GLOSSARY OF DiSTANCE EDUCATiON

Andragogy:
Approach to education promoted by Knowles and based on assumptions about adult learning, including (1) Adults need to know why they need to learn something, (2) Adults need to learn experientially, (3) Adults approach learning as problem-solving, and (4) Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value. These should be taken into consideration as we think about adult distant learners.

Assessment:
Evaluation of project or course based on measuring pre- against post- awareness, knowledge, or skills.

Assignments:
Work produced by students and used by instructors for purposes of interaction and also evaluation.

Behaviorism:
Follows the traditions of Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike, and Skinner by viewing behavior as a result of stimulus-response.

Cognitive theories:
Follows the interest in the internal processes of the brain. Interested in learner's prior knowledge and learner style.

Collaborative learning:
A learning environment in which individual learners support and add to an emerging pool of knowledge of a group; emphasizes peer relationships as learners work together creating learning communities.

Constructivism:
Approach that views knowledge as an active process of subjectively building a system of meanings. Based on "autonomous individuals constructing their own knowledge based on their own experiences."

Distance education:

Teaching and learning in which learning normally occurs in a different place from teaching.

Distance education courses:

Structured programs of instruction for learners in a different place from the teacher, having learning objectives, one or more teachers, a medium of communication, and subject matter.

Distance education institution:

College, university or school system organized exclusively for distance education.

Distance education program:
"Distance education activities carried out in a conventional college, university, school system, or training department whose primary responsibilities include traditional classroom instruction."

Distance education system:
All the component processes that result in distance education, including learning, teaching, communication, design, and management.

Distance learning:
Term often used as synonymous with distance education, not strictly correct since distance education includes teaching as well as learning.

Effectiveness:
Measure of achieving a specific goal: Typical effectiveness measures in distance education include cost, course design, instruction, media, teaching strategies, technology. Relates to quality assurance.

Facilitation:
Assisting/guiding approach ("guide-on-the-side") to a learning situation; can be contrasted to the directive teacher-instructor ("sage-on-the-stage") approach. psychology.

Feedback:
Key element in any form of communication: the response of the receiver to the sender.

Independent study:
Term used in North American universities from the mid 1960s in place of "correspondence study," partly to loosen associations with for-profit correspondence schools, partly to accommodate emerging, non-text media, and partly to emphasize the greater autonomy of the student in the teacher-learner transaction.

Instructors:
Specialists in learning who interact through technology with students as they learn content, usually designed by course team, though quite often by the instructors themselves.

Interaction:
Exchange of information, ideas, opinions between and among learners and teachers, usually occurring through technology with the aim of facilitating learning. A widely cited concept of interaction discriminates between learner-teacher interaction, learner-learner interaction and learner-content interaction.

Just-in-time learning:
"An approach to educational delivery in which small segments of learning are delivered when and where the need arises." Not based on fully understanding, but on specific problem-solving implementations. Response to need education and training needs in a rapidly changing environment.

Knowledge transfer:
Describes a view of education in which knowledge is packaged and transmitted to learners. In distance education this is manifested in very precise and careful organization of content with relatively little emphasis on interaction except for remedial purposes, since it is assumed all that is needed is contained in the package.

Learner autonomy:
"Concept that learners have different capacities for making decisions regarding their own learning." Relates to the structure and interactive expectations of a distance education course. A key element in adult learning.

Open education:
An imprecisely defined term often used synonymously with distance education and popular in countries that have traditionally had a very closed and elitist higher education system, to indicate relative freedom of access and choice of routes to course completion. Education that is not place-bound; occurring in student's environment.

Open learning:
Used synonymously with "open education" to emphasize systems of education which allow entry into the system without consideration of prior educational experiences. Also, describes a model of distance education developed by Kember which considers the influences of social and academic factors on learning outcomes.

Self-assessment:
"An internal review by which an organization assesses its own processes and performance against given criteria."

Self-directed learning:
The ability to exercise "learner autonomy." No one is autonomous at all times or able to be fully self-directed as a learner at all times, but the development of these capacities is the aim of many educational philosophies. The teacher aims to transfer to the learner the skills associated with teaching, i.e., to decide what ought to be learned, the most effective means of learning it, and to know realistically and correctly when the learning has been achieved.

Self-esteem:
Personal feelings of high or low self worth.

Teacher-focused:
An approach to education in which the teacher is the holder of knowledge to be dispensed to students; can be contrasted with "learner-focused."

Technology:
Mechanisms for distributing messages, including postal systems, radio and television broadcasting companies, telephone, satellite and computer networks.

Transactional distance:
Theory developed by Michael Moore which emphasizes that distance is a pedagogical/andragogical phenomenon which must be addressed by design, curriculum, forms of communication and interactions, and management of distance education programs.

Validity:
Within research and evaluation refers to extent to which what is measured is what is intended to be measured.