Activity 4 - Discussion - self-paced learning

Hello Gentlemen! :)

In distance education nowadays we hear a lot of discussion about self-paced learning or group based learning. There are some authors that defend that the distance students should evolve at their own pace and some others refer to a group of people, also referred to as peers, as a means to share expertise, experience in order to improve the learning process and make it more effective.

In our way of looking at distance learning, we undoubtedly trust the success of distance learning to the self-pace progression of every student.

Self-paced learning is directed by the individual, by each student in order to meet their personal learning goals. And don't think that when we talk about self-paced learning we are referring to individualized learning. Although both have the same meaning there are differences:

- in self-paced learning the student is who controls the pace of the learning process. For instance, 2 students may start a course on the same day but then, following their own study rhythms, they may finish it in different dates.
- in individualized learning, the learning process is individual, but it doesn't mean that it evolves according to the pace of the student: there might be some steps or points that the student has to reach at a certain time, specified in the course structure. Although the learning process is individual, the learning pace may be controlled by the teacher or tutor.

So, we consider that distance students should learn according to their own pace, as they are not dependent on a structure or pace specified by someone else (for instance, the teacher or tutor). They have their own lives and can organise themselves taking into account all their activities (work, family, studies). Students also feel more responsible for their learning process, because they know it depends on them and that no one is making any pressure with deadlines.

An important advantage is also the high level of interaction provided by this method. Students face a high degree of reflection and challenge in forums, discussions with a strong benefit that comes from learning from each other and not only from the tutor. Then, there are no distraction, but a high level of motivation, because these methods are applied at advanced stages and students are very focused on doing their tasks.

Another point to take into account is that in the last couple of years, the advances in technology and, therefore, the new means of communication brought many possibilities to online distance education. By learning at their own pace, students have the possibility to download learning materials, such as, videos, slides and so on in order to fulfill their assignments. All these materials are available at anytime, which implies that the students can look for them every time they want/need. The advance of technology brings without any questions the freedom, the context and the possibilities that self-paced learners need in order to accomplish their goals and being able to have access to a bigger amount of information in a short time period.

These are some basic aspects of self-paced learning, which we decided to start the discussion with.

Best regards,
The Ladies' team ;)
Maria Martins, Mónica Velosa, Sandra Brás and Sónia Valente

PS - this first post was written in group using gtalk and googledocs.