Course and Tutorial CAL Lesson Design: Helping Students Take Control of Their Learning

An aim of all teaching is to improve students’ ability to use their right to learn what they will when they will. Giving students increasing control of their learning helps them to learn how to control it; it can enable them eventually to exercise their freedom efficiently and usefully. Courses designed in modules fit this strategy and also mesh well with tutorial computer‐assisted learning (CAL). The control of learning involves both acquiring specific study skills and the development of a varied repertoire of learning styles. Tutorial CAL is not well suited to the teaching of the more complex learning styles, but methods are noted which help to overcome this problem. An analysis is given of the ways in which, within a tutorial CAL lesson, control can be handed to the student. The skills a student must gain to use tutorial CAL effectively are also examined in the light of the literature on note‐taking and note‐giving, as well as that on learning styles. The implications for lesson design are noted.