Distance Education

Distance Learning Pros and Cons

Pros:

1) A major advantage of distance learning is the ability to learn at one’s own pace. To many who have other responsibilities, this will be preferred. There may be situations such as pregnancy that inhibit student participation. These students may now choose when to dedicate their time and still fulfill their other obligations.

2) Taking online classes may allow for flexibility in class scheduling. In traditional schools, classes may be offered at particular times. These may conflict and limit the input a student has on his/her educational future.

3) Some students in rural communities may live at great distances from their schools. The time wasted on a bus or car may then be used in an educational environment. It would also be socially hard on these children who have to sacrifice much time traveling.

4) Due to less overhead costs and accessibility of teachers, there may be a greater diversity of courses offered. Students may then take courses that meet their abilities and educational levels. Gifted students and those that struggle are both at risk of dropping out due to their needs not being met.

5) Traditional classes are constrained by their physical environment. Online classes can explore a range of environments. Images and information can be brought in from multiple sources and adjusted in accordance to what is being taught. A class text book does not offer this.

Cons:

1) Although having the flexibility to study and work on your own schedule is an advantage, the student must be responsible enough to put in the required time and effort. To many this will be difficult, especially if it is the first time taking an online class. They may be accustomed to having teachers play a major role in keeping them on track. In many online courses, the responsibility to acquire information will be on the student. They may be accustomed to having a teacher deliver the information. Finding what part of the information is important may also be daunting to those students who are accustomed to having it pointed out to them.

2) Although many in today’s society have access to the latest technology, there are still those that do not. These students will not be given the same opportunities that those students with a higher socioeconomic background. Even with access to these technologies, many students will have to devote much time and effort into learning their use.

3) Technical issues can be a problem. There may be a breakdown on either side of the educational arrangement. The students may have issues, or the educator may. Such circumstances must be accounted for without allowing excuses.

4) On line courses lack in social interaction. To some who have other responsibilities this may be preferred, others may feel disconnected. The comfort of having a live person to communicate with cannot be underestimated.

5) There may be issues of accountability. It may be difficult to determine absolutely if a particular student authored an assignment.

Student Readiness: In order to determine whether students are ready for distance learning, a teacher must consider the character of the student, accessibility to required technologies, the type of assessment, and some type of oversight, such as a parent. Students that will excel in this type of education are able to work independently and able to take a proactive initiative in their own education. The student must have access to a computer or be able to travel to one that has public access such as a library. The work must be able to be completed in a virtual environment. There may be situations such as lab work when the student will have to come to the school in person to compete an assignment. Presentations may be done online if the student has access to a video recorder or conferencing software. Lastly in a high school environment, it would be preferable if there was a parent that is willing to take the time to become engaged in their child’s education. This parent would be informed of due dates and expectations of their child.

Teacher: In order to be an effective online teacher, knowledge of how to use a range of computer systems is necessary. This is not only to be able to communicate with students, but to use a range of educational software and strategies in order to engage the student. Examples are WebQuest assignments, virtual labs, and Skype.

Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities

For those students that are more visual, it may be better to use a concept map to give instructions or help identifying processes. These maps may be given with instructions on the side so that those who prefer written text will be accommodated as well. For many students having the text, and using a visual representation as a reference, will be most successful.

Using a concept map can also promote critical thinking. Students must evaluate their circumstances and then refer to the map in order to justify their next step. An example of this would be the identification of an unknown microbe. Students must use tests and evaluate the outcome before continuing along the appropriate direction on their map.

Concept mapping can be used to connect topics. Students can use this technique in order to arrange the relationship of different ideas. By creating this visual representation, complex matrixes of connections can be analyzed as a whole. This would be much more difficult if the topics and their relations were written in text form. This type of arranging information could also be used as a rough draft to organize information in order to transfer it into written form.

When using concept mapping in the classroom, national and state standards must be taken into consideration. In the realm of the sciences, using concept mapping can be used in support of an inquiry based lesson. Students can use concept mapping to demonstrate their perspectives to different events and outcomes. The teacher could then assess the map on its rational.

Concept maps can be used in biology for several different ways. One of the ways it can be used is in a taxidermic method. It can show the linkages due to the similarity in genetics between organisms. The more similar the DNA code, the closer related the organisms are. This process can also help in identify branching points in organisms’ evolutionary progress. Since there is relatively consistent rate of mutation at certain areas of the genetic code, the amount of similarity can then be manipulated to show the amount of time since divergence. The lengths of the connecting lines are representative of the amount of time.

As a biology teacher I plan to use concept maps routinely. They are the primary way to demonstrate different cycles such as the water cycle, carbon cycle, or food webs. The amount of information and relationships within these cycles could not be adequately represented in written text. Using this type of presentation is the most efficient.

