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Coping with COVID-19 as an Ohio State student

In a few weeks’ time, COVID-19 altered nearly every aspect of our lives — from work and school to how we interact.

Many students live in a mixed state of anxiety, fear and, yes, boredom, as they try to maintain some normalcy in their lives. 24/7 news updates add to the unease.

Many have lost something important to them. High school seniors and college graduates don’t know if they will celebrate accomplishments with a ceremony, causing grief that can be difficult to reconcile when others are losing loved ones.

Still, most students must find ways to stay productive while studying from home. Some adjust well; others find the lack of structure to be an extra challenge. Fortunately, Ohio State offers many resources to help students be successful even while working from home.

Coaching, motivation strategies, and more: resources for students

The college’s Dennis Learning Center provides resources for students who find online classes challenging. Assistance is available for all undergraduate, graduate, professional and medical students.

Jackie von Spiegel, the center’s program manager, encourages students to schedule academic coaching sessions available through Zoom. Coaches are trained in educational psychology topics such as learning and motivation strategies to help students better meet their goals, she said.


Academic Coaching for Ohio State students

The Dennis Learning Center offers a great resource for students who need guidance on where to start with online learning and other topics for academic success.

Schedule an academic coaching session


Combatting, and embracing, anxiety

If anxiety about COVID-19 is keeping you from being productive, Hudson reminds us that not all anxiety is bad.

“Anxiety is actually helpful in a lot of ways, and it has kept us alive. It alerts us to potential or perceived threats to our source of security. And so, acknowledging that some of that (anxiety) is good and productive has a lot of utility worth remembering. Every time we feel anxious, it doesn’t mean that something bad has happened. It’s just an alert mechanism,” he said.

For many, the news is a source of anxiety. It’s important to remember you do not need to be glued to your smartphone or TV. You can limit how much news you consume and still get all the information needed, Hudson said.

Ohio State offers plenty of resources to help with anxiety and mental health. Counseling and Consultation Services has helpful resources and offers virtual counseling sessions. The Student Wellness Center has virtual wellness coaching for students, too. If you need help quickly, the Ohio State app features a new wellness section with tips and advice for students.

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Creating a productive environment

What if you don’t have an adequate environment to work in?

If you do not have the technology needed, the university’s service desk can help with obtaining a device. Access for free or reduced-cost internet access is also available.

In terms of maintaining time for your academic work, if you live with family or roommates, communicate with them and set boundaries.

“Families don’t see you studying all the time, and now they are. They may not realize how much concentration it takes,” von Spiegel said. Communicating and giving them your schedule can help them better understand.

She also suggests giving them signals. For example, let them know that if you have earbuds in, that signals you are working.

Try to support your family in return, so everyone can be productive. If your parents need some quiet time, offer to take your siblings for a walk, she said.

When finding a space at home to work, try to find simple sources of inspiration: a candle you like, a picture of your family. Or open the window on a nice day. Little things can help productivity, Hudson said.

Remember your why

Fredrich Nietzsche, an influential German philosopher, said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” When you feel unmotivated, think about why you enrolled at Ohio State in the first place, both von Spiegal and Hudson suggest. Remember your long-term goals and use those for motivation.

“Finding a meaning and a compelling narrative that we remind ourselves of when we feel down, isolated or a little distress is quite helpful,” Hudson said.

Reframe your thinking

If you are not quarantined with family or roommates, it is easy to feel alone and isolated. Rather than thinking of this time as isolation, Hudson challenges you to reframe your mindset.

“Thinking about it as solitude and not necessarily isolation is a semantic trick,” he said. Being connected is not always such a good thing, and solitude offers many proven benefits, six of which you can read about Psychology Today.

Don’t be too hard on yourself

One of the most important things you can do is to give yourself some grace. It is okay not to be your most productive self during a global pandemic.

Remember, no matter what you are going through right now, it is a difficult time. You should not minimize your feelings just because you think others have it worse. No matter what, this a unique and trying time, but it is only temporary. Eventually, the need for social distancing will end.

Finally, Hudson reminds us, “Some of the most awe-inspiring, beautiful human acts are taking place as we speak. It is during periods like this that literal heroes are made. Some of the most incredible acts of sacrifice and love and beauty are taking place in our own communities and country right now.”

Productivity tips for online learning

Von Spiegel recommends allotting regular times for your academic work each week, especially for courses that don’t have real-time, virtual sessions. Block specific time to watch recorded lectures so they feel more like regularly scheduled classes.

She also recommends finding a small group of class partners to go over the lectures or class sessions and study together. This helps hold you accountable.

“If you don’t know anybody in your class, go ahead and (send an) email on Carmen and see if anyone wants to meet at a certain time on Zoom to go over the coursework and have your own little mini-class,” von Spiegel said. Doing so breaks the social isolation that many are struggling with.

Often, the hardest part of getting work done is getting started. Tyler Hudson, Stress Management and Resiliency Training Lab graduate teaching assistant, advises “tricking yourself.” Tell yourself that you will work on something for 15 minutes. Once you get over that initial hump of resistance, the task is often not as bad as you expected. If after 15 minutes you are still miserable, stop and come back later. He also advises the Pomodoro Method for productivity.

