Are you new to Pamoja? Never taken an online course before? Has the stress of the IB got to you?
You’re reading the right article!
Pamoja’s virtual campus presents IB students from around the world with a unique, user friendly and revolutionary platform to take international education to a whole new level. But for a lot of us, it still presents us with the great perpetual quandary of online courses and reaping our successes from it. For us, online courses are probably things we plan to pick up in the summer, but then gradually fizzle out of commitment for until it remains just another email from Coursera.
To get around the stigma of online courses and successfully manoeuvre our way through Pamoja, we must realise that Pamoja isn’t just an online course engine; it is an extension of our highschool studies, imperative to our education.
So here are a few tips, garnered from both personal experience and trusted sources who have been in your shoes, to help you become the best Pamoja student out there!
1. Time-management: Formulate a weekly schedule
To keep up with the weekly assignments, it would be most advisable if you planned out your schedule in advance, setting aside at least a day where you revise your week’s learnings and compile your notes. Try not to procrastinate, but work on getting your assignments done at at least two days before their deadline to relieve you of your workload and keep your grades consistent.
2. Communication: Correspond regularly with your teachers
Although most of the course content is uploaded for you to use at any time based on your convenience, there is often a gap in communication between students and the teacher which makes your learning less engaging. Make sure to communicate any conceptual difficulties or seek help from you teacher when you need to. Try and build a friendly relationship with them the same way you would with a teacher at your school; it’s been proven to strengthen one’s interest and success in a subject. So, don’t be shy!
3. Communication: Form study groups
Interaction between students in your course is the best way to exchange information and to solidify whatever you have already learnt into place. Talking to Pamoja students who are a part of your course at your own campus, or even the other international students, lets you exchange tips, retain your knowledge and cross-quiz each other. It is important for you to feel like you’re a part of a classroom, so don’t undermine the importance of study groups – they work wonders!
4. Learning approach: Compile your notes
Pamoja is angelic in the sense it provides you with perfectly rounded information complimented with external links to YouTube and blog posts that help you in the course of your studies. However, do not overlook the traditional art of note-taking. Make sure to compile your notes from your Pamoja lessons in a neat notebook, allocating the week number and lesson name to it in case you wish to go back and reflect on it while revising.
5. Another learning approach: Organise the course content into labelled files
If you find yourself more comfortable with digital note-taking than written one, you can always copy the course content you feel is very important to remember into a folder on
your laptop or computer. This means you’ll have most of your important study material at hand offline too!
6. Engagement: Make good use of the Live Lessons
Your Live Lessons are the source of direct contact you have with your teacher, where you’re given the opportunity to indulge in lectures and ask questions wherever you find yourself confused. Try your best to attend every one of them, and if missed, the recorded version; avail the chance to talk to your teacher as much as you can.
7. Commitment: Remember that online courses are just as academically rigorous as school-taught classroom lessons
To achieve success in your Pamoja course, you must not see your online studies as a lightweight job but direct the same level of energies and commitment to them as you would in a traditional classroom – once you’ve moved past this misconception, you’ll find yourself at much more ease with learning through Pamoja!
Post written by our Global Student Council and extracted from their latest newsletter. Click to read Global Voices
