Title: Distance Learning: Instructional Strategies That Work
Abstract: Abstract Distance education and teacher preparation programming are not natural cohorts. This paper examines what it means to be a distance educator as a resident faculty member ninety miles from the main campus. The author shares specific instructional strategies believed to provide effective teacher education in distance learning and feedback from students who have graduated from the program. Balancing the needs of local students with approximating a university experience is also discussed. Introduction In a direct attempt to expand the traditions and scope of its teacher education program in the mid 1980s, a prominent southwest state university changed the name of its College of Education to the Center for Excellence in Education (CEE). As part of this university's efforts to reach more students, two-plus-two partnerships were developed with community colleges throughout the state. Students could complete their lower division classes at local community colleges and transfer to the local university extension campus in their junior year. This extension campus, ninety miles from main campus, began in a continuing education model. Students declared an interest or need for a particular class and either a local instructor was hired, an interactive television class was developed and beamed to requesting sites, or a university instructor was asked to travel to the site to teach the class. As the number of students in this local area increased and became more focused on particular instruction, the continuing education model needed refinement, especially for the teacher education program. CEE recruited a resident faculty member who would answer directly to the academic unit responsible for the teacher education program. The stated mission for the new resident faculty was to provide a university experience to students ninety miles from the main campus. These students were non-traditional in the sense that they were mostly re-entry students. They were immersed in jobs, families, and community service and ranged in age from nineteen to well past fifty-five. They either had taken classes at the local community college in the past few years or had several transcripts from colleges and universities all over the nation that spanned decades. They could not travel the distance to the main campus to continue their education, but they all wanted to become teachers and were willing to what they had to do to earn a bachelor's degree and receive a teaching certificate. Working in a community where the needs of that community had a loud voice in how programming should proceed provided the resident faculty member with a very different perspective of the university experience. The institutional voice was just one among many wanting to be heard. The resident faculty's charge seemed to be finding a balance between approximating the university experience and meeting the needs of local educators and prospective educators. Specific Instructional Strategies The dual obligations, to prepare students for the realities of where they will teach and to prepare them from professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes that reflect research-based effective teaching practice, were often in conflict. Distance learning instruction could not replicate effective models of internships and professional development schools. Instruction needed to serve the community by meeting the needs of individual students with conflicting work schedules and more personalized school expectations than a traditional university setting. Given the distanced setting, the resident faculty member employed five instructional strategies believed to bridge the gap between teacher education immersion models and community reality. Perhaps the following examples of instructional strategies for distance learning seem to be simply good teaching and learning techniques or just commonly used strategies directed toward more learner-centered classrooms. …
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-12-22
Language: en
Type: article
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