Creating a “Live Learning” environment to support high achieving distance students in civil engineering

More campuses than ever before are offering web based distance education programs. The current trends in information technology enhances these distance education (DL) programs through a number of new online delivery products, which increase the quality of the distance student learning experience. Recent literature has indicated that DL students do not perform as well as face-to-face (F2F) students, especially when part of a mixed mode course (F2F with DL). However, this paper describes how one instructor learned from her first used DL teaching experience and then successfully applied online delivery tools to create a leaning environment where distance students not only passed the course, but achieved high marks at rates similar to face-to-face (F2F) students.