Distance education provides instruction to students who are separated from the teacher by location. It has grown substantially in recent years and now accounts for 15% of students in some Midwestern states. Effective distance education requires carefully designed instruction, interaction between students and teachers, and assessment of specific learning outcomes. While some view chemistry as difficult to teach at a distance, advances in technology have increased opportunities for distance delivery of courses.

1. FOUNDATIONS OF
DISTANCE EDUCATION
CAROLYN JENKINS-HAIGLER

2. CHEMISTRY AT A DISTANCE? A TRUE
STORY
• Chemistry is a hands-on, laboratory-based course
that many consider one of the most rigorous in the
average high school curriculum
• Chemistry is a course students dread having to take
• In most small communities there is only one
Chemistry teacher

3. DISTANCE EDUCATION TODAY AND
TOMORROW
• It has became a main topic in education
• Concept of distance education is exciting
• It is the mainstream form of education
• 15% (460,000) Students of the Midwestern states
are enrolled in at least one online class

4. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DISTANCE
EDUCATION IN CASE YOU WONDER
• Training in effective instructional
strategies is critical for teachers of
distant learners
• Distance education courses should
be carefully designed and
developed before instruction
begins.
• Visualization of ideas and concepts
is critical when designing instruction
to be delivered to distant learners
• Adequate support systems may be
in place to provide the distance
learner with access to resources and
services
• Interaction between the instructor
and students and among students
may be possible and encouraged
• Assessment should be designed to
relate to the specific learning
outcomes of the instructional
experiences.

5. WHAT IS DISTANCE EDUCATION?
Distance education or distance
learning is a mode of delivering
education and instruction, often on an
individual basis, to students who are
physically present in a traditional
setting such as a classroom. Distance
learning provides “access to learning
when the source of information and
the learners are separated by time and
distance, or both.

6. FACTS ABOUT DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Eminent historian Frederick Jackson Turner ran the correspondence
program of the University of Wisconsin in the late 1800s.
• Telemedicine refers to medicine at distance, and telelaw refers to law at a
distance
• Research on the effectiveness of distance education clearly shows that
students who learn at distance do not learn any worse, or any better, than
traditional students.
• The United States Distance Learning Association is a professional
organization of those involved in distance education
• Satellites used for distance education orbit about 23,000 miles about the
equator

7. MEDIA IN EDUCATION

8. TELEMEDICINE
Tele- means ‘at a distance,” so in its simplest form,
telemedicine is defined as medicine at a distance
• Separation or distance between individuals and/or
resources
• Use of communications technologies
• Interaction between individuals and/or resources
• Medical or health care

9. SUMMARY
• Fundamental characteristic of distance education is the separation of
the student and the teacher
• Educators are using technology to increase access of the distance
learner to the local classroom
• Distance education is a dramatic idea
• It is designed to be a successful and mainstream approach
• It is being used in telecommunications technologies in an exciting
emerging field

10. Carolyn Jenkins-Haigler