Education Commons^™

Atlanta Emerging Librarians Encouraging Distance Education, Ashley Dupuy

Georgia Library Quarterly

The article reports on the efforts of the Atlanta Emerging Librarians in encouraging students and new librarians to participate in distance education programs in library science. Programs were promoted by the group through library school electronic mailing lists and the membership of the Georgia Library Association. The group conducted a program on library user instruction in March 2009 featuring librarians as speakers, including Anne Wallace and Casey Long. One of the popular programs during the event was "Meet With the Admins."

Character Development In A Distance Education Literature Course: Perspectives On Independent Study English 395r-Christian Fantasy Literature, Michael C. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The goals of higher education often entail the development of students' character. Rarely, however, are these character development goals connected to the unique design and delivery of distance education programs. Additionally, the research literature that explores the character development aspects of distance education is sparse. Thus the purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how character development may occur in a distance context. Taking a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, I examined instructor and student perceptions of character development in a fantasy literature independent study course. Findings indicate that students perceived development of traits and strengths in the …

Community College: The Chameleon Of Higher Education, Louis Fletcher

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal

A perceived dichotomy in higher education frames the relationship between four-year universities and community colleges. The four-year university thrives on publishing research as much as it does on administering curriculum leading to a degree. The community college is focused on instruction which could lead to a degree, certificate, or other outcome that serves the needs of the community. The four-year university serves the traditional student who typically attends the institution full-time and is a recent product of secondary education. The community college serves the non-traditional student who typically attends the institution part-time and often has already entered the world of …

Building Collaborative Reference And Instructional Services For Distance Education Students, Angela P. Whitehurst, Carolyn N. Willis

The Southeastern Librarian

To meet the needs of rigorous educational programs, academic libraries must make a commitment to serve growing distance education (DE) populations. Students who participate in distance education are typically older, nontraditional students with unique characteristics who need special services provided by their university library in order to obtain an education equal to their on-campus counterparts. Creating a successful reference and instructional service for distance education students not only takes planning, collaboration, and assessment, but also requires knowing your audience, constantly experimenting with new technologies, expecting the unexpected, and being ready to problem-solve at a moment’s notice. In this article, the …

Online But Off-Topic: Establishing Common Ground In Small Learning Groups, Trena M. Paulus

Educational Psychology & Counseling Publications and Other Works

There is not yet a great deal of research in formal online learning environments focusing on the seemingly “off-topic” conversations that small groups engage in as they complete learning tasks together. This study uses the theory of common ground as a framework to explore what participants are talking about when not discussing the concepts to be learned and how participants negotiate common ground in distance learning environments, including their use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools. The email, discussion forum, and chat transcripts of ten small groups comprised of experienced distance learners were investigated using computer-mediated discourse analysis, particularly attending to …

Beyond Volunteerism And Good Will: Examining The Commitment Of Schoolbased Teachers To Distance Education, Michael K. Barbour, Dennis Mulcahy

Education Faculty Publications

Two decades ago Newfoundland and Labrador introduced distance education in the K-12 environment. The program focused upon providing advanced-level courses to rural school students, and worked largely due to the widely known, but rarely documented significant amounts of content-based assistance from school based personnel. In the past seven years the province has moved to a virtual school model of distance education and more rural schools find that they must rely upon this virtual school to offer academic-level courses to students with a wide range of abilities. This has created many new responsibilities for teachers that have also gone undocumented. Studies …

Empowering Faculty To Facilitate Distance Education, Jane Arenas, Henry Gray, Paulette Hamner

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal

Traditional education has undergone major changes over the past decade. Higher education has evolved from brick and mortar to virtual campuses. Technological advancements in communication have changed the way information is presented. The manner in which students learn has also evolved. Educational leaders must also evolve to meet the needs of both students and faculty because, faculty members struggle with changing curricula, non-traditional learning environments and new technology. They need their leaders to assist them with the transitions (Tjosvold 2006). This paper attempts to provide a research-based framework through which educational leaders might empower faculty to better meet the mission, …

