Facilitate Online Learning With Our Teaching Distance Education Course!
Distance education programs allow for flexible, self-paced learning to encourage engagement, information uptake and knowledge retention. This course covers both traditional and distance education perspectives, and is ideal for teachers, teacher aides, trainers, tutors and coaches.
The Certificate of Distance Education is a professional development program that will enhance your teaching skills in order to professionally and successfully deliver distance education programs.
In this teaching distance education course, you will learn about the adaption of teacher-learner models, the advantages and disadvantages of distance education, and the different styles of delivery. You will also develop skills in supporting distance education students, from offering counselling, assignment assistance, career advice and online chats, to video conferencing, exercise structuring and the facilitation of small group work.
Learning Outcomes
Outcomes achieved by undertaking a course in teaching distance education include:
- Learning about trends in education and the growth in the distance education industry
- Exploring the advantages and disadvantages of distance education
- Studying the forms of distance education including paper-based education
- Gaining insights into mentor guided projects or research
- Understanding e-learning, blended learning, mentor-guided projects and video and audio courses
- Learning about the exposition, behavioural, cognitive development, interaction and transaction models
- Exploring how to profile students who are new to distance education
- Studying the transition and getting past the first lesson
- Gaining insights into completing assignments
- Examining time management
- Learning about writing style
- Exploring how to support students
- Studying the types of support services
- Gaining insights into how to counsel new or prospective students
- Examining the guidelines for completing assignments
- Understanding how to help with research
- Learning how to give student feedback
- Exploring real-time support
- Studying how to deal with practical work
- Gaining insights into telephone conferencing, online chats and video conferencing
- Understanding mentoring and listening skills including empathic listening
- Learning about workshops and attended events
- Exploring how to conduct structured exercises in small groups
- Studying how to manage resources
- Gaining insights into the cost of resourcing
- Understanding resource options
- Learning about the various approaches to assessment
- Exploring the types of assessment for distance education
- Studying how to submit and process assignments
- Gaining insights into grading and marking exams
- Examining exam procedures and processes
And more!
Top 6 Trends in E-Learning
Those involved in teaching distance education know that e-learning is an ever-evolving sector, particularly with the continual advancements in digital technologies. Here are the top current trends forecast by industry experts.
#1 – Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs)
LXPs are the next level of Learning Management Systems (LMSs), and have a higher focus on the user experience. Visually they look more like media-sharing websites than generic LMSs do — they’re a bit like social media platforms or even Netflix! Essentially, they are collaborative platforms that put the learning in the hands of the student rather than the facilitator or administrator. The goal is to engage those with the content and the platform via a personalised user experience.
#2 – Immersive Technologies
Like artificial intelligence (AI), immersive technologies have the potential to change the way e-learning content is created. These technologies include Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), and are already impacting the e-learning sector. VR, for example, provides a physical, realistic experience that is anchored to the theoretical part of learning. It can also deliver instructional design strategies that increase engagement and minimise distractions.
#3 – Microlearning
Did you know a typical employee has only 24 minutes for training in a 40-hour week? So it’s not practical for them to consume in-depth content … and that’s where microlearning comes in. It involves offering students bite-sized content (of two to seven minutes) to generate quick consumption and better retention. This type of learning is designed to help students meet a specific learning goal and make every minute of their learning worthwhile!
#4 – Social Learning
The social learning theory was developed by psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1950s, and the simplified
definition revolves around humans learning better when they learn together. His theories suggested that when learning is facilitated between groups of two or more, information is retained more readily, and people learn faster and more effectively. This is because they exchange perspectives, share knowledge and observe each other’s actions and their consequences. They then make decisions based on these observations.
Social learning also involves engagement because learners aren’t passive recipients of information. For them to learn better, their environment, behaviour and cognition all to need to mutually influence each other. Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) were the first to embrace a complete social adoption, and the growing demand for social learning mimics this method of engagement.
#5 – Gamification
Gamification is game-oriented learning that allows providers to create intangible incentives that drive successful training results. It rewards those who accomplish desired tasks, and rewards include gift cards, physical rewards, points, virtual currency or achievement badges.
Gamification can leverage students’ natural desires for learning, engagement socialisation, achievement, competition, status and self-expression. It can also enhance retention, boost motivation and increase the appeal of learning materials. Providing leaderboards or making rewards visible to other players can also encourage other students to compete.
#6 – Content Curation
This is based on facilitators using external sources like TED talks, YouTube informational videos, and other publicly available content to enhance students’ learning experiences. This multi-faceted approach offers students content that’s rich in formats, sources and perspectives. Videos, in particular, are extremely powerful — YouTube now has over 2 billion active users worldwide — and can break up long passages of text and provide a wonderfully rich multimedia experience.
Distance Education Statistics
If you’re keen to up-skill or enter the wonderful world of teaching distance education, then your future is looking bright! Recent polls have cited the industry as having grown by over 4.5 per cent in the last five years. Wider internet access and technological advancements have seen the online education model as “an increasingly viable option for learning and career advancement”. As such, many education providers have recognised the growing need for flexibility and increased the breadth of courses available online.
The online education industry is expected to grow over the next five years with the expansion of high-speed internet services and the uptake of courses by non-traditional students. Trends towards “lifelong learning” and re-skilling are also forecast to support growth in flexible methods of study.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the industry with the migration of many tertiary education courses boosting the share of the industry revenue generated from postgraduate and undergraduate courses.
Advantages of Distance Education
People study via distance education for a variety of reasons. They may be a full-time student, in full-time employment or spend a lot of time travelling or working remotely. One thing is certain though — online study is becoming more and more popular as people look for more accessible and flexible ways to enhance their learning. Here are some of the benefits of distance learning programs that will help you inspire your students after you’ve completed our teaching distance education course.
- Students can choose where, when and how often they study.
- Flexibility allows students to carry on with their work, personal or family-related commitments.
- Students improve their discipline, self-drive, accountability and motivation.
- Facilitators have more flexibility in terms of where and when to respond to or access students.
- Students’ attention span and level of interest is maximised.
- Students can access global industry experts to enrich their knowledge through diverse perspectives.
- The stress level of facilitators is reduced which can improve the quality of the training.
- Students are more likely to have the undivided attention of facilitators in their interactions.
- Distance education can be delivered with the same consistency to all students.
- Students can further their careers by up-skilling in a working environment while studying.
- Online accessibility reduces students’ travel, commuting, and education costs such as textbooks.
- Students can pursue other career or educational opportunities while completing their coursework.
- Students can access vast networking opportunities through online educational platforms.
Gain the confidence to deliver professional distance education programs and support your students in their quest for knowledge with a course in teaching distance education, such as our Certificate of Distance Education.