0201 Learner Support Services
0201 Learner Support Services
Format: Print-based elective with audiotape and videotape supplements
Author:Daniel Granger and Meg Benke
CEUs: 2.0
A key feature of distance education is the geographic separation of teacher and learner. Thus, people often focus on the technology for spanning geographic distance or on the instructional methods for designing technology-based programs. Yet, the "distances" facing learners include a range of sociopsychological factors that may impede learning or completion of a program. Those factors include language, culture, motivation, inadequate skills or preparation, anxiety, time, and work or family constraints. Distance learners, therefore, need various support services that help them to be successful. Learner supports not only bridge sociopsychological distances, but they also foster personal development and the accomplishment of learning goals.
Learn . . .
- basic principles and methods of learner support.
- how to support learners before, during, and after a program.
- how to construct learner profiles.
- how various supports are used in distance education (such as orientation materials, pre-assessment, technology training, site coordinators, counselors, advisors, career guidance, library access, peer networking).
- supports that prepare students for learning.
- supports that enhance motivation and persistence.
- instructional strategies that support active learning.
- guidelines for implementing appropriate supports in your program.
- how to use existing resources—within the organization, community, and workplace.
- why learners drop out and strategies for reducing attrition.
- strategies for preventing problems in using technology.
- strategies for solving problems related to learners' instructional and personal concerns.
Content Overview
This module introduces you to principles of support for learners, and it presents a step-by-step approach on how to incorporate learner supports into new or existing programs. Such supports range from orientation materials that prepare the student for learning to counseling services and instructional strategies that enhance motivation, confidence, and persistence.
The module begins by showing you how to construct a profile of learners' needs and characteristics. The module then presents a planning framework that uses the profile and other information to make decisions about learner support requirements. Subsequent units describe the kinds of supports that learners are apt to need before, during, and after a program. Included are guidelines and suggestions that assist you in planning and implementing appropriate supports for your learners. Also included are strategies for preventing and solving learner support problems.
Project
The required project for this module is designed to build professional skills in analyzing learner profiles and planning (or evaluating) learner support services. The project asks you to select a distance learning program of your own choosing as a context for the project. You are then asked to apply material from the module to construct a learner profile and to recommend appropriate learner supports.
About the Authors
Daniel Granger is the Director of Distributed Learning and Extended Education at California State University-Monterey Bay, the 21st campus of the CSU system. He was previously director of distance learning at the University of Minnesota and SUNY Empire State College. Dan has worked in distance learning since 1977, first adapting Open University courses for U.S. students at SUNY Empire State College. He has written and spoken extensively on distance learning support issues and served as editor of a special issue of Open Praxis on "Distance Education in North America" (1997) and co-edited, with Connie Dillon and Chere Gibson, an issue of The American Journal of Distance Education (1998). His current focus is on developing distributed learning support systems for under-served learners and determining effective support practices. With a doctorate in literature and history from Indiana University, Dan has taught in both conventional classrooms and in the distance learning mode using various technologies.
Meg Benke has been with Empire State College since 1990, currently as Director of the Center for Distance Learning, and connected with distance education since 1983. The Center for Distance Learning enrolls 10,000 enrollments every year, and seventy courses a year are now offered via the World Wide Web. Before joining Empire State College, she was on the faculty of Antioch College and also served as Assistant Dean of Students at Ohio University. Meg received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Student Affairs from Ohio University, writing a dissertation on employer perceptions of external degrees. Meg's work in education has focused on the connections between work, employers and education. She also teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs in the areas of adult educational policy, leadership, human resource development, distance education and training and learning organizations.