10 Ways to Ensure Distance Learning Success
December 17, 2009
Distance learning students must take a far more active role in learning and accessing information than traditional students in face-to-face classrooms. Written messages or posts from the professor and classmates replace other means of direct communication, and course materials are posted online. Rather than simply sitting through a class and jotting notes, you must take the initiative to download and read lectures and course materials.
As a distance learning student, you will find that being pro-active and engaged in your personal learning experience will pay off in good grades and depth of learning.
1. Read the Syllabus and Use it as a Roadmap
The syllabus is your course guide. It contains not only information about the professor, grading requirements, and class and assignment schedules, but also instructions on how to access online forums and e-texts. You should download and save the syllabus as soon as you have access to it.
A good syllabus provides a kind of "roadmap" to success. Read it thoroughly and ask questions if any points are unclear. You may need to ask question via email, a forum post, or even through a phone call to the instructor. Don't discount all the means of communication that are available to you.
Never discard the syllabus as an irrelevant document. Print it, and know it top to bottom. This will help you schedule your time for completing assignments, as well as facilitate planning your personal life around your academic life.
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2. Turn in All Assignments Complete and on Time
The instructor cannot grade your papers if you don't turn them in! Most professors impose a late penalty for overdue assignments, such as 10 percent or points off per day up to three days; after three days, the work is not accepted.
With online courses, students have fewer excuses. You can never say, "I slipped it under your door by the deadline. What do you mean you never received it?" because assignments turned in through the course page will have a digital timestamp that indicates when it was posted. This timestamp is the instructor's ironclad proof the assignment was turned in on time.
Make sure you can see your posted paper or attachment before you log out of the course site.
3. Follow Online Resources Carefully Week by Week
Most online courses use an online learning system, such as Blackboard, Moodle, or some other customized in-house course management software suite. Your instructor may post additional learning resources to the system along with graded assignments and grades.
The college may also post important enrollment or school information here.
Instructor reserves the right to update course requirements and often those changes are communicated via the online system. Course texts and downloadable assignments are likely to be posted here, too. Take a tour of the system and familiarize yourself with all its features as soon as you have access to it.
4. Search for One New Idea in Every Class Session, Assignment, and Reading
You are ultimately responsible for what you learn in the course. Every time you post a forum discussion response, read a text, work on an assignment, or interact with other students, you should come away with some new idea or thought about the subject.
If you are simply rushing through without thinking, you will not retain the information. However, if you are actively seeking knowledge, you will find it. I suggest writing down what you discover in a notebook and referring back to it each time you start a new learning session. Use what you learn today as a building block for what you learn tomorrow.
5. Support and Encourage Fellow Classmates
If you cultivate a positive atmosphere with your fellow students, you will build a constructive relationship that will help you as well as others—which is try in any class, but even more important in a virtual class.
You will get accustomed to asynchronous learning and will figure out how to best be supportive and encouraging through just the text on the screen. Make sure that your posts are constructively positive even if you are pointing out that a statement is incorrect or an idea is tenuous. Create an online learning space that reinforces respect and values others' ideas. Remember, everyone needs encouragement to achieve his or her goals.
6. Contribute to Discussions
One of the secrets to distance learning is engagement. Students who are engaged in discussions show that they are seeking knowledge and understanding.
Take an active role in your education by stepping into a discussion with informed comments. Instructors know who is contributing and who is not. They have access to every forum and post. Often, they can even see how many discussion threads each student has opened and read, even if the student has not written a response.
In an asynchronous environment, discussions can be very lively and active, and become great learning venues—make sure you make yourself a part of it.
7. Stay Organized
Organization is key to distance learning success! I recommend keeping a physical binder with sections such as syllabus, assignments, and texts and research; or divide the binder into Week 1, Week 2, and so forth. Having a physical binder supports students with flexible schedules (a strong reason many students opt for distance learning in the first place), as it allows them to pick up and go at any moment, despite whether they are in front of a computer or at a wi-fi hotspot.
8. Never Procrastinate
You must proactively work on assignments. Instructors can usually tell when an assignment was thrown together at the last minute! Start future assignments early and build them day by day. For example if you have to write a paper that is due one week from today, you should research the topic for the first two days, create a mindmap or outline on the third day, and write the paper on the fourth and fifth days. Use the sixth day to revise and to send the work through any required online grammar or plagiarism checkers. Once you get your reviewed paper back, make any cosmetic changes, and turn it in!
9. Consider How Your Experience Fits Into the Discussion
Education should be relevant and make a difference in your life. Discovering ways that your experience fits into the discussion makes the topic significant and applicable to your job or future education. Some courses naturally build on experience, such as business, sociology, or psychology.
Instructor want to see more than book learning. They want to see that you have synthesized the information and can use it effectively. You will find that because distance learning uses forum posts for discussion, you can take time to formulate a knowledgeable response before you reply. Online discussion questions are great avenues for creating relevance, and discovering the significance of a subject will help you internalize the information.
10. Set Long-Term Goals
Your educational experience should help you achieve your goals. As a distance learning student, you understand how the flexibility of learning can be integrated into your lifestyle and career path. Setting both short- and long-term goals gives you the impetus to create the life that you want and the career that you will enjoy.
About the Author
Cindy Wolfe is an instructor with the University of Phoenix and a PhD student at Northcentral University. She believes in personal fulfillment through education and training. Her experience as a manager, author, professor, and student gives her a unique view about motivating others. Wolfe lends encouragement and insight into adult learning to readers ThinkPhD.com.
©Cindy Wolfe, all rights reserved. This article reprinted here with permission from the author.
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