How does distance learning work at Catherine College?

A special feature of our courses is that they are undertaken in collaboration with other women, but also with men who have a genuine interest in learning how to overcome gender inequity in society and religion through awareness and critical analysis. We believe adults learn best when they take charge of their own learning and discover things for themselves. In so doing, they invariably find that they learn more easily, more enjoyably, and more deeply.

Our courses have adapted problem-based learning and competency-based evaluation designed for online learning in small, interactive groups.

Each course begins with a set of learning skills that are defined in advance in the syllabus. In the course of each lesson, you will be responding to a set of exploratory questions that enable you to bring your previous training and life experiences to bear upon issues/problems that are being examined in each lesson. As soon as you post your responses to these exploratory questions online, (a) they become available to all the other participants in your learning circle and (b) you gain access to the explorations of other members of your learning circle.

Over the next few days, a give and take then takes place which allows you to discover how participants within different cultures and educational backgrounds define and respond to the shared questions differently. Meanwhile, at the same time as you give feedback to others, you will receive feedback from persons with different backgrounds. Inside this process, the tutor/mentor offers his/her own reflections and words of appreciation. From time to time, you will even receive clarifying questions that will invite you to further examine and clarify the responses that you have offered. This teaching environment, in particular the incorporation of small group learning and collaborative work, fosters self-reliance, problem solving, and the recognition of the limits of ones own knowledge and skills.

When and where do you study and interact in our courses?

During a typical week, you will study when and where you please--in your home, at a local library, in an internet cafe. As you study, you will be interacting with the material and, in a typical hour, posting five of your hunches, new ideas, conclusions online. After each posting, the reflections of your learning partners scattered around the world will then open up before you. Then the fun begins. You get to interact with their mind bending ideas just as they will get to interact with yours in a few hours or days.

Every course has a highly qualified facilitator/tutor who is ready (a) to respond to your inquiries, (b) to assist you in expanding the skills that you set out for yourself at the beginning of each course. Our facilitators allow themselves to be known and interact with your posts as you go. More importantly, they listen carefully to your struggles and difficulties and know how to guide you to overcome any hurdles you may be experiencing along the way.

In the best of classrooms, everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn, including the professor. Catherine College provides a safe place wherein women can find their true voices and to express them freely. The bonding that takes place in the virtual classroom must accordingly be joined with a shared sense of respect and mystery in the face of co-learners struggling to become their authentic selves even when they have for so long been beaten down and forced to adapt roles that conceal their true voices.

Why do women come to our College?

Catherine of Siena College is a virtual university. It offers online courses that are selected to give women the knowledge and confidence they need for leadership tasks.

Women study our courses for different purposes:

• they are pursuing an academic study but feel that their own college or university does not offer the specific courses they need;
• they are already involved in a career for which they seek additional insights & skills;
• they belong to movements that further the position of women in society or in their religious denomination;
• they pursue a personal interest and want to expand their minds.

They choose one of our courses because they know that we select our courses for their quality of content, their dynamic potential and wide international appeal.

Men too enroll in our courses to improve their knowledge about the social, cultural and religious position of women, particularly if they feel called to help women achieve their rightful ambitions. Our male students, however, know that they should respect our unique focus on the situation of women.

With no upper age limits and no previous qualifications required, we attract a broad mix of students from many countries which adds a powerful element to the interactive methodology that we employ.

How do you study

Most students work from home or wherever it's convenient. Our unique method of study - a combination of personal work, group discussions through message boards, correspondence with your tutor and occasional chatroom encounters - means that you can set your own timetable around the way you live.

We are gradually building up the range of what we will offer:

• At the moment these are single courses that stand on their own.
• For successfully completing a major course or cluster of smaller courses we provide a certificate.
• We are working to obtain full accreditation so that completion of our courses would count to acquiring a BA or MA qualification in our own terrestrial college or university.