June 9, 2009
Online nursing classes are a great way to start or further your nursing career while studying and learning on your own time, even holding down a full-time job in the meantime. While online courses may cover the same material traditional classroom courses, as an online student, there are a few things you can do to help make sure you do your best and get the most out of your courses.
Here are three tips for how to succeed in online nursing classes:
1. Gather your resources.
One of the greatest advantages of taking online nursing classes is that you can have all of your important materials in one place and at your fingertips, i.e., on your computer. This is only an advantage, however, if you take the time to organize all the resources you may use over the course of the semester.
Along with any materials provided by your online school, some other online resources that you should might consider have readily available include:
¡P Encyclopedia
¡P Dictionary
¡P Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Anatomy
¡P Thesaurus
¡P Thomson Reuters Micromedex free PDA-based clinical tools
2. Study, study, study-everywhere.
Just because you’re taking classes online doesn’t mean that they’ll be easier than traditional courses; you will have to do a considerable amount of studying to remember all of the important information you’re learning, and many times you’ll be doing this studying on the go.
Since you undoubtedly have other commitments, a great way to be ready to study at any given free moment is to have flash cards ready to pull out. Especially useful in learning medical terminology, diseases, symptoms, and treatments, index cards are some of the most old-fashioned but effective study aids around. The most common method of making flash cards is to write a question or term on the front of the card and an answer or definition on the back.
Also, if you come across something that would be too long to write on index cards or that require more of an explanation, consider “tabbing” your study materials with colored index tabs to mark important information.
3. Get yourself organized.
Chances are if you’re taking online nursing classes, you are also holding down at least one job and taking care of other responsibilities as well. The best way manage all of that is to keep a tangible record of everything you need to do-from assignments, readings, and exams to your children’s doctors’ appointments.
Daily or weekly planners, whether virtual or actual, are great for quick looks at what you’ll need to accomplish; be sure to check it at the beginning of each week so you are sure to schedule enough time to complete all of the upcoming tasks.
