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Appendix Two:
The Components of a Well-Functioning Distance Education System
The Components
1. Course Design and Development
a. Well-designed courses
- In good distance education, the course, rather than the educator, provides an appropriate learning environment for students. Rather than simply referring to a set of materials, however, the course is the structure of learning that is designed into the materials. It has three basic elements:
- i. Conceptual pathways to command of its knowledge, conceptualizing skills and practical abilities.
- ii. Educational strategies for helping the student find his or her way through these pathways.
- iii. Summative and formative assessment should be integral to the learning process.
- The materials and presentation of the course as a whole must excite, engage, and reward the student. Courses should be designed so as to involve students actively in their own learning and should allow students quick access and clear movement through them. Although there is no need for courses to use advanced technologies, most, but not necessarily all, will make use of a variety of media. Provision should also be made, in the design of courses, for the necessary practical work. In order to be as flexible and open as possible, courses should be organized in modules.
b. Programme and course development in a team
- An essential component in the successful design of courses is collaboration. This can be achieved by using an approach where a group of people, each with particular skills and competencies, develop a course as a team. Although there is no golden mean, nor indeed an absolute minimum,
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