By Lauren Gordon/ reporter

As part of National Distance Learning Week, faculty and staff involved in eLearning visited all five campuses to raise awareness for eLearning and dispel any myths that students and faculty have, moderator Christina Henley told students and professors on NW Campus Nov. 11. 

A student panel also shared strategies and ways to excel in online courses while a faculty panel shared techniques to improve the online courses they teach and explain what they have learned along the way.

“My passion has to do with the ability that students can complete college with the flexibility of online courses,” TCC Connect president Carlos Morales said.

The panel included students Philip Emerson and Jeanna Fung as well as Arturo Quiroz, a former professor of online classes in Mexico. Emerson and Fung take the majority of their classes online.

Fung is a nontraditional student who recently became a grandmother and works a full-time job.

“All my life, I assumed I wasn’t college material, but here I am,” she said.

Fung is part of the first cohort to enroll in Weekend College at TCC.

“I would not be able to receive college credit if it weren’t for these courses,” she said.

Emerson is also a nontraditional student who decided to go back to school to become a lawyer and, like Fung, finds online classes more convenient.

“The flexibility is tremendous, but the motivation comes from within the individual,” he said.

Emerson plans on applying to different law schools next year and said this would not be possible without online courses.

As part of the event, TCC Connect outreach and student services manager Kathy Burks announced eLearning scholarship winners Laura Ryan ($300, first place), Erin Frees ($200, second place) and Ericka Friend ($100, third place).

Faculty members said through discussion boards they can make a distance learning class more personable.

“Students realized not everyone sees the world the way I do,” NW history/government professor Laura Wood said.

Students get to see things from a point of view they never thought they would, she said.

SE English associate professor Benita Reed has students review their classmates’ papers as a grade.

“Peer critiquing is critical,” she said.

It is important that the students keep each other accountable, Reed said.

The professors design courses to work with their students’ busy schedules. NE natural sciences assistant professor Katherine Hoffman said when she made due dates on the weekends, she saw an increase in student retention.

“We forecast a continued growth rate through a medium that provides flexibility,” Morales said.