Effective Learner Support in ODL_SVGCC

Supplementary Reading

We have selected these articles to help us project the future of learner support. if you have an extra 1 hour, feel free to read them. Otherwise, you can proceed to the summary below .

•  Student Support Services for Online Learning Re-Imagined and Re-Invigorated: Then, Now and What’s to Come by  Brindley J.E, Crawley A., and Peters, B. ( 2017).

The article looks into a virtual hub of student support resources and services formed by The California Online Education Initiative (OEI) and the California Community College (CCC) as a new approach for incorporating online student support services into each of the 114 member college distance education programs.

• Frontiers | Applying Best Practice Online Learning, Teaching, and Support to Intensive Online Environments: An Integrative Review (frontiersin.org)

Summary: Importance of Learner support services in ODL environment

From the texts above, the following factors make learner support services essential for the success of ODL:

1. Separation of teacher and learner in time or place, or in both time and place
2. Institutional accreditation: that is, learning is accredited or certified by some institution or agency. This type of learning is distinct from learning through your own effort without the official recognition of a learning institution
3. Use of mixed-media courseware, including print, radio, and television broadcasts, video and audio cassettes, computer-based learning, and telecommunications. Courseware tends to be pre-tested and validated before use.
4. Two-way communication allows learners and tutors to interact as distinguished from the passive receipt of broadcast signals. Communication can be synchronous or asynchronous.
5. Possibility of face-to-face meetings for tutorials, learner-learner interaction, library study, and laboratory or practice sessions; and
6. Use of industrialized processes; that is, in large-scale open and distance learning operations, labor is divided, and tasks are assigned to various staff who work together in course development teams.