INTRODUCTION TO INDEPENDENT STUDY

The emphasis at Vision International University is on the individual. The heart of an individualised approach to education is the personal relationship between a student and the adviser/coordinator and mentor assigned to him or her. The mentor helps the student plan and coordinate a course of study. Besides providing instruction in their own fields of specialisation, mentors advise students about the academic alternatives open to them, assist students in designing their academic programs, identify instructional resources, and evaluate the overall quality of each student’s work.

Independent Study

Independent study is planned and organised by the student in collaboration with the mentor(s), under supervision of the University’s coordinator. The learning system allows students to study at convenient times, places, and at paces suited to their needs. While independent study offers great flexibility and freedom from fixed schedules, it also requires commitment, maturity and motivation on the part of the student.

Individual Study Plans

Vision International University is committed to the idea that effective learning is based on purposes and needs that are important to the individual, that learning occurs in varied places, and that different people learn in different ways. Students are encouraged and expected to plan and design studies that help them clarify their purposes and acquire the competence, knowledge and awareness necessary to pursue those purposes actively and independently. Students design their studies according to their interests and in the context of general University expectations for academic study. Students may study traditional subjects in a traditional manner, or they may design innovative degree programs and incorporate various non-traditional modes of study.

Some Problems of Independent Learning

(1) THE ADULT STUDENT

Not all adult students will have the same kinds of problems. Listed here are the four most common.

• Adult students may lack confidence in their ability to learn – especially if they have little contact with other students working on the same program.

• As a result they are fearful of not doing well and feel they will lose face if all their work is not perfect. So they may delay in submitting work for the tutor’s comments and guidance.

• They are anxious about how to combine their studies with the demands of family, friends, neighbours, employers, and workmates. They may feel guilty about spending time shut up alone with books.

• They may, quite simply, feel too tired after a hard day’s work to make the transition to mental effort.

  (2) POSITIVE FACTORS

  Adult students have more experience, more knowledge and, above all, more motivation than most other students.

  (a) While adult students may find that their memory for facts is not as good as that of younger people, they are likely to be better at grasping and analysing the underlying principles and the relationships between facts. This kind of understanding is far more valuable in higher education than mere knowledge of facts.

  (b) Experience in other educational systems that are correspondence-based suggests that adult students learning at a distance can do just as well as younger students working in a classroom.

  (c) Vision International University students enjoy advantages that are denied to other students who are doing undergraduate or graduate work by correspondence, for Vision International University is breaking new ground in program planning, in presentation, and in follow-up, with the needs of specific students in mind.

  Vision International University students will seldom get a chance to feel forgotten or isolated. With the help of our tutorial and counselling service, we will provide you with continuous feedback (and, if necessary, advice about your progress). Residential courses, when available, help you to overcome any feeling of isolation by giving you opportunities to meet with your fellow students and your mentor-counsellor, and course-tutor, in surroundings where your studies and other matters can easily be discussed.

  (3) WORKING EFFECTIVELY

  There are really no secrets of easy success for an adult student learning at a distance. Study will always be hard and demanding work for most people. There are no tricks, or short-cuts that can make it easy. But what we must aim to do is ensure that your hard work does produce results – that is, effective and rewarding work. To be an effective student you will need –

  (a) CLEAR AND REALISTIC GOALS

  Whether you are studying for career advancement, to broaden and illuminate your every day life, or to equip yourself to co-operate more usefully with others, you must identify both short-term goals and long-term goals that can give urgency to all your work (e.g. completing an assignment, attaining skills, starting on a new career).

  (b) SUPPORT FROM THOSE CLOSE TO YOU

  You will no doubt have many roles besides that of student – spouse, parent, friend, employee, etc. When an adult first returns to study it can be a difficult time for husband or wife and for the children. This needs to be faced beforehand, with a necessary re-allocation of duties and responsibilities being openly discussed and decided. If the others share your goals and your progress, the going will be so much easier.

  (c) A BUSINESS-LIKE APPROACH

  Many successful students would argue that good organisation rather than academic brilliance is the key to good progress in their studies. You will be least anxious about your work if you try to –

  • plan what you want to achieve in the next day, week, month, etc

  • stick to your plans, or modify them for good reasons only

  • make the best possible use of every scrap of time available

  • realise that you must sacrifice something in order to find time for the course

  (d) A DESIRE TO LEARN

  You will enjoy your studies more if you are able to –

  • open your mind and senses to new, perhaps conflicting, ideas and experiences

  • read and write about and discuss questions that may or may not have answers

  • look for principles and the basic unifying ideas in a subject

  • establish links between new subject-matter and your own practical experience of the world

  HOW TO READ BETTER

  (1)

  One very useful approach to studying a correspondence text, or a book, or an article is known as SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review).

  • Survey the material first to get a general view of what you will then study in detail (scan the table of contents, the introduction, headings, emphasised sections, summaries, exercises, and final paragraphs.

• Think up Questions that will give purpose to your study and allow you to read with anticipation (e.g., “Why does the author divide up his material in this way?)

• Read the material (preferably two or three times, quite fast, rather than once slowly.

• Stop after each section of material to Recall what you have read, and make notes of the main ideas and important detail.

• Review what you have read (and test your notes for accuracy) by running quickly through the four previous steps again.

(2) During the READ STAGE OF SQ3R

• Look for the author’s framework of ideas – the plan upon which he/she constructed the material. This is often revealed by the headings he uses, showing you which ideas belong with which, or he may have indicated this in some kind of flow diagram.

• Pick out the main ideas in each paragraph – often contained in the first or last sentence.

• Don’t ignore the author’s diagrams and illustrations – they make things clear where the text may not.

• Think up your own examples – look for applications in your own experience.

• Be critical. Don’t take the author’s work on trust. Look for him to justify statements he makes. (IF he doesn’t, and the point is an important one, check with another book or fellow student).

• Work out what the results would be if theories other than the ones you are reading about were true.

• Don’t be afraid to skip paragraphs and whole sections if you see that they are not relevant to your purpose. (There’s no law that says you’ve got to read every page of a book.)

• If, after chewing it over for some time, you still find a section difficult to understand, take a break, try to discuss the difficulty with other students, or with your tutor, or find another author’s treatment of the topic, and then come back and read it again – two or three times if necessary.

How to Make Useful Notes

It helps to make notes, and in a later section of this manual the subject of keeping note cards will be detailed. For the moment, consider the usefulness of note cards and notes –

• note-taking will keep you active – and concentrating (so you learn and remember better).

• they provide a written record for revision.