Distance learning: instructional strategies that work.

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 "do 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. Perhaps they do not delve deeply enough into academic conversations about what it means to provide teacher education at the academy level. Or, as intended, perhaps they are one instructor's ongoing attempt to exemplify Dewey's philosophical praxis, "There is an old saying to the effect that it is not enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something" (1916, p. 359). Effective instructional strategies, then, become the practical, the observable, the repeatable teaching and learning behaviors that can occur in any distance learning class.

K-W-L

One of the first specific instructional strategies used is based on the old K-W-L plan: What do you know? What do you want to know? What have you learned? At the beginning of both graduate and undergraduate classes assumptions are addressed about what will happen in a particular class. Major concepts are identified by the instructor and students chart their assumptions and expectations. Students add what they think is missing. The syllabus is used as a framework as it welcomes additions.

Choice

The second instructional strategy provides choice among assignments and choice among performance objectives. Students may choose areas of interest for classroom focus and to research outside of class. Although a wide array of assessment strategies are employed in these classes (informal observation of discussion and class activities, case study written reports, literature reviews, oral presentations, written critical reactions, graphic representations of concepts, quizzes and written exams, reflective journals, portfolios, and group projects), within particular assignments students have choice of how they will demonstrate meeting and exceeding objectives. For example, a student may choose to develop awareness and demonstrate mastery of a particular concept by writing a point of view story, by illustrating a children's book, by creating a graphic representation, or by doing an oral presentation. Also, students may choose grade level or subject area for their reviews of case studies presented in class.

Balance

A third instructional strategy is a balancing-of-delivery act. At a professional "workshop" a few years ago, a well-intentioned educator spoke about an ethnographic exercise, provided a very `useful model for "discovering the child," and held the audience "captive" for an entire day with the saga of his expertise. "Participants" got so fidgety that doodling, yawns, and penning puns became the observable outcomes of the workshop. A resulting poem has guided the resident faculty member's successive experience as a novice workshop leader and university instructor:

      The agony of the seat

   teacher, teacher, I am willing
   to master movement in my mind
   to use phalanges for more than writing
   to not just sit on my behind

   dear me, hear me, let me tell you
   how I think and why it's so
   you can learn, if you'll just listen
   there's more to this than what you know

   one third lecture, one third questions
   one third practice seems quite fair
   didactic teaching alone won't make it
   just your words won't get me there

   thank you, bless you, for your knowledge
   thank you for the gifts you bring
   hear me, dear me, let me practice
   my own voice, so I can sing

The importance of providing a balance of activities for students, no matter the classroom or workshop setting is paramount. In the area of teacher preparation and professional development, it is appropriate to model a variety of instructional deliveries for future classroom teachers. Whole group instruction; teacher-centered and learner-centered classroom experience; individual, paired, small group, and large group activities; and movement within and among groups according to interests, differences, and additional expertise are all necessary. This purposeful movement lays the foundation for multi-levels of discussion and enhances democratic participation.

Role Play

A fourth instructional strategy stresses the ability of a person to tolerate differences in others. During classroom activities, students are asked to take a different perspective on a variety of pertinent issues. One example is to create a point of view story. In first-person narrative, a student tells the story of an event, a person, or a concept from the perspective of an inanimate object, a bystander, or a different life form. Another example is when students argue one side, then the other, of a critical issue in education. A third example is when students respond to the same educational problem as student, as teacher, as parent, as administrator, or as the public at large. There is a vital need for informed decision-making on the part of all educators. The student who continually expresses devoted adherence to one philosophical tenet or one instructional strategy is acknowledged and asked to consider what he or she might do when teaching children who do not fit within the philosophical framework or who are not successful in their lessons. Students are asked how they will discuss teaching and learning with parents who tell them that they do not believe in homework; that school is the arena for "education" and home is not to be disturbed with "extra studies." Including guest speakers who provide a variety of teaching strategies and philosophies also informs pre-service teachers. What we say we value, we really do; our educational community is composed of differing, sometimes opposing, views.

Reflection

Bringing the field into the teacher education classroom is the fifth instructional strategy. One of the biggest obstacles in distance learning is the race between pre-service teacher immersion in field experience and accommodating individual needs that preclude "extra time" in classrooms outside of methodology classes and required practicum time. Students know they are required by the state to complete forty-five practicum hours during three semesters of methods coursework before their student teaching semester. The forty-five hours are divided into fifteen hours of practicum each semester before student teaching. Many times students are able to complete more than fifteen hours each semester, but just as many times, students are only able to meet their required hours. As discussed in the next section of this paper, students who have graduated and received teacher certification from this program say, overwhelmingly, that their field experience was their most effective learning tool for teacher preparation. But, surveys of prospective and current students on availability for more field experience hours mostly reflect an inability to go beyond the required hours.

The goal, then, is to provide opportunities for students to bring reflections of their field experiences into their methodology classes to share with each other. Directed observations in specific curricular areas are shared in small groups of similar grade levels. As students critique children's trade books they are invited to discuss how they saw particular readings being utilized in elementary classrooms. Lessons that are observed or practiced in field placements are examined for links to state standards and to thematic units. These strategies provide the basis for a broader experience in local classrooms. They also link field experiences to methodology class assignments in a collaborative manner.

