Hi, I'm Trish Holsten, secondary
partnership director at Wilson Community
College. This is our final and fifth
video on orientation for CCP classes and
the topics for today include getting
started and tips for success. In some
ways, these are probably some of the most
important topics that we could address
because getting started and making sure
that everything is going smoothly is
critical important, especially the first time you
take a class-- so in terms of getting
started, let's focus on the part of the
things you should do on the first day of
class. The first day of class for a
face-to-face is obviously the first day
that's listed on your registration form,
the same would go for an online or web
supported class, so it's important to
pay careful attention to that
particular day and know that you should
do something on that day if it's prior, if
you have time prior to that first day of
class, I would log into Moodle and to the
College email just to make sure they
work so that you can get familiar with
how the email works-- check potential
emails from college administrators
including myself as well as an
instructor who may email you ahead of
time, but all email is really important.
You have to read it to make sure it
doesn't apply to you;
so, before you delete any emails make
sure you read it and understand it. If
there's anything you don't understand in an
email you should contact me or maybe
touch base with your counselors before
you delete an email. You should also log
into Moodle because Moodle, even though
your class might not appear that first
day, there is a Moodle 101 course that
was mentioned in a previous video and
that's a great way to get used to how
Moodle works, including how you would
post to a forum, how to read your
gradebook, how to do many different
activities and you have that Moodle 101
class without the pressure of starting
your first class. 
Secondly, make sure that you complete the
enrollment verification activity for
every online or hybrid course that you
have and I would do that the very first
day that your course is made available.
This is critically important because
there's an activity that must be
completed by a particular due date that
we call the census report-- if that
activity is not completed for an online
class, you are not enrolled for that
class, so it's really important that you
keep track of that and you get that done
the first day. I've seen many students
wait until the last possible day and
what happens is they miss the entire
week of assignments and several things
that have to be done that particular
week. Also, contact the instructor or
technology support services or what we
call the help desk immediately if you
have any trouble with the steps above. if
you have any questions, you do not want
to wait even a day to get in contact
with the instructor or the help desk if
you're having trouble with Moodle or all
kinds of things.
Finally, it's really important in an
online class, where you don't have the
structure of a face-to-face class that
you have to meet several times a week, to
make yourself a weekly schedule that you
adhere to for your online class you
devote time every day possibly for
lessons that you have to work through,
assignments that you have to complete,
projects or papers that may take a
longer period of time, definitely reading
the textbook, and then making time for
studying and preparing for all of those
things. Remember, it's you that has to set
the pace for that so doing things for an
online class in the last minute can have
devastating effects on your success in
that class. Some helpful tips on getting
started on my webpage that I've
mentioned several times-- there are many
videos that you can watch on how to
study for college classes on my
particular webpage. Here is an example of
what the page looks like on our website--
you can see the address up here in the
address bar, but
we've got as my webpage on college
credit in high school-- this has so many
resources that could be helpful to you
and if you scroll through, you can see
what is career and College promise, some
benefits and some resources. I would take
you especially to how to study
effectively and frequently asked questions,
how to study effectively- It will show you
several videos on very excellent ways to
study for college and high school classes.
They're pretty short video,s but if you
follow them and work on all aspects of
learning, that can be this is the kind of
studying that could follow you through
the rest of college and do very well in
class. Again, I mentioned the Moodle 101
class that I think every student should
work through before they start their
Moodle class so that they will
understand the features of Moodle.
Finally, some tips for success-- obviously
tips for success would apply to both
online hybrid or web supported classes
and face-to-face classes but, remember to
log in that first day or attend the
first class. The enrollment verification
activities should be done immediately
for online classes or hybrid classes.
Once you log into class, I want to stress
as critically important once you log
into each class, read the entire opening
page of Moodle, the syllabus and every
document posted. The syllabus outlines
most things that you will need to know
for class will also appear in Moodle, but
many of the questions that you have can
be answered in the syllabus including
how grades are determined; it'll have a
schedule for the entire class, it'll have
assignments due, it will have very
important things like policies for the
class, how participation is graded, how
attendance is gathered; it's critically
important that you read the syllabus in
addition to doing the enrollment
verification. it is really important
to do your first week activities lessons
and assignments so it's going to take
some time to work through that and make
sure that you've hit every assignment.
Just because you've done one enrollment
activity or one assignment does not mean
that that instructor might not have
several lessons or assignments or forums
that you should post to make sure that
you complete every one of those
assignments. Every week make sure that
you do it on time-- many instructors will
not take late work because they expect
you to do it on time, if you have a
problem an emergency or something of
that nature, please contact that
instructor before the due date expires,
if possible, that way hopefully the
instructor can work with you on
something that would be out of your
control. Keep that contact with the
instructors and remember if you're in a
high school class and your high school
isof issues, you should continue to work on
your online class if the weather allows.
Inform your instructor if you have any
problems anticipating problems with
doing your work on time or you're
concerned about low grades anything of
that nature and finally, there's a link
that we spoke about before about Student
Planning. Please remember that Student
Planning is one way that you can check
your official grades at the end of the
semester-- it's a link on our web page and
you log in the same way you do email or
anything else on our campus like Moodle.
There's a great way to go for your
unofficial transcript-- under the tab
timeline you can get your grade for the
semester.The same issues apply to
face-to-face classes and just remember
that missing class for athletics, field
trips, vacations, whatever the case may be
is considered an absence-- we do not have
excused absences in college and absences
an absence but of course you're allowed
a certain number of absences before you
would be considered dropped so make sure
that if you have anything that
interferes with your ability to attend a
face-to-face class you should let your
instructor know immediately.
Finally, remember my contact information
and the CCP website that includes many
of those resources that we talked about
before including career interest
surveys-- there are all kinds of things that
can help you with your future endeavors.
Thank you so much and enjoy your class.