Being a student of both offline and online coursework requires discipline and a certain level of studying skill. While online education can provide flexibility to education that offline learning simply cannot, some students need help balancing virtual learning with other aspects of their life.
Keeping in the mindset of promoting lifelong learners, it’s essential to foster the delicate balance of online education. EdTech can help destress learners and educators, but as educators, we must teach students how to maintain their overall wellness to allow for students to succeed in a virtual classroom setting.
In this article, we’ll discuss different tips to help your learners balance online education. Additionally, we’ll provide some helpful guidance to help maintain this balance as a parent or educator.
Why Balance is Crucial for Online Learning
Keeping up with the current eLearning trends in the education sector is critical, but promoting effective online learning should always be the number one priority. If you’re wondering how to increase engagement and motivation with eLearning, you ought to start from the source: the learners.
Students must learn how to balance their responsibilities, especially with online learning. As it is critical to any real-life environment, this fundamental concept becomes increasingly invaluable to guide students away from burnout.
Finding the Healthy Balance
Like most things in life, striking the perfect balance is the ideal situation for online learners. Here’s what happens if your scale tips too far to one end:
Too much emphasis on non-school life: miss out on crucial development
Too much focus on school: burnout
Thankfully, we examined obstacles to overcome to create a healthy online learning experience and lay out tips for maintaining the right school-life balance in this article.
Identifying an Unbalanced School-Life
It can be challenging to see unhealthy imbalances when you’re busy juggling responsibilities and adjusting to new routines with online learning. Here are a few red flags that indicate a student’s school-life balance might be uneven:
Dwindling relationships: your learner’s relationships are dropping off or are being nudged out altogether by a growing pile of responsibilities.
Missed sleep: students are displaying the telltale signs of missed sleep.
Unhealthy eating habits: a student’s schedule is creating unhealthy eating habits.
High stress: students feel stressed out, anxious, or overwhelmed.
Tips to Help You Balance Online Education
As you can imagine, with the challenges online learning presents today, it all adds up to a growing need for a balanced online learning experience. Luckily, you can develop a healthy school-life balance so both you and your student can breathe easier by following a few simple tips.
Tips for Students
Keep your student on track to swift development and a happier learning experience by taking a few minutes now to help them find balance in their online education.
Make Time for Stress Relief Practices
For today’s children and young adults, stress is becoming a growing problem. Stress levels have been steadily climbing through the last decade, according to this study conducted by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Sadly, in addition to stress, this study also shows an astronomical increase in depression and severe psychological distress in the youth of today.
To help avoid burnout and other negative consequences that come with stress, it’s essential to schedule time for stress relief practices. Setting aside time each day for stress relief also allows reflection on the things that are working and are not working.
Allow Time for Self-Evaluation
Each student’s online learning experience will be unique. As such, it’s vital for students to allow time for self-evaluation. They should block off time each day to:
Jot down thoughts/feelings
Reflect
Pause from learning
Switch up their scenery
Students can identify areas where more balance is needed as well as track their goals through this simple daily practice.
Promote the Pursuit of Interests
It’s easy for students to feel the pressure to invest all of their time in academics. While there is no discounting the value of education and curriculum standards, it's also important for students to build on their own interests.
Students can find a better balance between school and life as well as find enjoyment in their coursework by pursuing subjects that interest them. If there's an opportunity for them to select their own courses, encourage them to pursue topics that are engaging to them. Sometimes this learning happens outside of an in-person or virtual classroom setting. Help your student find ways to develop their interests and find time for these interests.
Tips for Parents
Parents of eLearners can feel secure as they move forward by helping their students strike a healthy school-life balance today.
Find courses that promote future growth: the best online options are designed with school-life balance in mind.
Keep communication channels open: schedule daily or weekly discussions.
Encourage playtime: encourage stress-relieving extracurriculars.
Set clear expectations: schedule time to discuss expectations and daily check-ins.
Build a community: tap into the digital learning community.
Monitor screen time: set aside time for learners to get offline and go outside.
Embrace schedule flexibility: mix in breaks, snacks, and extracurriculars.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have a better idea of how to promote a balance between school and life both as a parent and student, the next step is to take action. By being able to recognize some of the red flags of unbalanced school life, hopefully, now you can avoid these situations before they arise by following the tips carefully laid out in this article.
Additionally, eLearning can help promote balance through engaging interactives within a student's online course load. Here at ryco.io, we're dedicated to finding the most engaging solutions that add fun to any course.
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