Michael G. Moore and Greg Kearsley wrote in their article “Distance Education: A Systems Approach View – Tutoring” that the primary reason for having online tutors is to provide students with individualized instructions. Very often the tutor is the only person the student interacts with throughout the course. They may have many functions: discussing course content with a student, providing feedback on progress, grading of assignment/tests, helping students plan their work, etc. Although, not all students take advantage of tutoring services. The tutors often serve as a bridge between students and the institution to help the students to interpret polices and solve problems or difficulties they might encounter. Also, in some programs, the tutor does not even have any specific course-related duties, and his/her primary job is to provide counseling and guidance, which is often very important due to difficulties the distance learners encounter. The role of a counselor/tutor in much more important in DE than in traditional face-to-face education (Moor & Kearsley, 1996).
Teachers in DE must accomplish the same goals as in the conventional environment, but they face specific challenged due to separation from the learner. For example, the learner is often insecure in the absence of a teacher, which is the main course of such phenomenon as “drop-out”. Therefore, the teacher has to take extra measures to ensure the course is very well structured taking in consideration clear objectives and students’ time (Moore & Kearsley, 1996). As Moore and Kearsley (2012) state later on, there is a big difference between distance education and distance learning. DE is the responsibility of an institution and the instructor. Distance learning, on the other hand, is what the students do and it is their responsibility. Therefore, in DE there are many communication barriers the teachers have to overcome to achieve effective communication (Berge, 2013): - Cognitive distance – the more cognitive distance there is, the more challenging it is for both parties to achieve concept development through discussion. - Contextual distance - when one context is presented at a distance and understood differently than it would be in an authentic situation. - Cultural distance – when people have patterns of thought different from one another and to make the learning process clear an instructor has to break through those differences. - Emotional distance – the students often feel fear, distrust, and suspicion towards DE. - Pedagogical distance – involves transactional distance that causes challenges in understanding and teaching/learning. - Physical distance - Psychological distance – a subjective feeling of distance with a person. - Social distance – perceive a difference in class. - Technical distance – access to technology across various people. - Temporal distance – distance in time zones (Berge, 2013 p. 376). All these barriers to communication in DE often make the work of teachers and tutors more complicated. Although tutoring is one of many learner support systems, quite often the function of both, teachers and tutors, can be equally important. References Berge, Z. (2013). Barriers to communication in distance education. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 14(1), 374-388. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286122039_Barriers_to_communication_in_distance_education Moore, M.G. & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance Education: A Systems View. Wadsworth Publishers, pp. 146-51.Retrieved from http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00236B/WEB/TUT_01.HTM
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |