Industrialized Education Describe and Explain

Industrialized Education

Describe and explain the advantages and disadvantages of a highly industrialized form of distance education.

Applying methods of industry to methods of education has been of interest to educators and businesspeople for decades. Through distance education, Otto Peters explains that a fundamentally different type of education has been achieved. In this type of education, large amounts of students can be reached with efficiently produced information towards an end goal of more productive persons entering their fields. Additionally, the division of labor used to create distance education mimics the world of industry. Thus, distance education has been called "the most industrialized form of teaching and learning," designed "on the basis of industrialized processes" (Example 1). But both advantages and disadvantages to this "highly industrialized" form of instruction exist. An exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of a highly industrialized form of distance learning will allow readers to determine whether or not the distance education revolution is one bearing positive or negative consequences for individuals, academia, and the workforce.

In order to determine the advantages of a highly industrialized form of distance education, one must agree on the goals of distance education. Distance education, and in fact education in general, can be described as possessing goals of preparing as many people as possible for social betterment through new knowledge and imparting to these students the most accurate and greatest degree of knowledge possible. Based on these goals, a highly industrialized form of distance education has unique and important advantages. First of all, because it uses multimedia avenues to instruct, "it is possible to convey knowledge to a theoretically unlimited number of people thereby increasing the levels of and accessibility to education and equalizing opportunities" (Example 1, Advantages: point 1). Thus, by allowing more and more people access to education, and providing an environment in which more can succeed, highly industrialized forms of distance education help remove discrimination biases and barriers to education. Furthermore, highly industrialized forms of distance education increase objectivity, which "decreases the authoritative relationship between teacher and learner" (Example 1, Advantages: Point 7). Thus, highly industrialized forms of distance education also lead to larger strides in equality. In addition to allowing others' greater access to education, highly industrialized forms of education also allow for improvements in the material presented. In fact, these types of programs present "high quality" and time sensitive material (Example 1, Advantages, Point 2).