Distance Education: Good or Bad?

Distance Education

Kimberly Schutte

1. Identify and briefly discuss 5 advantages of distance education
After learning more about distance education, I can see that there are several advantages to it. The first of these advantages is pace. With distance education, students can self-pace themselves during the course. Students who like going through at a quicker pace may do so while other who learns with a slower pace may do that as well. Another advantage of distance education is independent study. With distance education, students learn to become independent in their studies which allow them to need to depend on themselves and study on their own. A third advantage could be described as time or course constraints. This means that students who cannot fit courses into their schedule because of the times or availability of courses, then taking them online may be a way that they can take these courses. An additional advantage is using technology. Distance education is a way for students to use technology in their education where they may have not been able to before. They can make use of the internet, videos, images, chats, and conferences online. A final advantage of distance education is students need alternative way of school. Some students may not perform well or enjoy classic brick and mortar schooling so distance education is an alternative way for students to learn.

2. Identify and briefly discuss 5 disadvantages of distance education.
Though I can see several advantages to distance education, I can see that there are several disadvantages to distance education as well. One of these disadvantages is interaction. Because distance education takes play generally online and independently, students lose out on interaction with peers and with their teachers. This can be disadvantageous for students because they lose out on the social aspect of school. Another disadvantage of distance education is motivation or self-discipline. Students who cannot be disciplined or motivated by themselves will truly lose out with distance education. In fact, students who cannot be motivated or disciplined on their own will fail to learn or fail to complete the necessary components of the course. A third disadvantage could be described as teacher involvement. Through distance education students lose that one-on-one interaction with teachers where they can easily answer questions for whether they need more help, are confused, or want to learn more. As well, the interaction that they have online with their teachers may not be very strong. I mean students may not get the interaction they need from their teachers because their teachers are not easily available or do not reply to students. One more disadvantage is physical aspect of school. Distance education is primarily done on the computer or online which only requires students to only work on a computer and be sitting. This causes students to lose out on the physical movements of their body as well as physical activities such as giving presentations in front of a group of people or running in a physical education course. A final disadvantage of distance education is cost. While some distance education courses or schools are tuition free and provide the necessary equipment, this is not true for all schools. In fact, some schools require tuition and that students obtain their own technology which adds up to be quite pricy at times.

3. How you would determine the readiness of students to participate in distance education?
When considering distance education, especially in my classroom, there are many things to consider. The first thing I would need to consider and determine is the readiness of my students to be able to participate in distance education. I would determine this by how well students can work independently. By this, I mean how well students can keep on a schedule, how well disciplined they can make themselves, and how well they can work and study on their own. The biggest key of distance education is that students are on their own and they have only have themselves to be accountable for their education. They do not have their teacher physically there to remind them that they have assignments or tests coming up.

4. What would you need to do to be ready to teach in an online environment?
Though I have taken several online courses and been emerged in the distance education environment as a student there are several things that I would need to consider to be able to be a teacher in this environment. To be ready to teach in an online environment I would need to several things. These simply begin with that you need to be aware that you are teaching in an online environment. This encompasses a whole different environment and a whole different group of students. Just going into an online environment without ever been teaching in a real classroom would be difficult. Instead, teachers need to be experienced in teaching this age and this subject in a classroom rather than just in a virtual classroom. This allows teachers to understand some of the difficulties that students may have including time, subject or conceptual difficulty, and questions that students may have which will be relative to students in virtual classrooms as well.

Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities

Concept Mapping Project: "Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities”
Kimberly Schutte

When looking at concept mapping uses, I find several possibilities for incorporating concept mapping in the mathematics classroom. Concept maps are a type of special diagram as a way for students to explore knowledge while also gathering and sorting this information as well. Concept maps work in a way to share information with students in a different and unique way that allows them to find connections between concepts, events, and processes. They act like a network of cells and links containing concepts and relationships within a topic. A concept map contains a main cell where the question, topic, or concept of the map is placed with links between the main cell to other cells with other answers, concepts, items, and information connected with the main cell. The links between the cells consists of arrows drawing the connections between the different concepts in each cell. These links contain relationships between the concepts such that when reading the concept map it will read just like a sentence to create a paragraph. Concept maps are used for several reasons in any classroom such as to perform brainstorming, act as a visual learning aid, communicate complex ideas, connecting old knowledge to new knowledge, act as a summary of the information, express relationships within knowledge and help to assess where there is understanding or misunderstanding. This allows connecting knowledge in different visual ways with different learning styles as well.

