INTRODUCTION

Distance education (DE) is now a well-established part of educational provision in many nations. It has already been successfully used for the training and updating of teachers in various parts of Europe, and can be expected to play an increasingly important role as more nations and institutions make use of it.

Distance education may be delivered in many ways – through conventional postal communication, by means of broadcast TV or radio, via the Internet, or through combinations of these and other media. The common feature of all forms of distance education is some degree of separation, in space or time, between the learner and the teacher. This ‘distancing’ of teacher and learner presents a number of challenges, especially in the creation of learning communities and the performance of experimental work, but it also provides opportunities to increase both the quantity and quality of teacher training.

This workshop report from the 2003 GIREP international seminar systematically examines the three major elements of distance education – the content, the methodology and the technology – but it does so in the specific context of physics teacher education and training. It therefore also concerns the motivations for distance teacher training, the target audiences of such training and the structures needed to support both the providers and the recipients of that training. The main body of the report is aimed at the members of GIREP but, in the hope that its key points will be of wider interest, the report ends with a summary and several calls for action aimed at senior institutional managers and policy makers.

MOTIVATIONS FOR DISTANCE TEACHER EDUCATION

The educational motivations for the distance training of teachers are to improve the quality of teacher training provision and to broaden that provision by encompassing a wider range of trainees. Where large numbers of learners participate in a common program of training there may also be cost savings and consequent economic benefits to nations, regions or institutions.

Distance education allows training to be provided to those who cannot attend conventional training centres for reasons such as disability, geographical remoteness or conflicting personal or professional commitment. The importance of reaching these individuals at a time of rapid educational change and widespread physics teacher shortage is clear, but the widening of access to training is also a matter of inclusiveness and social justice. The separation of teacher and learner inherent in distance education allows many DE courses to be offered on a part-time basis, possibly with many different start dates throughout the year, so that learners can find training at a time and pace that suits them.

Distance education can improve the quality of training in a number of ways. For example, trainees may have access to a range of remote training providers and may thereby find the approaches that are best suited to their individual learning styles and training needs. Learners may communicate with learners elsewhere to form wider and richer learning communities, and talented classroom teachers can contribute to the pre-service or in-service training of others without the need for a possibly disruptive and potentially costly reassignment to a conventional training institute.

Where large-scale programmes are delivered by distance education there is the possibility of drawing on a very wide range of expert training providers, of working collaboratively and in teams, and of creating expensive training resources that would not normally be possible in small-scale conventional programs. It is also the case that the training may be delivered or facilitated by ‘tutors’ who are quite different from those who devised the training course or created the training materials. In this way the talents and skill of those involved in providing the training may be used to the best possible advantage. All these developments have the potential to greatly increase both the appeal and the quality of physics teacher training.

TARGET AUDIENCES AND THEIR NEEDS IN DISTANCE TEACHER EDUCATION

The target audience for distance teacher training can cover the same range as conventional teacher training and may be even further extended. However, it is possible to identify a number of groups for whom pre-service or in-service training by distance education might be particularly appropriate or even unavoidable.
Due to the advance of physics and the development of new pedagogical approaches there is a need (and in some countries a professional requirement) for the in-service training of physics teachers. So physics teachers themselves are an important target audience for DE, especially those who, for whatever reason, are reluctant to become involved in conventional training/updating programs. Several countries have already mounted substantial programmes aimed at developing the ICT skills of their physics teachers and there are strong arguments for believing that in-service courses in experimental work might be of particular value in some countries. In most countries teachers already face heavy demands on their time and attention, so providing in-service training in the most flexible way possible, including the possibility of distance education, is likely to be well received. However, in all cases it is important that professional development should be appropriately recognized and rewarded. The rewards might take the form of credit points, salary incentives or accelerated promotion but, whatever their form, distance education should not be differentiated from conventional education in this regard.

The shortage of teachers in a number of fields (physics, chemistry, foreign languages etc.) is a common and persistent problem in many countries. This has led to the creation of programs aimed at allowing those with technical qualifications who have already completed careers in industry or commerce to enter teaching. Since it is often necessary to get these late recruits to teaching into the classroom as quickly as possible, and to keep them there, they form another target group for distance education. This is especially so since these particular recruits are quite likely to have ongoing financial and family commitments and may need to maintain a full income while undergoing training in classroom pedagogy and/or those parts of their subject that they were never taught or where there knowledge is out of date.

Another target audience with similar training needs consists of teachers returning to the profession after a substantial career break. A number of women returning to teaching after bringing up families are in this situation. Preparing for a return to work, while continuing to stay at home with children is certainly possible thanks to distance education.

