Distance Education

Is it Art or is it Science?

Abstract

Distance education is becoming a more common method of curriculum delivery across grade levels in Australia, the United States and throughout the world. Especially in remote rural areas with sparse student populations, distance delivery of course work is often the only available means for students to learn and for teachers to teach. The days of taking courses by correspondence, when sending large bundles of paper back and forth through the mail was common, have given way to transmitting facsimiles or digital information between teachers and learners. Technological advances have allowed the mailbox to be replaced by telephones and computers. An old argument questions if teaching is an art or a science. Is distance education an art or is it a science? In an effort to address that same argument in terms of the specifics involved with distance delivered courses, the following questions are probed: 

1) How are different subjects taught via distance delivery?
2) What special approaches are necessary to promote student learning?
3) How does the online teacher know that the students are learning?
4) What methods of assessment and evaluation are available to teachers and students to address the
accountability concerns of parents, school districts, state and national departments of education?