DL Johnston Question 3

From LiteracyTentWiki

QUESTION 3. What are the greatest challenges in implementing distance learning projects with adult learners and what are some strategies to address the challenges?

Distance teaching is a very challenging activity. Even the best of classroom teachers need a great deal of support to become equally effective supporting learners whom they can't see. I see the biggest challenges for teachers as these:

1. Monitoring student progress while they are working on their own 2. Supporting learner efforts to master content or skills on their own with timely interventions when they run into a challenging concept 3. Keeping learners motivated to persist and reach their goal

I see the biggest challenge for literacy programs is recruitment and assessment. The goal of the national effort to expand distance education for ABE is to increase access for adult learners who don't already come to classroom programs. Literacy centers have extensive experience reaching out to people who want to come to a classroom program, but they don't know where to find learners who need the services, but would never think of going to a classroom program. I'll address the assessment issue on Thursday.

The biggest challenge for those who are responsible for supporting distance programs is providing PD opportunities for distance teachers that will help them refine their distance teaching skills so they can be as effective at a distance as they have been in the classroom.

J E R O M E J O H N S T O N
Director, Project IDEAL Support Center
Institute for Social Research - University of Michigan
734/763-3079 (734) 615-6638 (fax) jerej@umich.edu

This question and Jerome Johnston's reply were posted in the context of a July, 2005 discussion on the NIFL-Technology electronic list. The whole discussion will be found at http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/DistanceLearning