Target audiences may also be created by changes in educational policy or teacher supply, as in those countries where teachers trained to teach one or two science subjects are required, possibly suddenly and possibly in mid-career, to teach broad and balanced science curricula. Distance education, supported by more conventional provision, may well be the most efficient and effective means of dealing with this kind of large-scale change. Such an audience, which might typically include biologists confronted with the need to teach physics, will certainly need training in physics as well as training in pedagogic content knowledge, even if their training in general pedagogy is sound and up to date.

A final target audience that should also be mentioned is found within the broader group of graduates who decide to enter teaching by taking a post-graduate teaching qualification. Though this is a ‘normal’ route into teaching in several countries it is not yet the case that that this post-graduate qualification is routinely available through distance education. Nonetheless, in those countries where a first degree in physical science may also be achieved through distance education, the addition of a distance taught post-graduate teaching qualification allows the transition from school student to school teacher to be achieved entirely through distance education and this can certainly contribute to the supply of teachers.

FORMS AND METHODS OF DISTANCE TEACHER EDUCATION

As mentioned in the introduction, distance teaching may take several forms, and will often involve a combination of methods drawn from distance education and conventional education. For example, conventional face-to-face meetings play an important part in many DE courses – especially when learning communities are first forming and when experimental work needs to be done – even though the bulk of the course is to be delivered at a distance. However, it is quite easy to identify three main modes of distance learning as indicated below.

1 Computer-free methods.
The existence of a body of literature that mistakenly identifies distance education with a form of computer based learning make it particularly important to emphasise that a great deal of distance education has been achieved with little or no use of computers. There are many examples of situations in which purpose written books or kits of purpose designed experimental equipment have been developed and employed in distance education, sometimes specifically for teacher training. Conventional mail, printed materials, telephones, video conferencing and radio or TV broadcasting can all play a powerful role in distance education, along with elements of conventional face-to-face teaching, yet none of these learning technologies depends on the use of a computer.

2 Off-line computer based methods
The wide availability of relatively inexpensive computers enormously broadens the scope and power of distance education. One way of using the computer is in a ‘stand-alone’ mode that does not require connection to a network and therefore avoids the frustrations of slow or unreliable downloading. When a computer is used in this way distance learning materials can be delivered on CD or DVD, though it should be recognized that many students prefer books to be delivered in a conventional form and may object to being asked to read large amounts of text from a screen or to print large amounts of text, particularly if colour is needed. (Screen based learning can also be problematic when learners need to revise previously learned material.) When working in off-line mode, the computer is being used as a tool that enables the learner to interact with previously prepared course content, but not with other learners nor with teachers.

3 On-line computer based methods
In this approach, the computer is used for communication as well as delivery. The communication may be between learners, between teachers and learners (as individuals or groups) and between learners and previously prepared course content. The network of human and computer contacts obviously makes the on-line approach particularly valuable in the building of learning communities. The management of on-line communities is of such importance that two different modes of on-line working are widely recognized; synchronous and asynchronous. In the synchronous case, members of the group are on-line simultaneously, usually in accordance with a previously agreed schedule, and the use of appropriate software can allow this group to communicate through text, audio or video in a way that emulates a conventional classroom, with the computer equivalents of hand-raising, taking the floor and shared board space. In the asynchronous mode messages may be sent at any time, but there is no guarantee of on immediate response beyond that provided by an agreed deadline for such responses.

Much of distance education is built on carefully prepared learning resources that are supplied to the learners. However, it is especially important that those involved in teacher training at a distance should be alert to the possibility of constructivist approaches in which course content is substantially created during the course. The need for interactivity in this process is obvious, and provides a good example of the way in which different methods of distance teaching may be more or less appropriate for different kinds of course. Other kinds of activity that also require particular attention in distance education are group work, problem based learning and teaching through case studies.

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES OF DISTANCE TEACHER EDUCATION

The tools of distance education include:

• conventional textbooks
• purpose written texts and print items (glossaries, handbooks etc.)
• audio and video tapes
• CDs and DVDs
• kits of experimental equipment that can be mailed to students
• remote experiments that students can control and monitor over the internet
• software for computer based learning, communication and the management of learning.

This last category is particularly broad, extending from small java applets and spreadsheets to virtual learning environments and entire learning management systems. One problem that particularly concerns educational software and the learning objects with which it deals, is that of standards. There is currently a great deal of duplicated effort as different groups struggle to achieve their various goals in ignorance of the work of others. There has been much discussion of the need for the efficient exchange of information and a technical means of achieving this with regard to learning objects is through the use of standardized ‘metadata’. There are already trans-national agreements about appropriate standards for this, but they still need to be universally accepted and, above all, abided by.

