THE Journal

Much of the success of distance education rests on encouraging an active role for learners. Thus, inservice teachers must learn to rely on themselves not only to access and master technology, but also to make up for the range of subtle directions, cues and information that they are used to receiving from live instructors. Both in class meetings and on the Web, we encourage an active role for the teachers. They take turns serving as on-site coordinators during class time, and in their AVF discussions we have them work in collaborative teams to define and address the issues they have about applying course concepts in their real-life school settings. But teachers coming into our classes are typically accustomed to a more passive format of instruction. We have found that they respond indifferently to many of our initiatives if we present them too early in the semester, and that patterns of independence and ownership must be built gradually rather than thrust upon them suddenly.

Accordingly, we begin our courses with a more traditional, instructor-centered approach, and proceed toward a more learner-centered model as the teachers become familiar and comfortable with the distance education format and technology. When class first begins, we do not require a strongly active participation. We ask for volunteer coordinators, but lead discussions ourselves. We encourage learner input, but give teachers time to script their answers. We follow this same pattern in our use of Web technology. Early in the semester, we rely heavily on e-mail to communicate with the teachers between classes. Their contact with us is typically one-sided, and our responses are detailed and individualized. As the semester progresses, we begin demanding more of their contributions. We move more class activities to AVF, so that their Web-based communication becomes an integral part of their professional development activities.

One of the keys to building learner ownership and participation is to introduce aspects of the technology gradually, rather than all at once. For example, like many users of Web-based instruction, we find it helpful to have a chat room or lounge at our Web site that teachers can use to discuss school-related issues or share ideas for applying specific teaching methods. Rather than providing this forum when a class first starts, we wait a few weeks until we feel the teachers are more ready to talk to one another, and they have a set of shared experiences to discuss. In the same way, we wait several weeks before breaking the class into teams for Web-based assignments, allowing them to get comfortable with us and with the basic framework of the course before having them branch out and begin working with their peers.

A crucial element in these early weeks of professional development is our use of fax machines and e-mail.

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