Creating and Sustaining Communities of Learning within Distance Learning Environments: Focusing upon Making Connections, Creating Communities of Learning, and Responsibilities

Crawford, Caroline M.; Cook, Ruth Gannon

doi:10.18848/1447-9494/cgp/v15i02/45630

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“…However, as indicated by OUM's cumulative attrition rate of 42.3% from the years (Abdol Latif, Sumalee, & Bahroom, 2009, much more needs to be done to help sustain the distance learners who are likely to feel isolated and alienated because of a lack of interaction and communication with fellow learners, tutors, and the university as compared to those in traditional universities (Hara & Kling, 2001;Flowers, 2001;Zirkle, 2002;Dzakiria, 2005). In trying to bridge the transactional distances faced by the learners, it was noted that the university needed to provide a higher level of support to the learners more regularly and unobtrusively and to engage them psychologically by motivating and reminding them to keep pace with course schedules and requirements, as well as to help them develop self-regulation skills (Tyler-Smith, 2006;Crawford, 2008). The universities recorded success in the following areas of support to their learners:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

IRRODL Volume 12, Number 2

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2011

IRRODL

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We are pleased to present another general issue of IRRODL to our research community, distance educators, and general readers throughout the world. This delightful general issue has a variety of themes, including instructional design for distance education, support for distributed adjunct faculty, and mobile learning.The first research article by Simon Paul Atkinson presents a new and, I think, a very practical instructional design model for online education. His article, "Embodied and Embedded Theory in Practice: The Student-Owned Learning-Engagement (SOLE) Model," describes the rationale for, and a good description of, a toolkit that is designed to help instructors and designers create online courses that make the most of both the technical and pedagogical affordances of the Web.Our second research article challenges us to look beyond the hype and sales talk too often associated with online learning and to confront the challenges of high dropout and low prestige and lack of acceptance by mainstream academics. In "Head of Gold, Feet of Clay: The Online Learning Paradox," researchers Thomas Michael Power and Anthony Morven-Gould propose a way out of John Daniel's iron triangle of cost, accessibility, and quality by combining both synchronous and asynchronous models to create "blended" online learning design (BOLD).Many models of distance education achieve their economy of scale and reduce costs by employing part-time adjunct faculty. Thus, they are a critical and arguably the most important component of any distance education system. However providing adequate training and support to these distributed educators has long been a challenge to distance education systems. We are pleased to publish two articles that investigate ways to support adjunct faculty. The first by Julie Shattuck, Bobbi Dubins, and Diana Zilberman is titled "Maryland Online's Inter-Institutional Project to Train Higher Education Adjunct Faculty to Teach Online," and it evaluates a program designed to help adjunct faculty become highly effective online teachers. The lessons learned and the interventions developed and piloted in Maryland and described in this article will be useful in guiding professional development and support units across the world. The second by Vera Dolan ii is titled "The Isolation of Online Adjunct Faculty and its Impact on their Performance." It presents the results of a grounded theory study of adjunct faculty with specific focus on the value of occasional face-to-face interactions with administrators and colleagues at the institution where they are employed. As noted above the study also reveals the need for quality professional development and support. The two articles together overview the need and present solutions to supporting these important workers in our distance education systems.The fifth research article, "A Pedagogical Framework for Mobile Learning: Categorizing Educational Applications of Mobile Technologies into Four Types" by Yeonjeong Park, presents a pedagogical model for designing, developing, and mark...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

IRRODL Volume 12, Number 2

Authors

2011

IRRODL

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Creating and Sustaining Communities of Learning within Distance Learning Environments: Focusing upon Making Connections, Creating Communities of Learning, and Responsibilities

Cited by 1 publication

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IRRODL Volume 12, Number 2

IRRODL Volume 12, Number 2

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