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last.updated 6.12.08

Distance Education Pedagogy

Purpose

Although distance education has existed for over a century–mostly as correspondence courses through postal services, radio, and television–this pedagogical approach has proliferated over the last two decades as various computer applications have made it more manageable and accessible–not to mention cheaper and potentially more profitable. For many instructors the challenge of teaching distance education courses is figuring out how to map traditional courses onto a distance course. But this may not be the best approach. Instead, we may want to think of distance education pedagogy as an approach in and of itself. Likewise, we may be able to develop better approaches for teaching aspects of our traditional courses by considering the strategies we use to teach distance education. Today we will examine the best teaching practices for distance education and their implications for other teaching contexts.

Discussion I - Guest Speaker: Dr. Whithaus

Former ODU professor Dr. Whithaus (University of California, Davis) will speak about his experiences teaching distance courses and the scholarship he has done on the pedagogical issue.

Discussion II - Teaching at a Distance

The readings for this week prompt us to think the strategies and pedagogical philosophies instructors adopt when they teach students at a distance. We will discuss the following:

• What questions do you have about these articles?
• What are their respective arguments?
• What did you find most interesting about these readings?
• For those of you who have taken courses in Gornto or at HECs, how much of these reading resonate with your experiences and the experiences of your peers ? What about those of you who have taught at a distance already?
• We often talk about distance education pulling from traditional classrooms. What do you think traditional classrooms can learn from distance education.
• The dean of our fictional school has told us that we need to offer Literature 2.0 for distance students with classes capped at 50 students. This is to be discussed at a department meeting. What are your concerns? What are you going to ask for?

Discussion III: Pedagogy Project

For five to ten minutes casually talk to your peers about your pedagogy project and what paper topics do you think may come from it?