Where Interaction Intersects Time

Abstract

Educators normally do not have the opportunity or time to analyze individual students and tailor instructional materials or activities specifically to them. Students are usually grouped together into classes for economic reasons if nothing else. Varying the media selection, the methods used, and the class activities, is an attempt to compensate for the lack of individualized programming. This is as true for distance education as it is for place-based education. Ellington (cited in Dekkers, et. al., 1990), suggests three classes of instruction: individual learning, mass communications, and small group. Historically, in distance education there were few ways to vary delivery and teaching methods. The correspondence model, an example of individual learning, was used nearly exclusively for the first 120 years of distance education in the United States (Moore and Kearsley, 1996). Earlier in this century, mass communications (i.e., radio; television) expanded the range of delivery tools. Still, the prevailing model is of students passively listening to or watching a program alone, attempting to make sense of the material. To check the students' "making of meaning" in what they read or saw, they are asked to submit a written paper to the instructor showing analysis, synthesis, or evaluation. What is missing are opportunities for the use of group learning models. Over the past two decades, emerging technologies have opened more opportunities to vary medium and methods, leading to significant changes in the way.