Reducing the distance: equity issues in distance learning in public education

Distance learning and educational equity both began with an emphasis on access, on providing underserved students with an increased access to education. Today definitions of equity have gone beyond simple access to include equal or equivalent treatment and outcomes while definitions of underserved students have expanded to include girls, children of color, children with limited English proficiency and children with disabilities. At the same time the definition of distance learning has expanded to include new technologies, new audiences and new roles. Based on these new definitions and roles, the article raises a number of equity challenges for distance learning educators centering around who is taught, what is taught and how the teaching is done. To answer these challenges, a series of recommendations are suggested that educators can implement to make distance learning a leader in increasing educational equity for all students. The time to act is now.     

Internet技术下远程教育电视媒体的传播策略

我国教育电视一直是远程教学中的主流媒体,在信息网络时代,教育电视面临着各种挑战与压力,使自己最有生存的远程教育空间被分割,阻碍了教育电视发展,如何探寻教育电视远程教学中发展契机,再发挥其教育电视远程的教学作用是当前关注的焦点问题。     

Rethinking reflective practice in professional lifelong learning using learning metaphors

Studies relating to reflection and reflective practice in learning, specifically workplace learning, have gradually emerged from within the professional education literature. Evidence has seen a shift from an individualistic to a more collective approach to reflection, in an attempt to move away from viewing learning as an individual action. Simultaneously attention has been given to socio-cultural theories which view learning as social practice inherent in our everyday lives, including work. This paper aims to engage in the current debate regarding the polarised conceptualisations of reflective practice within the context of professional learning. Drawing on this debate, as well as on learning metaphors, this paper proposes that professionals should engage in collective reflective practice for both individual and organisational development within workplaces; locations which could be seen as increasingly ambiguous and unpredictable throughout individuals’ working lives. Hence, we need to rehabilitate and extend some of the key aspects of the traditional concept of reflective practice to accommodate the changing terrain of professional practice within an individual professional's lifelong learning.     

Useful metaphors for tackling problems in teaching and learning

Textbooks and lectures are typically structured around the belief that students learn the same way they would climb a ladder: straight up, one step at a time. Marc Schwartz and Kurt Fischer propose a pyramid and webs of pyramids as far more appropriate and useful metaphors.     

Research ethics in open and distance education: Context,principles and issues

Since the early 1980s there has been increasing debate about research ethics and a gradual increase in the institutionalisation of ethics approval and monitoring. Initially this occurred in areas of biomedical research, but more recently all areas of research which involve human beings as sources of data have been included. Australia, along with other nations, has been intimately involved in these developments and now has a firmly established structure of Institutional Ethics Committees (IECS) topped by the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) for the approval and monitoring of human research ethics. Although there are guidelines and codes of practice, many issues remain still to be resolved as the panoply of research methods and practices is extended and encountered. Australian research in open and distance education is being caught in the embrace of IECs and their guidelines, and the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia is preparing its own code of research ethics. This article outlines the context and discusses the major ethical issues and implications for research in open and distance education. It considers issues of both principle and practice, and points to some of the special circumstances which researchers in open and distance education face.     

Supporting teachers' professional development in a developing country through practice-based inquiry and distance learning: some key issues

Abstract

This article highlights seven issues the authors encountered when they took on a very difficult task, namely of seeking, through ‘low tech’ print-based distance learning materials, to promote the professional development of experienced but untrained teachers in Namibia. The authors attempt to do this through the advocacy of an action research approach. There has been no tradition of action research in Namibia, indeed those within the country who promote this approach (the Minister of Higher Education) prefer the term Practice-based Inquiry. Moreover, the support systems that can normally be called into service in a developed country to support teachers in a distance learning initiative of this nature are virtually absent ‘on the ground’ in Namibia. The central question is can untrained teachers, themselves with a rudimentary formal education, be encouraged through a distance learning mode, to develop professionally by critically reflecting system strongly advocates ‘social reconstruction’?     

Pedagogical issues in distance education

Head of the Distance Education Division, Central Institute of Educational Technology, National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi. Previous founder director of the Open School of India. Member of numerous committees and commissions at national level, in particular, the National Task Force on Broadcasting for Education (1980/81) and the Commission for Teachers — I Task Force (1983/84). Author or co-author of five books, including Open School India,and numerous articles.     

Improving student learning in distance education: Theory,research and practice

The aim of this paper is to examine how project-based learning in distance education can be seen to make a distinctive contribution to “improving student learning”. How has this approach to course design and assessment been put into practice in an Open University (OU) course and what assumptions about teaching and learning are involved in this course development process. The paper also looks briefly at how this project component has been evaluated by describing students’ and tutors’ experiences of learning and teaching in the form of “action research” so to reflect critically on practice and so initiate change.     

Open and distance learning on the move: mobile learning,crossing borders,rethinking roles

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory case study that investigated factors affecting the retention and progression of postgraduate business students at a major Australian distance education university. The majority of prior research addressing student retention focuses on undergraduate on‐campus students, while this research investigated the postgraduate distance education context. The findings of this research indicate that a range of factors, in many cases different to those identified in the student retention literature, impact upon retention and progression in this context. This paper concludes with implications for distance education providers and recommendations for further research.     

Collegial reflection on the meaning of metaphors in learning: emerging theory and practice

As educators and lifelong learners, we were drawn together by the question: How have we fostered our own capacity for agency, self-efficacy and risk-taking in the research practices we utilize? This paper reveals a connectivity and enabling thread that has enriched our experiences within and across our disciplinary areas. In particular this paper articulates the value of metaphor as a conceptual tool as well as sharing insights and reflections on the workings of progressive integration into communities of practice.     

Cutting the distance in distance education: Perspectives on what promotes positive,online learning experiences

This qualitative research study was designed to inform the development and implementation of effective online learning environments by exploring, from both teacher and student perspectives, what constitute effective online learning experiences. The study examined course content, tasks, and pedagogical approaches, as identified by students and instructors, which contributed to or hindered positive online learning experiences. Researchers interviewed 6 online course instructors and 10 adult students to understand their experiences in undergraduate and graduate level online degree programs. Using a Cognitive Apprenticeship Model to inform the analysis of data, findings revealed an emphasis on text-based content and lecture; instruction that led to disconnect between students, teachers, and course content and goals; and one innovative program that links real-world experiences with online classroom learning. Given the growing number of online programs, the study provides insight for course development and pedagogy as well as offers possibilities for additional research.     

Time and learning in distance study

The contention of this paper is that German pre‐occupation with the ‘industrialisation’ of distance education neither gives recognition to the time constraints under which distance education students can and do learn nor gives opportunity for the development of the independent frame of mind which one recognises as an implicit benefit emerging from university study.