How to Surpass Distance Learning Barriers?

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Do you have a long list of courses to start?
Have you saved all the training sessions that were posted online this period?
You started one of them, but you couldn’t finish it?
Can’t focus while studying?

There are some factors that can have a negative impact on your academic achievement of the training courses available on the internet. Perhaps the distance learning process is new for you and you cannot easily identify these factors. So you may find that it seems difficult, but it is not so. 

It is easy and can be easily overcome by some simple tips and steps that you can follow to take advantage of these educational courses and achieve your academic goals. 

In this article, we will talk about the three most important factors that can prevent you from learning online training courses. We will provide you with possible solutions through which you will overcome these obstacles so the learning process would be easy and fruitful.

1. Sources of Distraction

You are now studying the training course from your home on your computer, and the mobile is in front of you and the sound of the TV in the background with the voices of your family members speaking on various matters, and you might hear in the background the sound of your mother talking to your aunt on the phone about something related to what is happening these days. 

Let’s agree that this is not a proper environment for studying. You must be well aware of this. If you want to efficiently learn and benefit from the training courses that you study remotely, you must treat it with a degree of seriousness.

This seriousness requires you to work to remove all distraction factors in order to study. You have to prepare a suitable place to learn.

First, make sure that there is a quiet place in your home where you can close the door so that you can focus on what you do without interruptions.

Secondly, there is no need for the cellphone to be with you in the same place. Imagine you are taking a course to learn English but in class and not at home, and the teacher asked you to turn off your mobile phone, would you do that?

Of course you will!

So you should take online training courses very seriously. Turn off your phone or leave it out of the study room so as not to cause any distraction. 

If it is difficult to prepare a space to study and you cannot prepare the appropriate environment for learning inside your home, you can move to a different location to study, such as a co-working space – which is suitable for work or study. This may be a good and appropriate choice so you can focus and get as much information as possible.

Friends can also be a source of distraction: you have more time, sit most of the time at home and feel comfortable with the idea of going out with friends or even communicating with them on social media. 

But let me tell you that this feeling that you have more time has consequences; one of the consequences is procrastination and not completing the required tasks on the pretext that you have more time. So the day will end and nothing will be accomplished, and that will happen again the next day and the following days without you realizing that you are wasting time. 

You have to set a time to communicate or go out with friends; do not leave yourself available all the time because you have a plan you want to complete and you have a course that you want to complete.

The last and most important source of distraction is Facebook and with it the family of social networking sites such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter etc; they can make you lose sense of time while surfing them and you will not realise the time that escapes from your hands. 

If you do not have the ability to compel yourself to stay away from these sites, one of the solutions to this problem is to use one of the programs that deny access to these sites in the period that you specify; there are many programs that help you in that matter as the program will ask you to determine the sites that you want to deny access to and the time.

During this time you will not be able to open. any of the websites you have specified on the program.

2. Difficulty in Concentrating

Now the study environment is fully configured, there is no source of distraction, no cellphones, no sound from the TV, Facebook is off limits and everything is fine and conditions are prime, so let’s start studying. 

You started but you cannot focus. You do not understand what the teacher says clearly. What you read in that book is incomprehensible to you, so what is the problem?

Maybe the problem is something to think about. Even if the study environment is appropriate, adapted, and free of any source of distraction, all this will not help you if there is something on your mind. And now you have to expel this thing that you occupy your mind with so that you can focus on what you are doing.

There are many ways to get rid of thoughts that occupy your mind and prevent you from focusing. One of these is writing. Writing is one of the best ways to get rid of anxiety. Write down your problem on paper and keep writing until you feel better or feel that you are focusing on this problem less so you can return to the course again.

You don’t like writing or don’t have the ability to express what’s inside you with writing? No problem at all; talk to a friend, family member, or someone you trust. Speech has an effective effect on eliminating any negative thoughts, or at least it will help you reduce the effect of these thoughts on you.

If you are not a fan of conversing either, then there are other solutions. You can play sports, such as running, jumping rope, or even climbing the ladder, any simple sport that does not require more equipment. Walking is also one of the wonderful and easy sports that you can practice anywhere and has a magical effect on the clarity of mind and getting rid of negative thoughts that plague your mind.

Perhaps there are no thoughts on your mind that prevent you from focusing; so why can’t you do what you are supposed to do?

The task you want to do is potentially a big one and needs to be broken down into small tasks in order to accomplish it. For example, you might want to write ten pages in English, memorize three hundred new words of the German language, or watch a video on how to pass a two-hour IELTS test. 

All of these wonderful tasks that will help you to improve your level of language learning and gain fluency. But these tasks are somewhat huge, so you must divide them into smaller ones; instead of writing 10 pages, divide them into five tasks, each task has two pages, for example, and the same thing with all the tasks that you want to finish: break them down into smaller tasks so that you can accomplish them.

Also one of the factors that may cause lack of focus is the failure to find the optimal method for learning. For example, you are studying with your friends and this method is not suitable for you, or you benefit more from listening to recorded videos but you are trying to study by reading a book. It is necessary to determine the best way to help you focus on your task in order to get the job done and for the learning process to be fruitful.

3. Not Managing Time Properly and Multitasking

When studying at university or attending one of the training courses at the training center, the dates are predetermined. For example, study is for two hours twice a week and all this information is known in advance before the start of the course.

The situation in university is similar; the dates of the lectures are specified before the start of the school year, so do not worry about appointments because they are already specified. 

On the contrary, in distance learning, you are responsible for setting the dates of study time, and this is one of the great advantages of distance education as opposed to traditional learning. In distance education, there is flexibility in appointments as you can determine the appropriate time to learn based on your specific circumstances, family obligations, or work obligations.

You should take advantage of this feature and manage your time properly so that time is not wasted. Be more organized and decide the time during which you want to study and also the time period for learning.

Like university schedule and training course schedule, design your own schedule that you will adhere to, whatever happens, it is mandatory, such as university lectures, opening times, and other obligations.

We talked before about how the diversity of training courses is one of the advantages of distance learning, where you can choose what you like from the training courses to learn. But this does not mean that you should learn them all at the same time; your mind will not be able to absorb that and will not have the ability to move between tasks easily If you do them all at the same time.

Take advantage of the multiple training courses feature by setting different dates for each skill you want to learn. For example, if you want to learn how to write an article in English, and also want to learn how to speak German fluently, you have to set different times for each of these skills.

Distance learning is very wonderful and easy and also one of the fruitful things because it provides many advantages. All you have to do to take advantage of these features and acquire information for progress and success is to get rid of the sources of distraction, determine what is going on in your mind that is preventing you from focusing, and get rid of that thing immediately.

Also, design your own schedule of study to fit the nature of your work or life, and do not forget to give yourself breaks from time to time so that you can continue and achieve your goals, learn more, and develop your skills.