Mia Sedlar is a busy fourth year student. While working towards a major in Art History and a minor in Film, she manages to hold down two jobs and often needs to commute back and forth between work, her apartment, and the UBC campus. Last semester, she decided to take a distance education course to add flexibility to her schedule; she enrolled in Film Studies 332, a class that focuses on Irish Cinema and Culture. As part of the course, twelve movies were presented in stylistic order, all of them dealing with different themes exploring Ireland as an interesting place for film and helping students gain knowledge about the social and political contexts of cinema in the country.
To access the movies needed for the course, Mia was able to use the video library at UBC, the public library, and video rental stores. Not having to attend regular lectures meant having more flexibility as to when she watched the films. For example, Mia would often go to the video library on the weekends and watch 2 or 3 movies at a time. The professor then posted questions about the films and the accompanying readings on WebCT Vista, which generated student discussion. Mia found that having the questions on WebCT Vista was convenient because she could think through her answers more thoroughly than in a class setting, where teachers expect to have their questions answered right away. Before posting online, she could reflect on the subject matter on her own and then formulate her thoughts in writing. Mia also remarked that using the web format eliminated the element of shyness that often prevents students from talking, especially in larger classes. Those who participated were also able to go back to various points in the discussion to add to or evaluate arguments. Although the distribution of students who participated in these discussions was uneven, Mia remarked that the same tendency also exists in a classroom setting.
One of the reasons Mia had decided to take this particular distance course was because she had previously taken an on-campus class with the same professor. She enjoyed his teaching style and found him to be helpful, which she thought came across in both the distance and on-campus courses she took with him. For the Irish Cinema class, the professor provided an in-depth introduction and supplementary readings to each movie, and took part in the online discussions. What Mia also liked was that he was able to add to the discussions by providing additional resources and engaging with the arguments put forth by the students.
Before taking additional courses, Mia will need to consider the specific subject matter to decide whether the online, print, or on-campus format works best for her. On a whole, Mia considers her experience with distance education to be a positive one: “After this initial experience, I will definitely consider taking additional distance education [courses] to complete my degree.”