Two criteria that I will use in order to decide if concept mapping will be used are: 1) If the student in the class react better to visual material, and 2) In the support of inquiry, students find their own ways of analyzing and representing information.

The following is an example of using a concept map to find the different effects of pollution.

Reflections on Using TeacherWeb

Use of TeacherWeb in the Future
In the future, I could use a TeacherWeb site to keep students updated on their grades, due dates, and post assignments. If students loose a handout, they will be able to view it online.
This setup is also a way that parents can stay up to date with what their children are doing in their classes. Parents can then take an active part in the students learning.

Student Learning Enhancements
The TeacherWeb can be beneficial for certain students with learning disabilities. These students become engaged in virtual labs and can learn at their own pace. Refer to following article:

Windelspecht, M. (2001). Technology in the Freshman Biology Classroom: Breaking the Dual Learning Curve. The American Biology Teacher, 63(2), 96-101.


A site like TeacherWeb will also allow students that want to expand on their knowledge in the field, to venture out to other sites of interest from the links section. The student could then approach the teacher with further questions from this information. The teacher can then direct the student on where to find more information or experiments.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

Today’s classrooms are becoming increasingly interactive through new communication technologies. Two of these are Wikis and Blogs. Different ways these technologies are being used are explained bellow:

Keeping Parents Informed Teachers can use blogs as a public forum so parents can be informed on what students are studying and when assignments are due. This frees up time for teachers who would be putting effort into communication with all the parents in a class. Blogs may also serve to answer similar questions that multiple parents may have. Parents may also post concerns and questions to subject matter or class activities.

Introducing Technologies to Students Teachers may decide to create blogs for individual students. By doing so, students take control over that part of their class. These can be open to the public, or private. The instructor can use the private blogs to collect homework or see what individual student’s commentaries of their work are. By using public blogs, students can display their work for commentary to the general public. Other students can then examine and comment on the work.

Wiki as a Group Consensus Teachers may create a wiki in which students can enter information, data, or conclusions from class work. In this manner, students build a single information source from the group as a whole. This can be in the form of vocabulary lists, experimental designs and outcomes, and any other qualitative or quantitative information.

RSS Readers/Aggregators One way to use this technology in the classroom is to set it up to show the latest updates from popular magazine-journal sites. An example of this could be the introduction of new articles from the Discovery website in a Biology class. Students will then be updated on the latest advancements in the field. The class could then open up into a discussion about the latest news.

Pros of this Technology

1) Students can feel that they have control over their work and progress. On their blog sites they decide what is and isn’t to be published and read by others.

2) By introducing this technology in the classroom, students become aware of the latest communication forms. This will give them an advantage in higher education and work environments. Companies will be more likely to hire those applicants with the ability to use the latest technology and don’t need extra training.

Cons of this Technology

1) Not all students have access to technology in their homes. This will prevent them from equal participation. In the case of blogging for parents, some will not be as informed of the activities as others.

2) Preexisting knowledge of technology use may also influence who is successful in the classroom. In some cases this may parallel cultural, racial, and socioeconomic lines. Effort must be made to make sure that all students regardless of their background have an equal opportunity to learn and succeed.

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

After taking a multiple intelligence and learning styles test, the highest relevant category returned was that of a naturalist. In order to analyze this learning style in further detail, the website http://surfaquarium.com/MI/profiles/index.htm was consulted.

From this website some core characteristics of a naturalist which best defines me were determined. These included Natural Orientation and Hierarchical Reasoning. These fit my personality in that I assign value to items or situations according to their intrinsic states.

Students who share these characteristics will tend to excel in science classes where naturalism and environmental factors are studied. They will enjoy collecting specimens and organizing them according to physical, organic, or zoological categories. They will learn best by analyzing figures and graphs, and sorting the information into comprehensive systems.

As a teacher, in order to accommodate these students, I would use teaching techniques that included the grouping and sorting of organisms according to their genetic closeness or place on the food chain. Other exercises will include the construction of ecological webs in order to demonstrate the interactions between organisms. In order for these students to reflect on their work, they will develop a portfolio according to different scientific disciplines.

Some of the instruments that the students will use include microscopes, sample boxes, and specimen bins. The students will also be introduced to newer technologies such as genetic databases online.

In order best accommodate students who are naturalists, I will have many lively prints and figures on the walls. As allowed by regulations, there will also be small live animals that exhibit social interactions that can easily be observed. An example would be an ant colony within a thin glass enclosure. There will also be stuffed zoological specimens so that the students can observe outer physiological characteristics up close.

Because not all students share my method of learning, other teaching strategies will be employed. These will include more hands on experiments, discussion groups, and independent work.

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Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog. My name is Sean Greig. I am a student at Washington State University seeking teaching certifications in Biology and Mathematics. I have a B.S. in Ecology from the University of Kansas.

I am a disabled veteran and am on the VA's VocRehab scholarship.