Life Skills
This area is focused on time management, organization, and motivation. Three life skills you will need to understand and help your student learn. There will be helpful tools and resources in helping keep your student focused and on task
Organization
Keep Yourself and Your Student Organized
One of the most important skills your student needs in their arsenal for success is organization. As there is not teacher working face to face with your student to help keep them organized, it is up to your student to learn an organizational system that works for them. That may take some time and trial and error. This is something you should help your student with.
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There are many different ways your student can keep themselves organized, but all of them include several keys areas your student needs to focus on:
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- Required Class Connect Sessions
- Help Sessions or Teacher Office Hours
- Assignments (work time and due dates)
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Your student's teachers, especially their homeroom teacher, may have some tools that they encourage students to try, but it is up to you and your student to find a way that works for them and stick to it.
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Some ideas for organizational systems:
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+ Online calendars - Your student's school email account uses Outlook and has a calendar option. Your student can utilize this tool to have a digital calendar and schedule. One major point for this tool is that it comes with reminders that pop up shortly before something is scheduled. This will remind a student about any sessions coming up or what assignment they need to switch their focus to.
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There are also many other online calendar and planner tools that can be utilized. A quick Google search can help you find one that works for your student.
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+ Digital Calendars/Planners - Using Microsoft Word (or other word processing programs) is a great way to create a flexible and easily edited calendar. You can download this one that will allow you to customize it for the hours/days your student works and use highlights or other font colors to organize classes and assignments. Here is a sample of what this could look like.
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+ Paper Planners: Sometimes a good old-fashioned paper planner is the best way to go. For some, they prefer writing in each commitment and checking them off as they complete them. Printing off blank calendar pages or using planner notebooks are both easy ways to do this.
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No matter what way your student prefers to keep themselves scheduled, make it a point to follow these steps:
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1) Put in Required Class Connect sessions first. These are set in stone and your student should be at all of them. These are always scheduled in the OLS far in advance, so you can plan as far ahead as you like. Use this information to schedule appointments and other activities in which your student will be away from their computer.
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2) Add in the Help Sessions or Office Hours your student's teachers have scheduled. Especially make sure that your student has these scheduled to attend if they are falling behind in the class or struggling to understand the material or assignments. Even if your student doesn't have a specific assignment or question they need to talk to the teacher about, they can log into these sessions and let he teacher know they are there just to work on an assignment that is overdue, due currently, or due soon. It helps to think of it as free, scheduled work time for that class.
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3) Assignments: For many students it helps to have their assignments listed out in their plan. Knowing exactly what assignment they will be working on and when they will be working on it will help them focus. This practice can ease anxiety about getting everything done, especially if they are behind and have some assignments to catch up on.
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Using this information, work with your student to try different ways to keep their classes and assignments organized. Watch the below video for tips on planning your day.
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Also, check out the below links for more articles and posts about organization.
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7 Organization Tips for Students
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Organization for High School Students
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Simple Tools to Get Your Teen Organized
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Not only should your student be organized, but you should be as well. You're busy with work (perhaps with multiple jobs), children, family, and household obligations. You don't have a lot of time to dedicate to checking over everything your online student does. Nor should you have to. Your student is a teen and should be responsible for much of their own education, especially in an online setting. However, as the Learning Coach, you have the responsibility of guiding your student toward that ownership of their education. You may start by needing to follow-up on many of these things for your student, but gradually, they will get into the habit of creating schedules and doing their best to stick to them.
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You need not check your students grades, assignment, and schedule every day. Monitoring your student's progress can be done a little each day or two. To get you started, here is a sample schedule that allows you to spend a few minutes each day or two monitoring progress.
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Sunday: sit down with your student and work out their schedule for the week. Required class sessions are likely the same, but it only takes a minute to double check them. Plan out which help sessions they should go to based on their understanding of the content and any assignments, projects, or tests coming up that week they are unsure about. Then help your student organize the assignments they need to complete the week, prioritizing anything overdue.
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Monday: Check that your student made it to Homeroom. Chances are that if your student missed Homeroom, the teacher emailed. Your student's Homeroom teacher should also have emailed a weekly progress report that details your student's grades as of that morning and includes any notes from the teacher and school announcements. This is a good email to review and discuss with your student, who should have also received the email.
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Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Check your student's Grade tab in each class to double check that the assignments that should be completed are turned in. You may verbally check with your student daily, but double check in the OLS at least once per week. You may also want to double check with your student that the schedule for the week you created together is working for them.
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Friday: double check that your student has met all the commitments for the week that you detailed together. Determine if there are some things that need to be done over the weekend if your student struggled with making due date goals.
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None of these things take much time and can be done whenever it works in your schedule. You can check the OLS to follow-up on your student's progress more often than this or less, depending on them.
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Time Management
How to help your student best manage their time
Time management is another key tool students need to understand to be successful in online school. Time management and organization go hand in hand. Above, we discussed specific ways to stay organized. Now we'll discuss the importance of that organization and how students can find ways to efficiently and effectively meet their responsibilities. This section will offer tips on managing time and links to further resources that will help guide you in teaching your student to master time management.
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One of the cornerstones of time management is planning. For some students they only need to plan out their school work. Others need to make sure to include breaks, lunch, and outside activities. Using the organizational system that works best for them, help them list out a specific plan for the week. Encourage them to add when they want to take a break or head to lunch. Perhaps they feed the dog at a certain time or like to go for a jog. Encourage them to schedule it in.
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Prioritization is extremely important. Highlighting, underlining, or using a different colored pen or font for important things or more inflexible responsibilities is a good way to ensure it gets attention. Perhaps your student likes to-do lists. Encourage them to write down everything in order of priority (absolutely has to be done today, should be done today, can wait until tomorrow). That way they don't waste valuable time on less important tasks and use that time on more urgent items.
