Distance Education Best Practices Greats

After reading about the best practices and how some schools put them into place, the thing that still strikes me is how far we have come in the past 10 years with distance education.  While there are still times when I hear interviews on the radio comparing a school such as University of Phoenix with a school like Villanova and the commentator saying that Villanova would win every time, I think those things are changing. I think that more and more schools are even offering students the ability to get their degree online even when they have a full on-site campus which is the case for Liberty University.  The research is proving that the online courses do not have to less than the regular brick and mortar class but can actually be better. The online class can cost a college less money because they do not have to own real estate for the students to gather and take their classes. 

Lynn Smith wrote an article for Distance Learning magazine entitled Best Practices in Distance Education and she writes about a study by R.E. Mayer (1989) that states that “on effect size differences for understanding with text alone versus text and graphics.” (Smith, 2006)  Smith also writes that “Mayer’s view is a constructivist view of learning” (Smith, 2006) Students have a need to interact with their instructor whether it is face to face, on Skype or even on video that was recorded for the student to learn from.  The distance learning classroom offers many opportunities for the learner to connect with their teacher and for the teacher to deliver their course materials in a variety of ways.

Another issue that Smith outlines is assessment stating that "online assessment must be authentic, ongoing, multideminsional and reflective to be effective in a distance environment" (Smith, 2006)

The distance classroom also should include collaboration among the classmates as this helps to keep the student from feeling isolated and disconnected from the class.  When teaching and learning in a distance learning environment the student must be disciplined and manage their time well and the teacher must be organized and teach a course that is both interesting and that grabs the students attention while helping them to learn the material.

I have attended online classes to complete the work on my undergraduate degree and now on my graduate level courses and I must say that the combinations of methods used to deliver materials works very well for my learning style. I enjoy having more responsibility for my learning and being accountable to take care of my education. I am a visual learner as well and it really helps to have various digital tools at my disposal when I am learning in the online environment.

Below are a few different articles that I read for this project.

Chen, C.-H., & Howard, B. (2010). Effect of live simulation on middle school students' attitudes and learning toward science. Educational Technology & Society, 13(1), 133+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA221919034&v=2.1&u=vic_liberty&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w

Ion Mierlus-Mazilu, & Majercsik, L. (2010). Trends in distance education. Bucharest, Romania, Bucharest: Technical University of Civil Engineering from Bucharest. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/841118669?accountid=12085

Smith, L. M. (2006). Best practices in distance education. Distance Learning, 3(3), 59-66. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/230695897?accountid=12085

Simonson, M., Schlosser, C., & Orellana, A. (2011). Distance education research: A review of the literature. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 23(2-3), 124-142. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12528-011-9045-8