Long distance literacies: Developing academic engagement and equality of provision for distance learners

The Distance Learning PGCE is a Level 7 course, with many students requiring additional support to develop academic skills at this level. Campus-based students with similar needs have access to academic skills guidance from academic librarians and [institution LD team] which includes self-learn material, drop-in workshops and one-to-one tutorials as well as embedded skills sessions. There are numerous online self-access tutorials for distance learners (see for example [link to institution LD online resources]), however this asynchronous provision inevitably lacks the social and interactive learning opportunities available via synchronous tuition (Hrastinkski, 2008). This can reduce ‘transactional distance’ (Moore, 1993) and result in an unequal learning experience for distance learners. This project seeks to redress the balance by providing a structured programme of synchronous online interactive academic skills workshops (webinars) for distance learners on this course. The project is a collaboration between the Online Learning Tutors, the Academic Librarian and a student partner from the previous year’s cohort. We intend to evaluate the programme by collecting a range of data including participant self-assessment (quantitative); webinar evaluation (quantitative and qualitative) and focus groups (qualitative). Analysis of these data will enable us to answer two key questions:  Have students’ academic skills improved as a result of the synchronous learning opportunities?  Have the synchronous learning opportunities helped to reduce transactional distance? Although we are still in the data collection phase of the project, preliminary findings indicate a positive response from participants with regard to both questions.