WELCOME MODULE An Experience Focused on Familiarizing Students with Distance Education Courses

摘要

The Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), through its Distance Education Center (NEAD), has been developing formative actions for students, teachers, tutors and center coordinators. Such initiative is part of the Integrated Program for Institutional Formation 2008 from Brazil's Open University System (UAB). This text presents a fragment of such program: it focuses on the didactic-pedagogical experiences in the Welcome Module. This module aims on familiarizing the students enrolled both in the undergraduate and graduate (lato sensu) divisions with the particular aspects of distance education courses. The discussion foci are the online activities: their pedagogical conception, conduction methods and student feedbacks. Finally, we present some considerations in regards to such Welcome Module experience as well as its contribution to the Distance Education (DE) scenario in Brazil. In this sense, we highlight the didactic design of the Welcome Module, emphasizing the development of student autonomy, an ability which is essential for the continuity and the success of an online course.