The ‘dissertation marathon’ in doctoral distance education

Participation in “communities of practice” is often depicted as a central feature of various theoretical understandings of the social nature of learning. How are such communities of practice to be enacted in distance education, which, by definition, implies spatial detachment? This article reflects on the dimensions of communities of practice experienced by four students undertaking doctoral studies by distance education, working in different countries than the one in which the institution of their studies is based, and at four different phases of their doctoral program. In each writer’s experience, community of practice involvement was identified as critical in program completion, yet the source of the learning community was in each case outside of institutional provision.     

Long-term instructional development: A 20-year ID and implementation project

This article describes the development and implementation in the schools over a 20-year period of the Energy Source Program, a comprehensive K-12 energy education curriculum. The program was developed beginning in 1980 using state-of-the-art development procedures for that time and has been used to date by more than 12 million American students to learn about energy and energy issues. End-of-unit posttest scores for the elementary and high school units averaged above 80% for their field tests. Data obtained from a large sample during the first three years of installation of the program in the schools indicated that posttest scores remained at a level during installation similar to that during the field-test phase. A study conducted in the early 1990s by an independent research organization to assess the program's long-term effects revealed that grade 6 students who had used one or more units from the program had significantly greater energy knowledge and better energy conservation habits than students who had not used any units. A set of 10 guidelines are offered for long-term instructional development and implementation projects. He supervised the development of the Energy Source Program from 1980 to 1984 while serving as a consultant to EDS. Kay Ice was Director of Program Development at EDS, and she was a primary writer and developer of the Energy Source Program. She has been president of EDS since 1999. Fred Niedermeyer was the founding president of EDS. He was project director of the Energy Source project, and he played a major role in all aspects of the project from its inception until his retirement in 1999.     

Creativity in Art: The feasibility of assessing current conceptions in the school context

The article reviews different views of creativity, building on the work of Czikszentmihaly. It offers a definition of creativity in terms of trait/process/product. The issue of how creativity might be assessed is explored using this definition and some illustrative examples are provided. The article concludes that creativity can and should be assessed but that this must be with an appropriate methodology. Such assessment is important not only for assessing students' work but also for evaluating curriculum content, in order to promote curriculum development in the teaching of creativity.     

Interactive Television (ITV) Instructor Behaviors: Implications of Frequency and Importance

Two hundred students majoring in education responded to the Validation of Effective Behaviors of Distance Instructors Inventory (McKenzie, Kirby, & Mims, 1997). The 41 items measured two dimensions: frequency and importance of effective behaviors in delivering distance instruction. A two-way within-subjects ANOVA was conducted. Of the 41 items, 14 were rated higher in importance than in frequency. The 14 items were then analyzed using Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation, which yielded two factors: Effective Learning Methods and Student Guidance. This study suggests that the behaviors of Interactive Television (ITV) instructors may be lacking in these two important factors.