as online school started. All that was left was endless zoom meetings and breakout rooms. 

When I first started online school, I was excited to be able to do school from the comfort of my own room. However, the daily repetition of zoom classes caused me to lose my motivation for school very soon. I had stopped paying attention in class and even stopped going to classes at one point. Muting my microphone and turning off my camera were two things that soon became my go-to’s whenever I didn’t feel like doing school (which was almost every day). 

When the first tests of the quarter rolled around, I realized just how much I had been slacking off and how I knew almost nothing that was in my tests. Therefore, I decided that I needed to turn things around and start getting motivated and productive for online school. Now the school year is almost over and I have learned quite a lot about how to stay motivated even when I feel like I don’t want to do anything. 

One of the most helpful things I did was have a separate part of my house, my dad’s office, that I would use only for school. Since I would have to walk out of my room to do school this made me feel like I was physically going to school. Even though this is such a simple thing, it helped much more than I expected. I was also getting out of the room that I use for sleeping and watching Netflix, so I felt much more productive when I was doing school. 

Something else I did, even though it took many tries for me to do successfully, was leave my phone in another room. Usually, I would always be watching Netflix or scrolling on Instagram while I was in class and wouldn’t even notice that I was no longer paying attention. It was very hard for me to leave my phone and to be honest, I did give up and started using my phone during class many times. However, I got better and staying away from my phone, and with no Instagram or Netflix to pay attention to, I started paying attention in class instead. 

Another thing I did was set goals for myself that I wanted to work towards. For example, I would set the goal that I wanted to get an A for this test or assignment and I knew that paying attention in class was the only way I would be able to accomplish my goal. Personally, I am someone that is more motivated when I have a tangible goal to work towards, so this helped me a lot in getting myself to work harder even during online school. I would also set more simple goals like how I would like to be able to understand the topics of genetics by the next class. Having something that I have to work towards and especially when I have a time limit like “by next class”, really helped to increase my motivation.

I have stuck to these three tips throughout my entire year and now that I have my finals coming up this week, I don’t feel as if I am unprepared. I did not magically start to become motivated overnight and this was something that I had to work hard towards every day. However, looking back on this academic year, I feel very proud of myself. Although I have spent the entire school year learning online, I was able to learn so many new things and grow both academically and as a person.