Organizing Your Time
Returning students: Please read these notes about what to do for this assignment.
You have reach the final Orientation assignment! Yay! For this assignment, I'd like you to take a look at your tentative schedule from earlier in the week and start thinking about some strategies that will help you to organize your time for this class.
One of the best things about asynchronous online classes (like this one) is that you can decide when you want to do the work, based on what time/days are most convenient for you. Earlier this week, you filled out a form where you guessed at how you might schedule the six hours of work that this class requires each week, and I sent you back a note explaining how you could arrange the weekly activities to fit that schedule; look for the email with "Schedule Planning" in the subject line.
The assignment has four parts overall and it should take around 30 minutes to complete:
Part 1. Review your planned schedule.
Part 2. Look through some time management tips for this class.
Part 3. Learn about time management strategies in general.
Part 4. Write up a blog post with some thoughts about time management.
Part 1. Your schedule for this class.
Take a look at the suggested schedule I sent back to you earlier this week, with the weekly core assignments — reading, storytelling, project, project feedback, blog comments — spread out over six hours. Does that still look like a good schedule for you to use? If so, that's great: stick to that schedule for Week 2 and see how it goes! If you are thinking you would prefer some other schedule after all, send me the six hours again spread out over the days you want to do the work for class (you can just send me an email or a Canvas message), and I'll help you sort out the assignments based on that new schedule.
You can change your schedule at any time, and you can adjust it in any given week based on what is going on; the key thing is that you have a schedule of your own based on what is really convenient for you. To make this class both fun and productive, you should do the work at a time that really suits you, not at the last minute based on the deadlines in Canvas.
Part 2. Time management tips for this class.
Here are some strategies that will help you manage the time commitments for this class; this is all information you saw earlier in the week, and I'd like you to review the information again, this time with a focus on your class schedule:
Weekly Calendar. Bookmark the Class Calendar of assignments. That is your go-to page for all the work you will be doing in class this semester. And, as you can see, you can work ahead as much as you want: all 15 weeks are right there in the calendar now. Also, if you have not read about the Week 5 and Week 10 Breaks, do that now; you can take a week off at Week 5 and at Week 10, or you can schedule your break weeks at some other time that is more convenient for you (such as finishing class early).
Reading. Each week the reading comes in two parts each week: A and B. Each assignment will take approximately one hour, so that's two hours total. The reading is the heart of the class, providing the basis for all the other assignments, so it's really important that you give yourself time to complete the reading each week. Hopefully you can do both reading assignments every week; you need to make sure to do at least one.
Extra Credit. There are extra credit options starting in Week 2. You can use extra credit to make up work that you miss earlier in the week, and you can also use extra credit to get ahead in the class so that you can finish early. And remember: even though the Extra Credit assignments are listed at the bottom of each week's work, you do NOT have to wait until the end of the week to do extra credit; you can do extra credit assignments at any time during the week.
Work Ahead. Even better than staying on your schedule is working ahead by a week or more. As I've mentioned before, a recurring piece of advice that past students have for you is this: WORK AHEAD. You will find that the class is so much easier to manage if you stay out in front of those due dates.
Part 3. More time management strategies.
Pretty much everybody struggles with how to manage their time, which means you can find lots of advice online for time management, avoiding procrastination, staying organized, etc. I've listed here a few articles that I think could be useful; please pick TWO (or more) of these to read and see what useful tips and ideas you can take away from the articles to start your semester with a focus on time management:
Part 4. Blog post
To finish up, write up a blog post with some thoughts about time management strategies, both for this class in particular and for your semester overall.
Let me know which of the articles you read by including the titles and links. Were the articles useful? Did you learn anything new that you can try this semester? Based on your classes overall last semester, what do you think your biggest time challenges will be? Do you already have a time management strategy that works really well for you? Please share!
Find a good image to use in your post, with image information. For the title of the post, use "Time Strategies" and use "Week 1" as the post label. As always, proofread and spellcheck.
When you are done, complete the Gradebook Declaration... and you are now done with the Orientation week: CONGRATULATIONS! You can move on ahead to Week 2 now if you want. Working ahead: it's the time management strategy that means you are ready for anything that comes your way. :-)
DECLARATION:
I have reviewed my schedule for this class and written up a post with ideas for organizing my time.
POST TITLE: I used "Time Strategies" as the title for the post.
POST LABELS: I used the "Week 1" label.
IMAGE: I Included at least one image with image information.
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