Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

136 Studying online 
one student sent me a message asking for an appointment to speak 
with me. Rather than call when the green tick was displayed, this 
student wanted to create a Microsoft Teams calendar entry for 
an online meeting. Naturally, I said this was OK but added that 
I was perfectly happy for her to call me whenever the green tick 
was displayed. Her reply, though, revealed why this wasn’t that 
attractive to students. She said that she wanted to create an online 
appointment so that she could invite a couple of friends to attend 
because they also had similar questions. It then struck me more 
clearly. Te approach of “call me when the green tick is displayed” 
did not allow students to collaborate or provide moral support 
for one another. I thought I was providing more availability than 
when I was on campus. However, to the students, this was not as 
enticing as I might have thought. Students wanted the ability to 
meet me online in just the same way as they had done face-to-
face, in small groups. 
If you are studying entirely online and have never been on cam-
pus before, you probably will not appreciate the benefts of col-
laborating with other students. You will be studying alone and 
will only have limited opportunities to do things with your fel-
low learners. Yet, as my experience shows, students fnd that 
working together with others is of real help. Not only can they 
learn together in a shared experience, but they can also col-
laborate by providing moral support for each other. It is inev-
itable that during your studies, there will be things you do not 
understand or theoretical concepts you fnd difcult to grasp. 
However, like students at traditional universities, you will not 
want to appear stupid by asking what you might think are silly 
questions. Tat’s one of the reasons why on-campus students 
gang together to ask those questions (which are never silly, by 
the way). As you saw in Chapter 1, campus-based students have 
many opportunities to work together and to support each other 
in their learning. Tose chances of meeting up and working with 
other students are signifcantly reduced for distance learning. 
So, it is important to create ways in which you can collaborate 
with your colleagues, even if it is only to provide moral support 
for one another. 

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