The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) employs the distance education (DE) mode of teaching and learning, and adopts a learner-centered approach to education. We design our course materials and the way we teach according to the situation of the Learner – and that’s you in the middle.
Our form of distance education is not like correspondence school in which you study your modules without guidance from anybody. In our setup, we have faculty members and tutors that guide you in every class. We also have student support staff and program advisers to help the learners.
Our students basically study their lessons from UP-designed learning materials which could be in the form of modules, books, websites, CDs, videos. Students also receive a course guide which is like their road map to the subject. It tells them what class activities to do within a schedule.
The key features of DE as practiced at UPOU are:
- Students and teachers are physically separated from each other.They do not meet face-to-face in a physical classroom.
- Students undertake guided independent study of carefully selected as well as specially designed learning materials in various media — print, video, and multimedia.
- Interaction between teachers and students, and among students, takes place through online tutorials in a virtual classroom. Other forms of communication between teacher and student are email, text, and teleconferencing.
- Midterm and Final examinations are usually administered through a network of examination venues here and abroad or through an online exam system.