Distance Learning Survival Guide

Distance Learning Survival Guide

By Marco A. Bohorquez

I recently made the decision to continue my education at Axia College to help further my career in the energy sector. I knew that in order to be a successful student, I had to create a student survival guide that would help me along the way. Learning the Classroom Environment, Using Axia’s Educational Resources, Upholding Academic Honesty, Setting and Achieving Goals, Managing Time Wisely, Fostering Reading Comprehension and Retention, and Applying Personality and Learning Styles are the main topics of my survival guide.

Learning the Classroom Environment

The first thing I recommend is downloading the course syllabus into your desktop or Ipod. Once you are done saving the course syllabus, get to know how the distance learning environment works. At Axia College, students learn in a virtual environment rather than a traditional classroom. In a distance learning environment, students and teachers use asynchronous communication. Asynchronous communication is just another way of saying email. You will have three forums, main, chat-room, and personal, that you will use to communicate with students and teachers. The chat-room is where you will post your two attendance requirements for each week. The main forum is where students and teachers post answers and feedback to discussion questions. The personal forum is where students post checkpoints and instructor feedback is given.

Communication and participation between classmates and teachers is a major factor in the success of students attending distance learning programs. The online learning system is setup for students who are self motivated so active participation is a must. Students and teachers communicate with one another by threaded discussion. Threaded discussion is similar to the way you respond to an email except it is done in a long thread.

Using Axia’s Educational Resources

Once you have learned your way around the classroom, I recommend each student to take time to look at the educational resources provided by Axia College. Axia College provides several resources to help students find research or reference materials. One that comes to mind is the online library. The online library is located on the college’s website. When students enter the online library, he/she will see different databases that will help them with their research. EBSCOhost or Thomson Gale PowerSearch are just a few of the multitude of databases available to the students of Axia College. If you have problems finding your way around the library or have questions, students can contact the librarian via email. Once you have found the database you want to use, type in the research topic into the database, and within seconds, and abundance of information will appear.

Upholding Academic Honesty

An important part to your success at Axia College is upholding academic honesty. Academic honesty is simply what it means, being honest. The University of Phoenix Catalog located on aXcess explains important academic honesty policies. Understanding these academic policies will help students avoid situations like plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. Students can avoid plagiarism by correctly citing the work they are using or by paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is done by making an in text citation to the author and by stating the year citation was made. If a student has doubts whether his/her paper is plagiarized, they can submit research papers to the Center for Writing Excellence(CWE). The CWE has a tool called the Plagiarism Checker that checks students work for plagiarism.

Cheating is also another form of academic dishonesty. Students usually cheat because they are not motivated to finish their assignments, or simply do not understand the assignment at hand. If you find yourself in this predicament, simply ask one of classmates or post a thread to your teacher asking for help. Cheating and plagiarizing are considered serious offenses at Axia College and could cause you to fail or even get expelled from school.

Setting and Achieving Goals

Learn to set short-term and long-term goals. I think by setting short-term and long-term goals, it makes it easier for me to stay motivated. Goal setting can be used for any area of your life. For example, I know that in order for me to further my career in the energy sector, I have to obtain my bachelors degree. Getting a bachelors degree does not happen overnight. In order for me to obtain my bachelors, I have to set short-term goals. Here is an example of my of short-term