Correlational Analysis Of Adult Students' Self-Directed Learning Readiness, Affective Learning Outcomes, Prior Electronic Learning Experience, And Age In Hybrid And Online Course-Delivery Formats, Gleb Nikitenko

Doctoral Dissertations

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An Exploration Of The Impact Of An Online Mba Course On Intercultural Sensitivity Development, Suzanne Scaffidi Warell

Dissertations (1934 -)

While research on online MBA courses is growing rapidly, teaching specific skills using online delivery formats is a relatively new stream of research in graduate business education. In this study, adult learning methods such as experiential activities, discussion, teamwork, and action learning were used in a seven-week online MBA course to explore in what ways intercultural sensitivity could be developed. A two-trial, pretest-posttest research mixed methods design was implemented in the summers of 2004 and 2005 at a Midwestern Jesuit university.

Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered and analyzed from thirty-eight participants (N=38). First, quantitative analysis of pretest-posttest scores from …

Ten Scalability Factors In Distance Education, R. Dwight Laws, Scott L. Howell, Nathan K. Lindsay

Faculty Publications

The institutional decision about how much technology should be used to scale distance education enrollments, reduce costs, maximize profits, and protect course and program quality is both institutional specific and complex. Guri-Rosenblit (1999) noted that “many conventional universities worldwide operate as large-scale universities and are in a continuous search to find the right balance between massification trends, quality education, and the catering to the individual needs of students” (p. 289). This research is an outgrowth of the authors’ own efforts to identify relevant scalability factors and their interrelationship one to another in a traditional university’s distance education program.

A Survey Of School Psychology Faculty Members' Knowledge, Skills, And Attitudes Regarding Distance Education And Distance Education Technologies, Tonya C. Chacón

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Research suggests that availability and use of distance education (DE) and distance education technologies (DET, i.e., technological applications) are growing at a prolific rate. Excitement over new technologies stems from their potential to develop new ways of teaching and learning. Yet, whereas the infrastructure necessary to support DE and DET exists, pedagogical applications have not kept pace. A major reason cited in the literature for limited use of DE and DET is mainstream faculty leadership and willingness to adopt these applications. While faculty members have expertise in content and pedagogy, DE and DET adoption may require greater technological competence. In …

A Comparison Of Instructional Delivery Methods Based On Student Evaluation Data, John Hackworth, Carol Considine, Vernon Lewis

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Distance Education is an increasingly common educational delivery method. At Old Dominion University, all junior and senior level engineering technology courses are offered via distance education at least once every two years. A majority of courses in the distance education system at this university have three simultaneous delivery methods: on-campus, televised (receiving the course at an off-campus site via satellite video/audio), and internet-based video-streamed.

This paper explores the results of student course evaluation surveys for trends, in particular those trends which can be a result of the mode of delivery. Results of these surveys for 23 courses over a 4-year …

Community College Online Course Retention And Final Grade: Predictability Of Social Presence, Simon Y. Liu, Joel Gomez, Cherng-Jyh Yen

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This study employed a quantitative research design to examine the predictive relationships between social presence and course retention as well as final grade in community college online courses. Social presence is defined as the degree of one's feeling, perception and reaction to another intellectual entity in the online environment. Course final grades included A, B. C, D, F, I, or W. Course retention was defined as successfully completed a course with an A to C grade. The results of the binary and ordinal logistic regression analyses suggest that social presence is a significant predictor of course retention and final grade …

Insights From Research On Distance Education Learners, Learning, And Learner Support, Richard E. West

Faculty Publications

This article reviews the key ideas related to increasing student learning and support described in selected chapters from the second edition of the Handbook of Distance Education (Moore 2007). These chapters described research findings related to the impact of distance education on learners in general (student autonomy, cognition, social learning, and satisfaction), as well as specific subgroups of distance students and instructors (K-12, female, and disabled students as well as academic advising and library services). This article concludes with brief recommendations for future research in each of these areas.