What's the difference between distance education and traditional face-to-face instruction? Why is distance education more popular?

Not limited by time and space, this is the biggest advantage of distance education. Learners can choose the time and place of study independently, which provides good opportunities and convenient conditions for local scholars to study while working. Therefore, it is different from the traditional face-to-face teaching in the following aspects:

First, teachers and students in a school-running unit are relatively separated in time and space, which requires scholars to study mainly with the help of multimedia teaching resources and networks under the guidance of teachers. In this way, higher requirements are put forward for the teaching resources, guidance and services provided by the school, and the requirements for students' ability to use teaching media resources and information technology are also higher.

Secondly, because this teaching method lacks the campus environment of traditional schools, it mainly does not take the form of face-to-face teaching by teachers, but provides online teaching environment and teaching guidance, requiring students to focus on autonomous learning. Therefore, learners should establish the concepts of autonomous learning and collaborative learning, gradually improve their autonomous learning ability and adapt to the methods and habits of distance teaching. So as to give play to their own personalized characteristics. Facts have proved that the outstanding students trained by distance education are stronger than those trained by traditional education classes.

Third, although distance education lacks face-to-face communication between students and teachers, it is necessary to establish an exchange environment between teachers and students. The rapid development of the Internet has created this kind of real-time and non-real-time communication, which is very convenient through email, BBS and group discussion. Learners mainly use this way to solve the problems encountered in their usual study, and at the same time, they can broaden their horizons and strengthen their contact with society.

It is precisely because distance education is not limited by time and space, completely breaking the limitation of time and place, and is favored by scholars for its fast learning, fast research and low tuition.