With these general ways that concept maps are used in all types of classrooms, I can see several specific ideas for how the use concept maps in a mathematics classroom like I plan to have in the future. One of the first ways that I see concept maps being used in the classroom concerns mathematical processes. Just like biology or chemistry, mathematical concepts have processes that occur in order to find the final answer. One specific example is the process of factoring second degree polynomials. Not only will it show how to use the quadratic formula but also how to use other factoring methods as well. By using a concept map, one can see how these are connected to each other as well. Another way that concept maps can be used in the classroom is connecting different mathematical concepts. This connects with the idea of observing relationships among mathematical concepts. Specifically, in calculus, one can connect the concepts of derivatives and integrals to see the fundamental theorem of calculus and how they are connected. As well concept mapping could be used to connect mathematics to other disciplines of knowledge. A specific way that this could be explored is the historical connections between the mathematics being studied and its purpose in history. Exploring the ancient proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem can show how it has evolved to being used today. Even further, students can see applications of the Pythagorean Theorem or Pi in historical times. As well students could see the real life connections between the mathematics that they are studying in class with applications of it in the real world. Examples include percentages and ratios with their connection with banking and business. Another way using concept maps can be useful in the classroom includes determining what previous knowledge students know. By taking this previous knowledge, teachers can determine what students know and what they do not which is extremely important in mathematics because the basics are important to build up on. Specifically, students cannot perform higher level mathematics such as geometry or algebra without prior knowledge of arithmetic. Connecting different aspects of triangles in a concept map can show how the concepts being learned in geometry about triangles all come together. All in all, concept maps have several applications in the classroom, even mathematics classrooms.

The impact of using concept mapping on the students in my future classroom could be quite significant. Concept mapping can serve as a visual aid which allows it to impact students in my future classroom who learn best visually. Even more, concept maps can allow students to see relationships between different mathematical concepts. Often students cannot see how different ideas or concepts are related, especially in mathematics, but a concept map can connect these different concepts to form relationships that students may have never realized before. Further, student learning could be impacted by seeing the connections between math and other disciplines, history, and the real world. Mathematics is often a discipline where students want to know how they will use what they learn in the classroom in the real world. By creating a concept map that creates relationships between the real world and what they are learning in the classroom, students may begin to change their attitude on math and see its real world applications. Finally, students may reach an understanding of mathematical concepts and topics. Often students may learn the concepts of mathematics but may never really understand what the concept means, how it is used, and its purpose. Understanding is a very important aspect of mathematics that is often forgotten about but using concept maps is just one way that student understanding of mathematics can begin or occur.

When deciding whether or not to use concept mapping activities as a part of a lesson for my students will be determined by a number of reasons. The criteria that I would use to decide whether or not to use concept maps in my lessons begin with what I am teaching and what I want students to gain from the lesson. One of the criteria that I would use in my decision to use Concept Mapping activities would be deciding whether or not the use of concept maps would simplify understanding or further frustrate students. I want concept mapping to help students gain understanding and see relationships between concepts or processes. Concept mapping should not hinder students’ learning but improve it. Another criterion that I would use is if I want to assess student learning without testing. Concept mapping could be used as a reliable way to pre-assess student knowledge and used as summative assessment as well. If I am unsure of where students stand on the understanding of something taught, concept mapping can be used to check this as well as a pre-assessment for where to begin a lesson. These are not the only two ways that I would decide whether or not to use a concept mapping but are two criterion I will consider when making this decision on where concept mapping can fit into my lesson or curriculum.

This is an example of a concept map about the history of Pi that I could use in my future mathematics classroom.