Staffing Requirements and Staff Development in Distance Education

Question 1

the critical predictor of student satisfaction in the course that they studied was not the extent of personal interaction but the ____ (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1998)

Answer 1

perception of overall interaction.

Question 2

The literature stresses _____ for appropriate forms of interaction in distance education programmes. (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1998)

Answer 2

the importance of planning

Question 3

the new technology systems necessitate the conceptualisation of another form of interaction…often overlooked in faculty and student induction. (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1998)

Answer 3

learner-interface interaction

Question 4

defined by Short et al. (1976: 65), as the ‘degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships’.(Gunawardena & Zittle, 1998)

Answer 4

Telepresence or a social presence

Question 5

means that the remote instructor, whether ‘on-screen’ in the instructional television context or the computer conferencing context, is perceived to be a real person with a genuine interest in the distance learner’s needs, interest and progress. (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1998)

Answer 5

Social presence

Question 6

can increase motivation, completion rates, student satisfaction and, depending on the number of students in the group, even performance (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1998)

Answer 6

collaborative group work

Question 7

the knowledge, skill, attitude or ability that enables the online instructor to effectively perform a function to some standard of success (Ragan, 2009)

Answer 7

competency

Question 8

six categories of the Competencies for Online Teaching Success (COTS) Model (Ragan, 2009)

Answer 8

1. Attitude/Philosophy: comprised of approaches, philosophies and orientation to the task of teaching and learning online.
2. Building Community: those skills that enable the construction and management of a learning community including both learners and instructor.
3. Classroom Management: those skills required for successful classroom management of the operational and administrative functions of the online classroom.
4. Faculty Workload Management: those skills and abilities of efficient time management during the online course operation for both the leaner and online instructor.
5. Teaching and Learning: those skills specifically addressing the strategies and techniques of guiding and facilitating student learning.
6. Technology Aptitude: the ability to complete the variety of skills and tasks related to the operation of the online classroom most closely related to the learning management system.

Question 9

Competencies of the Instructor/Facilitator (williams, 2003)

Answer 9

Content knowledge, teaching strategies/models, general education theory, skill with Internet tools for instruction, instructional design for interactive technologies, library research skills, modeling of behavior/skills

Question 10

Competencies of the Instructional Designer (Williams, 2003)

Answer 10

Instructional design skills, instructional design for interactive technologies; media attributes knowledge; general education theory; text layout skills; skill with Internet tools for instruction; teaching strategies/models, Web-related programming skills; learning style and theory; HTML authoring skills

Question 11

Competencies of the Leader/Change agent (Williams, 2003)

Answer 11

Modeling of behavior/skills, managerial skills, marketing skills, strategic planning skills, policy-making skills, general education theory