Reducing Procrastination in Online Classes - Carl Straumsheim, Tomorrow's Professor

The key to making online students focus on their course work may be making procrastination as unenjoyable as possible, according to a study out of Cornell University. It's a familiar problem to anyone with a deadline and a computer: the assignment is open on the screen, half-finished, but is quickly lost in a stack of web browser tabs. Upon rediscovery (with an accompanying pang of guilt), the procrastinator resolves to buckle down and type out the last few paragraphs -- right after clearing the notification that just popped up and checking just one more website. Richard W. Patterson, a Ph.D. student in policy analysis and management at Cornell, wanted to see if software could reduce procrastination and, as a result, improve students' grades. http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1413