Do’s
- Encourage your student to advocate for themselves and contact professors if they need any help with course material or assignments.
- Encourage your student to reach out to UAEC staff with any questions. Staff members are on BBIM (Blackboard IM) daily until 4:45 p.m. Central time, and they can be reached at earlycollege@ua.edu.
- Realize that it’s normal if your student struggles some; it is part of the learning process.
- Please remind your student to check their Crimson email daily.
- Please have your student print Course Schedules and calendars for their classes and post them where you can both see them. Discuss (at least weekly) their assignment progression.
- Please have your student log in to their grades and monitor grades. (It’s easy to let them slide but hard to catch up in the fast-paced college courses.).
- Keep the lines of communication open with your student by scheduling a time to talk briefly about their progress each week.
- Be their biggest source of encouragement. Make sure they have the needed support to succeed. If you don’t know what they need, ask.
- Give them room to fail. Let your student decide on their own paper topics or approach to activities. College can be difficult. It’s an emotional, physical and mental adjustment. Whether your student is on campus for the summer or taking online classes, understand that even failure is a good teacher.
Don’ts
- Do not contact your student’s instructors; encourage your student to do so.
- Do not complete your student’s work for them.
- Do not contact UAEC staff unless the student has done so and there are still questions.
- Do not forget that this is college-level work and probably won’t be as easy as what the student is used to in high school.
- Do not request their logins. Let them have this responsibility. (But do request that they log in and that you look at their grades to ensure comprehension and completion of assignments.)
- Do not remind them about every assignment deadline — just direct them back to their Course Schedule.
- Do not micromanage them. This is a chance for them to find their own strengths and weaknesses and learn how to manage their responsibilities for their own benefit.