On The Role And Quality Of Teachers In Open And Distance Learning

With the rapid development of education in China, distance education, as an important part of the education system, has gained dramatically development during a comparatively short period. Not only have we accumulated numerous practical experiences in the running of distance education, but at the very beginning of the second decade of the21st century, with the vision of constructing a system of life-long education for all, we have successfully kicked off the transformation of traditional distance education to a new form of open and distance education.In the process of the rapid development of distance education, problems concerning its theory, practice and policy also stand out for serious consideration and dealing with. One of them is the faculty development in distance education. Although there have been tons of researches and discussion about teacher professional development in the educational literatures during the past several decades, most of these topics focus on the professional development of school teachers, with few if any interests in university teachers. There are even less researches on the faculty development in distance education institutions, such as TV universities.This study aims to explore the role and quality of teachers of distance education institutions based on historical and theoretical analysis of the trend of distance education development and empirical data collected from a typical Chinese open university. The main research questions of this study include:(1) what are the features of professionalism and developmental trend of distance instruction, especially compared with that of teaching in traditional universities, and what are the implications of the features of professionalism and developmental trend to the requirements of role and quality of tutors in distance education institutions;(2) what do teachers (tutors) from distance education institutions actually think are important for their professional practice, and how would they evaluate their actual performance on items such as’professional knowledge’,’professional skills’, and ’professional attitudes and values’according to some widely used theoretical frameworks in educational literatures; and (3) what kind of faculty development in distance education institutions can be expected in the future, based on the empirical data of the status quo of the teaching force, and taking the change of open and distance education in the following decades into account. Since the role, function, system, and running of distance education vary a lot at different stages of the historical development of higher education, it is necessary to make out a map of history as a framework of analyzing the professionalism of distance teaching. Chapter2is mainly focused on this topic. While the origination and development of distance education are reviewed on a scope of worldwide, historical review of the development of distance education in China is especially made as the context of related discussion. The features of distance education, for example, the’openness’of its learners and thus objectives and curriculum, the ’distance’of teacher-student interaction, are also discussed in this chapter, with focus on their impact of the role of teachers from distance education institutions.In Chapter3, the trend of distance and open learning is also explored, mainly based on written interviews of58renowned scholars in distance education worldwide and a group interview of11Chinese scholars. Based on the vision of future open and distance learning, this chapter also discussed the requirements of role and quality of tutors in distance education institutions.Numerous papers concerning teacher professional development have been published during the past several decades, discussing the change of the role of teacher in modern education (especially in the context of continuous educational reform), the challenges teachers face while the society and the education system are undergoing rapid and severe change, and what kind of professional development should teachers (faculty members or tutors) pursue to remain updated with the development of the profession. Selected papers are reviewed in Chapter4and a framework for understanding and analyzing the teacher’s role and elements of professional expertise is formulated based on literature review, which is treated as the knowledge base for further empirical study, including the design of the questionnaire and questions used in interviews.Chapter5is organized around the exposition and interpretation of data gained from questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews, and a case study. A questionnaire is designed based on the framework mentioned earlier and a survey of516teachers from Shanghai Open University is conducted.6teachers, including administrators, curriculum designers, and lecturing teachers, are interviewed. One case of a district branch school of Shanghai Open University is analyzed as supplementary to the analysis of data gained via questionnaire survey and interview. The status quo of teaching profession in distance education institution is analyzed based on self-reports of teachers. Special emphasis is put on what elements of professional expertise do teachers think they want most eagerly or urgently to improve, what elements of professional expertise do they think they are already good at, and what problems they are facing now during their daily professional activities. Comparisons between or among sex, age, education background, subjects, and position and title are also made to illustrate the status of professional demands and development more clearly. Different measures of faculty development and their actual effects on teachers’professional performance are also discussed in this chapter.After the presentation and analysis of the status quo of the teaching professional and the effectiveness of the measures of faculty members in distance education institutions, three typical faculty development models, which are respectively implied in the Open University of UK, the University of Maryland, and TAFE of Australia are introduced and analyzed in Chapter6, as an instructive reference for the construction of effective faculty development ways in China.In the last chapter, the possible feature of distance education in the future is discussed, and based on this analysis, challenges that teachers in distance education institutions may encounter in future are outlined. Suggestions for faculty development in distance education institutions are given at the last part.