Speaker 1:
Hello everyone my name is Taylor. Cool my name is Grace Quigley we are academic coaches at the Dennis Learning Center at Ohio State.

Today we're going to be talking about best tips and practices when using Carmen zoom.

So without further ado let's get into the video I'm gonna be making a meeting with Taylor.  

So this is my main profile on common zoom I'm gonna head on over to meetings. I'm gonna schedule a new meeting.

I'm gonna type in my topic so meeting with Taylor I'm gonna schedule the time I want to set it for let's say 10:30 a.m. and I want to meet today so this 20 make sure the time zone is correct everything else should be okay do you felt my press save I'm gonna copy this invitation right here and I am gonna head on over to my email.

Paste this meeting and send it on over so it looks like I got a meeting invite from Grace so what I can do now is copy the join Zoom meeting link.

I'll click join, enter that meeting link there's me and then I'll go ahead and select 'join with computer audio' while I'm waiting for grace to join I'm gonna go ahead and check my surroundings I am pretty sure that I'm not gonna be interrupted by a dog barking or by my family but nonetheless the best practice is to keep yourself on mute during big lectures or big meetings so that in case something does happen in your environment that you can't control you don't distract others you want to make sure that your background isn't distracting in and of itself for me I'm gonna go ahead and close the door and remove my baby pictures from the background.

If you can't find a suitable environment you can always utilize the virtual background feature that's in Zoom. You go to the little caret that's next to the video icon in the bottom left of your screen and click virtual background.

I would recommend that you stay away from this unless it's absolutely necessary because it can be distracting and now I have these Zoom apps so I'm gonna go ahead and click open zoom hopefully it'll bring us over.

Here we're gonna join with computer audio we're gonna plus start video and now we're joined.

Alright so now that we're in Zoom and we're ready to go Gracie and I are just gonna talk through a few quick tips and best practices for how to use Carmen Zoom.

Okay so the first thing we're gonna go over is the chat option so if you look down at your lower bar you'll see an icon that says chat so if we go ahead and open that up little clove a window that says  chat right so we can choose to either send it to everyone in the meeting or just personal messages.

So for now I'm just gonna choose private messages and you can see above we said. 

Hiya, hello we'll do the same thing say. Hi Taylor, okay sent that to her and she should get a notification center right back okay.

So another cool thing that you can do is you can also send back a file so if I wanted to send anything over here I could send them a document which is a great option or on the other hand I could go into the everyone and send it to everyone in the meeting for this purpose it's just the two of us so it'll still go to her but you can see the difference.

Hi everyone so it says from me to everyone. So Zoom has a great way if you're having any technical difficulties.

If you have a question that maybe you can't interrupt your professor at the time or you just need a message another group member or something along those lines one of the great ways. That you can work collaboratively through Zoom like
Grace mentioned with sharing files in chat you can also share files by sharing your screen.

Here you'll click on the bottom button that says share screen in Zoom and then from here you get a lot of options about what to share today we're gonna focus on sharing your desktop but I could also choose specifically to share a Microsoft Word document.

So here you can see this is what my desktop looks like if I wanted to show specifically this document I could move it into the frame and open it up so that Grace can see it. 

We want to share three tips for troubleshooting on Carmen Zoom.

The first is checking out the Zoom website it will be your friend.

I'll go ahead and open it up. Here's my Zoom profile over here on the left you can see that there's a little white box you can open up video tutorials and view a live training on basic techniques for using Carmen Zoom you can also open up knowledgebase and that will help you with a variety of techniques as well if you're having trouble with Wi-Fi or you just can't quite get the hang of the Zoom app you can always call in to a Zoom meeting.

Here I can show you the best way to do that you can go back to the Zoom invite that I showed you earlier and select one tap mobile from your mobile device and it will just automatically enter you into the Zoom room that you need to be in based on the invite that you received.

Finally chat feature is also going to be super helpful if you go ahead and open up chat. You can see where Grace and I were going back and forth earlier here.

You could also shoot out a quick SOS message to a friend or to the whole class and chances are someone will be able to help you figure it out. For example if I say SOS my audio isn't working Grace may be able to reply and explain how to get back on. 

This is definitely new to everyone and there's going to be some technical difficulties along the road but as long as you'd be patient use all of our resources, checking out the videos online and just having an open communication with your professors or whoever you're meeting with things should work out okay.

If your lecture is over or your meeting is over you can go ahead and go to the bottom right hand corner and click leave meeting so hopefully that was helpful and provide you with some helpful strategies and tips for using Carmen Zoom for your online class.

There are more tips strategies and personalized handouts for online classes that we have created specifically for this online transition but then a swimming Center is offering online coaching appointments which you can schedule at the link below or I'll also insert it here on the screen feel free to make an appointment for any help that you may need with the transition to online course work.

Thanks so much for watching and have a great rest of your day.

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