This paper focuses on how people learn to help educators design curriculum that will enable students to successfully complete a distance learning class. Up-front organization, clear communication about performance expectations, outcome driven assessment, and imaginative learning strategies are critical to successful distance learning. Differentiating between media and methods is the first step toward ensuring that learning and distance are not contradictory. Most learners learn better when they are actively engaged in the learning process; in distance learning it is even more important to abandon a "telling as teaching" mode for learning methods that support the human thinking and learning process. Our brains have three memory systems that deal with information processing and storage--sensory memory, working (short-term) memory, and long-term memory. Five main processes control the flow of information through the memory system--attention, encoding, rehearsal (practice), retrieval, and metacognition. The following five strategies will help to ensure that distance teaching also means distance learning: (1) provide learning plans; (2) design with a bias for learner-centered methods; (3) insert frequent practice; (4) support all stages of the learning cycle; and (5) vary the format of learning activities. (AEF)