Distance education: models, effectiveness, and implementation

Distance Education

In assessing the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of distance education and its progression from manually-oriented approaches to electronically-enabled teaching platforms, it is clear that Chere Campbell Gibson's vision of how information enables greater long-term learning is happening today. At the center of Gibson's vision of learning is the opportunity for students to get away from rote memorization and engage in problem solving through interdisciplinary experiences. Ultimately technology can be an enabler of greater learning and the potential of giving students the flexibility of creating knowledge as well, and this is the catalyst of Chere Campbell Gibson's view of technology as an enabler of more effective teaching and learning. The intent of this paper is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each form of distance education.

Evaluating the Forms of Distance Education

In evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each form of distance education, the criteria of how effective each is in enabling long-term learning, and the ability to nurture a long-term learning process is used. Beginning with correspondence education and home study, the advantages of this approach to distance learning are its ability to scale to large numbers of students, cost, and ease of administration on the instructor side. In addition, correspondence education or home study, students have the option of studying and completing learning tasks and projects on their own. As with all forms of distance education, this specific one requires a high degree of personal initiative to stay focused on the material and move through it quickly. The disadvantages of this specific form of distance education are the isolation that the student endures as they complete the course. As more advanced forms of distance education provide collaboration online, this one does not. Second, there is little interaction with the instructor on a periodic or even real-time basis. The lag time is significant waiting to get feedback on how a specific assignment, test or course final exam has been scored. As a result, this approach to distance education is being rapidly replaced by more electronically-oriented means. Independent study is comparable to correspondence education or home study in that the student is often on their own the majority of the course. The difference is, independent study is used as a means of allowing students enrolled in university-level courses to complete requirements of a degree-related program on their own. This has the advantages of the home study program yet has greater contact and opportunities for feedback from instructors. The greatest disadvantage of this approach is the lack of in-class instruction that is often compensated for by instructors assigning more reading and outside class assignments.

Telecourses on the other hand resemble correspondence education or home study courses more than independent study, as the same publishing paradigm is used. The difference is the breadth of students that can be served using telecourses vs. independent study. It is still a broadcast-related approach to teaching and doesn't give the student an opportunity to fully participate in the learning process. Telecourses are ideal for reaching thousands or millions of students who are motivated to learn. The drawback is the lack of interaction with instructors.

The development of interactive television based on satellite and cable networks, and the development of interactive video have contributed to the development of online learning and virtual universities. In conjunction with the exponential growth of the Internet as an online learning platform, interactive television and video have become complimentary to online learning. The advantages of these forms of distance education are their ability to deliver interactive learning sessions for students, greater access to the materials used in the class via digital access, and the use of ancillary videos to better understand concepts. The drawbacks of these platforms for distance education are the costs associated with gaining Internet access in some parts of the world, unpredictable Internet access speeds, and the lack of quality control on instructors' responsiveness and completeness of answers to students. Despite these shortcomings, the more interactive and real-time the learning platform, the more potential there is for students to internalize concepts and long-term learning to occur. The role of corporate training, aimed at combining both in-class and online distance education approaches, is predominately done within a company. The general public however is increasingly relying on Open Universities that are more egalitarian in approach, and strive for practicality in terms of the courses taught. The disadvantages of corporate training are the lack of follow-up and opportunity to reinforce the key concepts, and the same holds true in open universities. The advantages of these approaches however is the opportunity for students to learn more by concentrating on the practicality of knowledge vs. being immersed in theory, which is the direction both Corporate training and Open Universities rely on.