Wednesday 30 December 2015

Distance Education: Does it have a place in schools?

Ae there elements of distance education approaches that could be incorporated into your assignment? Which students and in what context would the lesson be suitable for? What about a blended model?
----- 

Distance education is often approached with mixed feelings with it being a good solution for some students to access learning from anywhere at anytime or an excuse for procrastination. As someone who is taking a distance education Masters degree, I see the value in distance education and am making it work for me living in Singapore and working full time.
There are also instances where distance education is useful for our students. Some students travel for competitive sports and take online classes or are homeschooled. But is there a place for distance education in a typical school with classes every day? 

I believe the answer is yes - if students have access to resources at home and if planned out appropriately. Flipped classroom learning or blended learning environments allows students to learn content at home while using class time to explore problems and answer questions, taking the learning deeper. It uses a combination of online learning and in-person experiences (Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p. 207). 
This type of learning is something we are currently trialling for professional development with teachers. We have created a 10 week course where teachers are exposed to different technologies each week with tasks to complete. The weekly tasks are posted on a blog and class discussions take place through Edmodo. Teachers also have a blog of their own to share their learning and reflect on their practice. The course can be done completely online but there are 2 drop in sessions where participants can work through the course or use the time to ask questions of the two technology coaches leading the sessions and plan for how to integrate these tools into their classroom.

References
Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H. (2014). Integrating educational technology into teaching [Sixth Edition].

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ms. MacLean,
    'Flipped classroom learning or blended learning environments allows students to learn content at home while using class time to explore problems and answer questions, taking the learning deeper. It uses a combination of online learning and in-person experiences'.
    I agree that a Flipped Learning Model (FLM) provides a place for Distance Education. I recently used a FLM as part of a Grade 6 English unit. It engaged the students, developed 21st Century skills and provided students with a variety of learning tasks and assessments. This could very well continue to be the pedagogical approach for classrooms, and maybe more so, with continuing introduction and implementation of BYOD. What have been the benefits of the current trial used for professional development?

    ReplyDelete
  2. So far it's been a lot of fun. We are only into Week 2 of our professional development trial. One of the benefits is that we are able to engage into deeper discussions, rather just 'covering content'. With participants already having a good idea of the content, they are able to get clarification of the content they aren't so sure of. As teachers, we are all busy with meetings and other obligations so it also provides teachers the ability to learn and engage with each other when the time fits for them. We are a group of school (4) so we are also able to accommodate the learning needs of everyone even when we can't physically be at the different campuses.

    ReplyDelete