Is the pedagogy of distance learning different from the pedagogy in the traditional classroom? The University of Illinois (1999) reports that a good teacher uses good pedagogy and that good teaching is good teaching anywhere.
Although the following principles were conceived for traditional classroom teaching, Chickering and Ehrman (1997) discussed that the principles retain their centrality when applied to distance learning:
Good Practice:
encourages student-faculty contact.
encourages cooperation among students.
encourages active learning.
gives prompt feedback.
emphasizes time on task.
communicates high expectations.
respects diverse talents and ways of learning.
A good teacher makes sure to organize content in a way that assignments, homework, labs, etc. are designed to reach students with different learning styles. In other words, you are as concerned that your teaching style reaches all the students as you are that all the students are learning. A good teacher is also attentive to his or her students' needs. That is, a good teacher has a human touch. It is no surprise, though, that the first principle of good practice emphasizes the importance of student-faculty contact. A teacher who is attentive to all students, including the ones on the last row in the last broadcasting site, is more able to motive students to perform better in class. Remember, the name of the game is humanize, humanize, humanize.
One of the most important ways to achieve a successful class, whether on a traditional classroom or through distance learning, is to keep students motivated enough to create an interactive class instead of having a "talking head." How do you achieve that? By acting as a facilitator and as a master teacher in your class; that is, you will not only facilitate discussions but you will also organize the course content, create materials and, above all, add the human touch to your course. The University of Illinois (1999) proposes that a good facilitator has at least three different functions:
Contextualizing Functions
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Opening the discussion by announcing the theme. |
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Setting norms by establishing the rules of interaction. |
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Setting the class pace by controlling the flow of the discussion. |
Monitoring Functions
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Recognition: Welcome students, establish the context for the class. |
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Prompting: solicit comments, and assign work |
Meta Functions
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Meta-Commenting: remedy problems that may arise in context. |
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Weaving: summarize state of discussion. |
A way to inject interactivity into your class is to ask students to work in groups. But, how can you form groups with a class that has members dispersed in different geographic locations? There are at least two responses to this question.
One, you can form groups among students in each distance learning site. The way these groups will work is very similar to the way groups work in a traditional classroom setting.
Two, you can mix students from different distance learning sites. To do this, however, you need to have lots of planning. For instance, you can plan a class where your students are doing research so they will be busy for most of the class time. In the meantime, you can create a schedule for your groups. That is, each group will meet for 5-10 minutes using the microphones and the TV; you may meet with them at this time to guide them and to make sure that they stick to the schedule. The advantage of grouping students in different geographic places is that you give your students the opportunity to meet each other and to work with different people, and not only the ones at their own site. The disadvantage, as already mentioned, is that this type of grouping requires more planning from the instructor. Remember that your students can always continue working in their groups through the bulletin board or the internal email in WebCT.
As much as possible, an interactive instructional TV teacher should plan to broadcast several classes from other sites, not only the originating site. If other sites can act as the originating site, planning at least a lecture at each one of the distance places will reassure the students that you, as the teacher, cares about each one of them no matter how far away are from you.
Chickering, A. W., & Ehrman, S. C. (1997). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education [Online]: http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html.
University of Illinois Faculty Seminar. (1999). Teaching at an Internet distance: The pedagogy of online teaching and learning. Urbana, Il: Author.
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