Moore and Kearsley: Distance education and online learning

Moore & Kearsley

How Distance Teaching Differs

While there have been many articles and discussions about distance education from the students point-of-view and some discussion about quality, effectiveness and verifiability, Moore and Kearsly take the approach from the teachers point-of-view and bring up some relevant issues, both pro and con, regarding the subject. They begin by making not of the differences between live classroom learning as opposed to distance learning:

If you are teaching by television, you have to learn how to behave on camera; in front of the radio or audio conference microphone, to control (but vary) your rate and pitch of speaking; but correspondence or online, to interpret what the student writes and be able to write back "instructively" without overextending the time you commit to each student! (Moore & Kearsley)

The new technology acts like a "filter" and the teacher needs to be aware that what he or she is saying may not e what the student's are perceiving. This is probably one of the most important points that they make regarding distance learning of any kind. Feedback then becomes a crucial element in both the progress of the student and the experience the student has had with the teacher.

They do however seem to feel that the teacher is receiving no immediate feedback from what they say, except in the case of a two way TV presentation, this is not altogether true. In the current level of online classroom participation there are often live session through an interactive chat board or using speakerphones to have a conference call class. Furthermore, the online environment necessitates a great deal of interactive writing both in assignments and in teacher student communication, via e-mail, that often provides a great deal of feedback.

One quite valid observation about distance learning is verifying that the student not cheated in some way. This is especially true in any exam that may be given:

If students take an exam work we is at home or at least a learning center with no supervision, it is not possible to guarantee the integrity of the chest. Consequently in most distance education programs students must complete their main exams and a proctored setting at a learning center or school. (Moore & Kearsley)

Absent a physical presence in class and proctors observing exams, every course item completed is always in open book mode. All test are take homes and this certainly negates the ability for the teacher to judge just how much information has been retained and understood by the student, absent access to the course material. Additionally, highly complex technical or scientific course material may also be difficult to comprehend without classroom times with a teacher. Furthermore, as flexible as the scheduling and course time is for the student, most distance learning coursework is set in stone and usually does not allow for any adjustments by the teacher to help match more accurately the needs of the individual students taking the course. Overall this general lack of physical interaction has always been one of the main concerns of the process of online education.

An interesting point they bring up is the circumvention of cheating by having another person complete your coursework:

In the future we may be able to remotely identify individuals using devices that scan finger, voice, or eye-prints technology, which is already in use for security applications, but at present this seems a rather extreme measure. (Moore & Kearsley)

This also introduces the problem of plagiarism that has seeming run rampant in both online and traditional brick and mortar education. "Plagiarism is a particular worry for educators in the online environment because materials can be so easy located in captured electronically that the line between legitimate research and plagiarism is sometimes not easy for students to recognize." (Moore & Kearsley) However, anti-plagiarism efforts have increased tremendously over the past several years, both in distance learning as well as traditional education. Web sites like TurnItIn.com and others have greatly improved the search for plagiarism in college term papers and theses. Requiring that all papers submitted to the online university to go through such sites adds another layer of security to online, as well as traditional, education.

While Moore and Kingsley go through great effort to give the teacher excellent tool by which to conduct online education with better confidence and superior results, one thing is clear, that it is not like traditional classroom education. There has been an initial effort to keep online learning as similar to brick and mortar classroom as possible. By creating actual class time with instructors via web interfaces and speakerphone connections, real time classes have been conducted. However, considering the need to have learning at your own schedule that students of this method prefer, real time classes are often disadvantageous. The attempt to maintain the human element and the traditional classroom setting has certainly limited the flexibility of distance learning. The Authors also touch upon the idea of Asynchronous Discussions as one of the advantages of this medium over real time classroom: