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Distance Education: A Tool to Improve Communities

By IGI Global on Apr 7, 2011
Distance education is often touted as a convenient option for potential students who are also parents, workers with full-time jobs, or have other major commitments that might prevent them from being full-time students. A growing number of schools have distance education programs, and some schools even operate primarily or exclusively online. Convenience is a great facet of distance education, but in some situations, distance education might have the ability to go further for students – it could even have the power to impact a community as a whole.

In Chevak, a remote town in Alaska, a number of teaching aides are working through a distance education program to earn their bachelor's degrees and teaching certifications. The superintendent of the local school district, the Kashunamiut School District, contacted the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) wanting to help these teaching aides become full-fledged teachers. The people of Chevak speak the local dialect of Cupik as well as English, and because of this, the teaching aides who are all local and mostly native Cupik speakers, are in a unique position to facilitate learning for the children of Chevak.

"It really is expanding our understanding of what it means to look at education through a non-Western lense and think – what does education look like in Chevak?" said Jim Powell, Director of the Department of Teaching and Learning at UAA, according to a recent article in The Tundra Drums. "They're lives are as educators right now, they already work with children. […] What we were trying to figure out is how can we take our degree to Chevak and have people graduate without having to leave."

The teaching aides will finish this specially designed program in seven years. They are taking short, intensive courses one at a time, and the program is ultimately very different from the average four-year degree. UAA hopes to potentially implement this program elsewhere to help other schools in situations similar to Chevak. Many of these schools have a limited number of local teachers and high staff turnover rates. "I think it's very much a pilot project, which might be directly applicable to other parts of Alaska," said Patricia Chesbro, Director of Special Projects at UAA, according to the same article.

This program will be helpful to participants who otherwise might not have been able to obtain their teaching certifications due to family obligations or financial strains. This provides a convenience to the teaching aides and the schools, as well as a positive service to the students and ultimately the community as a whole.

For communities and schools interested in starting or expanding distance education programs, new research is necessary to figure out how to most effectively implement these programs. IGI Global is proud to provide quality research covering these topics and related subjects.

Cases on Building Quality Distance Delivery Programs: Strategies and Experiences, edited by Stephanie Huffman, Shelly Albritton, Barbara Wilmes, and Wendy Rickman, all of the University of Central Arkansas, USA, targets pressing needs in distance education by connecting theory and practice, addressing emerging leadership issues, and identifying best practices in teaching and learning. This book unites cases that not only can be used for teaching, but also as a resource for building quality distance delivery programs.

Cases on Building Quality Distance Delivery Programs: Strategies and Experiences


Useful cases in this book include:



These case studies, along with the rest of the cases included in the book, are also available for individual purchase. For more information on this book, visit www.igi-global.com/bookstore/titledetails.aspx?TitleId=46983. To further browse related publications, visit www.igi-global.com/bookstore/results.aspx?type=1&cid=146.

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