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When creating a schedule, it helps to stay in the same mindset, completing tasks of the same subject together. This is called Task Batching. The idea is that you are more efficient if you are doing tasks of the same type together rather than jumping around. An example that can be used with your student is when working on their weekly schedule and when they will complete assignments. The best time to work on an assignment for a class is right after that session. After class is over, your student can plan to work on an assignment or two for that class. They are already in that mindset, the material fresh in their minds.
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If your student has another class of a different subject directly after, this will obviously not work, but you can apply this principle in other ways. Working for a couple hours on several assignments in the same class is one way. Another way would be to work on assignments for a class during that normally scheduled time. For example, your student may have their English class scheduled Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 9:00 am. They can schedule English assignment work time for Monday and Wednesday at 9:00 am if they don't have any other classes scheduled. They are used to being in the English class mindset three days each week, they can then translate that to the other two days as well.
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The essential point to remember in time management is that it requires planning and organization to be effective. Without a clear-cut schedule of exactly what they are doing and when they are doing it, many students can feel overwhelmed, especially if they are behind in any courses, and this can lead to procrastination, which only exacerbates these feelings. Utilizing an organizational system that they find natural and comfortable in such as way as to keep their time and activities managed can go a long way in easing stress, frustration, and overwhelmed feelings and prevent procrastination.
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Here are some great articles on time management you may find helpful:
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Time Management Tips for High School Students
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8 Ways to Take Control of Your Time
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10 Time Management Tips for Students
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Motivation
Keeping Your Student Motivated to Learn
The Importance of Motivation
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When your student is responsible for much of their own education, it can be difficult to keep them motivated to move forward. They may think they have a few months to complete their courses, but that is not the case. There is flexibility for those that need to take a bit more time, but the due dates are there to ensure students finish the courses on time. If a course isn’t finished by the end of the Trimester, the student fails that course and they lose that credit.
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Graduation
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With the credit requirements for graduation that Washington State enforces, students do not have many chances to fail classes and still graduate on time. If graduating high school is a goal your student has, use it to help motivate them to keep focused on school work. Some students don’t put in the effort as they don’t care whether they graduate or not. For these students, making graduation a goal could be beneficial. Reminding these students that there are few jobs to be had as adults without a high school diploma, perhaps several times with evidence, could be a way to turn them around.
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Goals for after high school
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Depending on what your student has planned for after high school and adulthood, these goals can be used for motivation. Some students plan to go to a traditional four-year university, local community college, trade school, or straight into the workforce. When you student is struggling with motivation to continue their school work, reminding them gently of their after-high school goals may help them regain focus. For those students that aren’t motivated to complete high school, have a discussion with them about what they picture their future to look like. Even if that doesn’t include any type of college or school, usually they picture themselves with their own place, a car, and perhaps a family. None of those things are possible without a good job, which is difficult to get without a high school diploma.
Many students think the GED is a better option than school. For some that may be true, but what many students don’t realize is the GED is not as easy as it sounds and still requires a lot of work. There isn’t supposed to be a stigma associated with it when it comes to employment, but the truth is, some employers may second-guess a candidate with a GED rather than a diploma without first meeting the person. The GED option can be a good path for many and should not be discouraged for those that struggle with high school responsibilities, but it should be the last resort.
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Goals in general
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Many students are motivated by goals and working to achieve them. Most have goals for graduation and goals for after high school, but many need daily, weekly, or course goals to help keep them motivated day-to-day. You know your student and if they would be motivated by short-term and/or long-term goals, take the time to sit down with them and help your student come up with reasonable goals. The keys to creating goals is to make them clear and simple, reasonable, and attainable. Make goals specific to your student and their needs. If your student struggles with going to classes every week, make a goal with them to attend their required help sessions. If your student struggles with turning in assignments, make a goal to get all of that week’s assignments turned in on time or 3 of the 5, depending on your student and the problems holding them back. At the beginning of the Trimester, set long-term goals for the Trimester with your student. This can be based on the credits they need or improvements over previous Trimesters and/or school years. Each month set a goal with your student to help them make small improvements in their grades over the last month. Each week set goals with your student to get certain overdue assignments done or to improve their grade(s) by certain percentage points. Remember, make these goals specific to your student that are clear, reasonable, and attainable. Make them goals they can achieve. Small, regular goals that they are successful in will help motivate them to keep going.
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Rewards
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Lots of students are motivated by rewards. Again, you know your student the best and know if they will be motivated by rewards and what those rewards might be. After setting goals with your student, outline a reward system that you think will motivate them. For some students this can be monetary or physical rewards. Those may not be feasible for many families on tight budgets, so finding other things that motivate your student that don’t require much, or any, money may be necessary.
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Some examples of rewards include:
- money
- video games or game systems
- video game playing time
- outdoor activities your student enjoys (hiking, biking, sports, etc)
- make their favorite meal
- movie/pizza night
- cell phone
- new book/clothes/hobby tools
- a return of privileges taken away previously
Time for Themselves
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Finally, an incredible motivator is to work in scheduled time for themselves in which they can work on their own interests. The more they stick to their school schedule and complete their schoolwork on time, the more time they have for themselves. Make sure they have something not school related scheduled daily to help them decompress and relieve stress. Encouraging them to take that time for themselves after they complete certain responsibilities can be that little bit of motivation they need to meet certain goals.
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Here are some links to motivating your student:
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Motivating the Low-Achieving Teen
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The 7 Secrets of Motivating Teens
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