What does it mean ...

The five instructional strategies described in the previous section include a conspiratorial thrust. Students are encouraged to go beyond their stated axiom of doing what they have to do to get a teaching certificate. Students participate in curriculum building in their own classes. They participate as individual learners and as team members.

In her drive to extend teacher preparation timelines to meet the needs of a diverse 21st Century population, Breidenstein reminds educators that "Reforming teacher education is important, because teacher preparation impacts who will enter teaching, how well they will be prepared, how they will teach, and what roles they will assume as teachers and leaders" (2000, p. 111). Distance learning is a major part of teacher education reform at numerous universities. Television classes, web-based classes, and resident faculty members have the same obligation as campus programming to prepare students to be effective teachers.

In a survey sent to the forty-five recent graduates of the local distance learning campus, former students were asked, "If you had been a full-time residential campus student, do you think there would have been a difference in the quality of instruction you received in the Teacher Education Program?" Sixty-six percent of the twenty-seven respondents reported a difference. Most of the respondents stated that they thought they had received more individual attention than their residential campus counterparts and were able to make stronger contacts with potential employers in local area schools because of the involvement of so many teachers and administrators in their methods classes. A few of these respondents thought that either particular classes offered on-site were of lesser quality than the same class offered at the residential campus or the overall quality of non-traditional students on-site was not as high as that of the residential campus academic community. Thirty-four percent of respondents reported that they did not think location was a factor in the quality of their instruction.

The majority of respondents were in their first or second year of classroom teaching. Although they were very satisfied with their professional program, they have not been in the classroom long enough for a comprehensive discussion of how well their teacher preparation has influenced their effectiveness as teachers. Most of the graduates secured local teaching positions. They report feeling prepared for classroom teaching. They say they appreciated the opportunity to complete their education and certification process locally. Considering the number of graduates who stay and teach in the local area, many will also complete their graduate work locally. These teachers become mentor teachers of new education students. A concern is the lack of a wider audience for collaboration and evaluation. Proximity may preclude progress. As Marzano (2000) concludes in last year's ASCD Yearbook:

   The last 100 years have produced amazing advances in our understanding of
   the workings of the mind and the nature of learning. Although the 20th
   century began with a fairly myopic view of teaching as the presentation of
   knowledge, it concluded with a panoramic perspective on instruction that
   addressed such diverse aspects of learning as the importance of affect, the
   role of attitudes and beliefs, the importance of metacognition and prior
   knowledge, and information analyses. (p. 90)

Varying teaching education programs such as internships, professional development schools, site-based cohorts, more traditional teacher education programs, and distance learning models serve a myriad of students and offer a variety of field experiences. Even within the parameters of the distance learning site, graduates recognize the importance of field experience as a major part of the teacher education program. In response to a question about what was the most effective source of learning for teacher preparation, distance education graduates overwhelmingly reported that student teaching and practicum experience were their best preparation. As one student described her field experience, "It offers a small window into teaching, but it is the most useful view."

Finally

Teacher educators need to provide a room with a view that embraces what Palmer describes as "`both-and' instead of `either-or'" thinking (1999, p. 10). Distance educators also need to approximate the university experience with students. Inclusion is paramount for both. Dewey's last published statement warned:

   There is a great deal of talk about education being a cooperative
   enterprise in which teachers and students participate democra- tically, but
   there is far more talk about it than doing it. It should be commonplace,
   but unfortunately it is not, that no education -- or anything else for that
   matter -- is progressive unless it is making progress. (Tanner, 1991)

As teacher education programs expand to include internet classes and statewide sites to reach more students, they need to be aware of how they are progressing and if they are, really, progressing at all. A resident faculty member representing a distance learning site, can emulate a "one-man-band." One hopes that the band is not all bells and whistles and sings a thoughtful tune. Certainly, partnerships with local students, the community college, and public schools support a range of voices. Any educator's attempt in

   building a partnership through mutual efforts is a significant process that
   takes substantial time and energy ... The degree to which a partnership
   provides for the particular needs of a community of learners verifies its
   effectiveness. Perhaps the narrative tapestry of educational partnerships
   will continue to be at the heart of the specific needs of those involved.
   Parity is particularized, after all, and drawing the line on an effective
   partnership is dependent upon who's holding the pen. (Greene & Tichenor,
   1999, p. 19)

Distance learning attempts to provide effectiveness in teacher preparation at the local level. Its song should not be a hollow tune.

References

Breidenstein, A. (Spring, 2000). Re-forming teacher education: The promise of extended programs. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 36(3), 111-115.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillian Co.

Greene, P. K., & Tichenor, M. S. (Summer, 1999). Partnerships on a collaborative continuum. Contemporary Education, 70(4), 13-19.

Marzano, R. J. (2000). Twentieth century advances in instruction. In R. S. Brandt (Ed.), Education in a new era.. Alexandria, VA: Asso- ciation for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Palmer, P.J. (1999). Evoking the spirit in public education. Educational Leadership, 56(4), 6-11.

Tanner, D. (1991). Crusade for democracy. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Dr. Greene is Resident Faculty for NAU's Teacher Education Program in Prescott, Arizona. She received her doctorate at Peabody College in 1995.