SUPPORT STRUCTURES FOR DISTANCE TEACHER EDUCATION

There have already been efforts to use ICT to help form networks of teachers, including some that are specifically for physics teachers. Such networks are not themselves distance education activities, but they do provide a forum in which distance education (quite possibly informal DE) can take place. Since such networks have the potential to play an important part in the life-long learning of teachers they are clearly relevant to the topic of the workshop and are also, where well implemented and maintained, richly deserving of support. There may even be a case for attempting to form an effective European Network of Physics Teachers, perhaps as part of a more general network of teachers, though it seems certain that any such network will have to take into account the language barriers that plague all such efforts.

Similar comments apply to the creation of networks, or at least information exchanges, for those who develop and provide distance training for physics teachers. National and international conferences, such as those of GIREP or the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), provide a good opportunity to learn about physics education projects in general, but there is a widely felt need for some more reliable way of ensuring that accurate and up-to-date information about projects, tools and methodologies for the distance training of teachers can be found and disseminated. There are already many sites that strive to do this, especially in the field of eLearning, but there is still the need for something that addresses the full spectrum of DE approaches. At the least, it might be worth considering the setting-up of a European Clearing House for Distance Education or a DE Information Exchange, one section of which might be devoted to teacher training in physics.

A final and related issue concerns the need for means of advertising and accrediting distance education courses in teacher training and development. Language issues and the lack of international transferability of teaching qualifications currently impose serious limits on the extent to which teacher training can cross national boundaries. However, there can be little doubt that the general effect of distance teaching and of modern communications technology will be to reduce the significance of geographical factors in all fields of education, including the training of teachers. With this in mind, there is already a perceived need for some low-cost means of making the availability of distance teacher training known to all who might be interested, wherever they might be located, and the time cannot be far ff when there will also be a need for more common standards of accreditation and recognition.

USEFUL WEB LINKS

Education centred sites:
eLearning Europa
http://www.elearningeuropa.info
e-Learning Centre UK
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk
Distance Educator
http://www.distance-educator.com
Ostrava University
http://www.osui.cz/virtualui
Swedish centre for flexible learning
http://cfl.se

Teaching methodology sites:
Center for Problem-Based Learning
http://www.imsu.edu/team/cpbl/cpbl.html
Cooperative Learning Center
http://www.co-operation.org
Case Study Teaching in Science
http://ublib/buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html

Physics based sites:
Online courses, MIT
http://ocw.mit.edu
Physics resources, University of Oregon
http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab
Physics at About
http://physics.about.com

Other relevant sites
Timsoft
http://www.timsoft.ro

The Telmae education portal
http://telmae.karlov.mff.cuni.cz
Dutch distance learning project at AMSTEL Institute, University of Amsterdam
http://www.science.uva.nl/research/amstel/dl
The STEDE project on distance learning
http://www.science.uva.nl/research/amstel/dl/en/stede
The synchronous on-line environment LearnLinc
http://www.learnlinc.com

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND CALLS FOR ACTION

Distance education implies the separation, in space or time, of the learner and the trainer. This presents challenges, but also provides the opportunity to reach new audiences (such as those in remote areas, or those with prior commitments) and to increase the quality of training provision.

Distance education may be delivered in many ways – through conventional postal communication, by means of broadcast TV or radio, via the Internet, or through combinations of these and other media. Computers are an important tool in distance education, though their use is not essential.

In the context of physics teacher training, distance education has been successfully for both pre-service and in-service training training. It can be used to address physics teacher shortages, as well as the need to update and professionally develop teachers.

Computers can be employed off-line (as stand alone machines) to deliver course content or on-line (as part of a network) in which case they can also be an important means of communication. When working on-line, computers may be used in a synchronous mode that mimics the operation of a conventional classroom. However, it is usually advantageous to retain some element of face-to-face contact, particularly for experimental work and for the initial formation of communities of learners.

Large scale programs of distance teacher training can be highly cost effective and can allow the development of resources that could not be afforded in smaller scale conventional programs. Such programs also allow geographically dispersed experts to work collectively to provide the learners with well-delivered training materials of the highest possible quality.

There are a number issues concerning the distance education of teachers that call for prompt action.

There is a need to disseminate information about the achievements and potential of distance education and to further increase the pool of trained distance educators who might contribute to the further development of the field.

There is also a need for more and better programs of physics teacher distance education, especially where there are problems with the recruitment of physics teachers or with the professional development of those already in service.

Programs that involve distance teacher training need to be appropriately recognized and accredited, and teachers taking them should be rewarded in the same way as teachers taking conventional training programs.

Agreed standards concerning the metadata used to describe leaning objects need to be universally adopted and abided by.

The feasibility of forming an effective European Network of Physics Teachers, part of which might be devoted to information exchange and distance education, should be investigated.

The feasibility of forming a European Clearing House for Distance Education or a Distance Education Information Exchange, either of which might include distance teacher training, should also be investigated. These bodies would be aimed at training providers rather than students.