In 2005, I started on the path to attain my Masters of Distance Education degree through Athabasca University (AU). Though excited about new prospects, I was nonetheless nervous and anxious. I began to reflect back on my previous educational experiences which had presented some significant challenges. Some of the questions that arose were:

• Was I prepared to enter this new learning environment?
• Did I have the necessary skills to achieve goals (i.e. a passing grade)?
• Could I obtain a sense of fulfillment from this program (i.e. self-improvement)?
• Did I have the adequate self-regulation mechanisms (i.e. motivation)?
• Would I be able to “stay on course” even when challenged by other priorities in life (i.e. persistence)?

And as I progressed through my learning experience at AU, the following concepts began coalescing in my mind, with common themes continuing to re-occur throughout my work:

1. Respecting the Learner
2. Engaging the Learner
3. Building Learner Resiliency
4. Inspiring the Learner

MDE Summative Paper

So how did my educational experience help to inform these issues and what did I discover? My final paper attempts to summarize major themes of learning and discovery that I experienced over the past five years ... My AU Learning Experience - A Bountiful Harvest   

As part of developing my e-portfolio, one of the steps that I undertook was to take a trip back in time. I reviewed the more than 30 assignments (close to 50,000 written words) that I worked on during the past 5 years of study. I was pleasantly surprised to see how of the essays and research assignments still made sense...  

I hope that you enjoy them as well!  Grant.