As a distance learning student, it is particularly important to plan your study and monitor your progress to ensure that you keep on track with your studies. There are many resources on the Student Support and Resources website to help you with this, but this page provides information that distance learning students, in particular, may find helpful for their studies.
Key to Success for Distance Learners
Successful distance learners:
• want to learn for themselves (not for others)
• are confident at self-assessment (how am I progressing? what help do I need?)
• motivate themselves to study, despite other commitments
• have access to relevant resources (people, publications, IT facilities)
and above all...
• are well organised.
How are you progressing?
The ability to think about how you are getting on is an important skill for distance learning students. A realistic study plan will take account of all your commitments and provides opportunities for looking back over your progress. A practical approach is to set aside a regular timeslot, perhaps weekly or monthly, to take stock and plan how you will continue. Typical questions that you might ask yourself could be:
…how am I getting along?
…am I on schedule?
…if not, what can I do quickly and efficiently to get back on schedule?
…what feedback have I received and what does this tell me?
…what problems have I encountered?
…what are my priorities for the forthcoming week/month?
How do you spend your time?
Doing well as a distance learning student involves prioritising yourself and your studies. This may not be easy, particularly if you have to balance a busy job or a family who are accustomed to having you full-time. Completing a Time Audit will help you identify how you spend your time now, and how many hours a week you have available for study. Download a Time Audit template.
Asking yourself the following questions can help you plan your study in the way that will work best for you:
How many units/courses do you plan to do?
How many hours does each unit of study involve?
How long do you have to complete this?
How much time can you allocate to study per week/month?
When are you able to study - Evenings? Weekends? Scheduled leave from work?
At what time of day do you study best?
How do you prefer to study - short intensive bursts? prolonged period of time?
Where do you prefer to study?
How organised is your place of study?
Tips for staying motivated
• Maintain links with other students on your programme- perhaps electronically or on the phone.
• Use your time wisely; identify what can be done in short bursts of time.
• Identify a mentor, perhaps a friend or workplace colleague, to talk through general issues.
• Keep a learning log or diary as a reminder of what you’ve achieved.
• Write down your long term goal and keep it close for inspiration.
If the going gets tough, keep yourself on track by thinking of:
• your reasons for studying in the first place;
• how self-management skills can help all areas of your life; and
• the sense of achievement you will achieve from completing your studies.
More information
The Library offers a range of services and provides online access to ebooks and ejournals for use by all students. View further information for library support for students or search for library resources.
If you need specific advice about using library facilities at a distance, please use the Ask a Librarian online query form.
This Skills for Study page is a derivative work from the Loughborough University Library's Study Skills website and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence. All other content on this page (including links, images, logos), in addition to the content of any pages linked to from this page, are copyright University of Bath unless marked otherwise.