Key issues in distance learning

Underlying themes/principles

This course gives you the opportunity to experience being a distance learner as well as develop skills which we hope you will find useful for your role as a distance tutor. We hope that through this experience, you will understand the issues that are faced by distance learners, and develop an empathy with them. We'll encourage you to pull out the implications for you as a tutor.

We all have prior experiences of education which influence how we teach and how we approach our learning. We go into a lecture theatre and already have expectations about who will do what and what behaviour is appropriate and expected. We have some idea about what activities we will undertake in order to study effectively. In distance learning, and particularly in online learning, the prior experiences which shape our approaches to teaching and learning are of less use. Working alone as a distance learner, we are unsure of how to approach our study and form our expectations through the course materials and any communications with tutors. As distance tutors, we need to be much more explicit about what we expect from students, and what they can expect from us, than in face to face teaching.

In this first unit then, we will need to establish how we are going to work together in this online environment. We'll spend some time introducing ourselves, and importantly, clarifying the roles each of us will take on and what to expect from each other. This is an important step in establishing an effective learning dialogue or learning community.

During the next two weeks we will

Tasks

Task 1. What can you see from your window?

Go to the Unit 1 discussions and the introductions thread. Here you will find a message from the course tutors inviting you to introduce yourself.

We'd like you to do this by telling us something about what you can see from your window. Say a bit about what you see, about why you're doing this course and what you hope to get out of it. You might put a photograph up. Does that help to get to know each other or not?

Task 2. Experiences of distance learning

In the Unit 1 discussions go to the learner experiences thread.

One of the great benefits of an online environment such as this is the opportunity to reduce the isolation faced by distance learners, not just to offer them a way of contacting tutors, but to support and learn from each other. In this discussion topic, we will begin to form our learning community. We will ask you to share information about your experiences and expectations of distance learning and prompt you to read and respond to the experiences of others such as Clare Gill.

As you reflect on your experiences and expectations of distance learning, you may find that questions arise about ways of working with LSHTM which you would like answered. Please post these questions in the Ask the 'local' expert forum in the 'Ongoing discussions' section of the course site, where our 'expert participants' will respond. Our 'expert participants' are experienced LSHTM tutors who have completed this course in the past. They will keep an eye on the 'Ask the 'local' expert' forum and be ready to answer your questions throughout the course.

Task 3: Reflections

Having thought about the experiences of the distance learner in Task 2, we finish this unit's activities by highlighting and recording the implications for tutors. Take a look at these Attributes of an ideal tutor and note which of these you consider most important for your role. You might have other attributes that you want to add to this list.

We'll start this discussion by asking you to complete the following sentence:

Distance Learners need tutors because… (list up to 3 things)

Post your thoughts in the Unit 1 reflections discussion topic. Please also feel free to use this discussion area to raise any other issues which have been important to you during this unit.

Finally, remember to complete the Assignment for this Unit, which is due on Monday 19 November.

Readings

Core readings

Further resources