Accessible Elements Teaching Science Online and at a Distance

Accessible Elements informs science educators about current practices in online and distance education: distance-delivered methods for laboratory coursework, the requisite administrative and institutional aspects of online and distance teaching, and the relevant educational theory. Delivery of university-level courses through online and distance education is a method of providing equal access to students seeking post-secondary education. Distance delivery offers practical alternatives to traditional on-campus education for students limited by barriers such as classroom scheduling, physical location, finances, or job and family commitments. The growing recognition and acceptance of distance education, coupled with the rapidly increasing demand for accessibility and flexible delivery of courses, has made distance education a viable and popular option for many people to meet their science educational goals.

About the Editors

Dietmar Kennepohl, FCIC, is associate vice president academic and professor of chemistry at Athabasca University. Lawton Shaw is assistant professor of chemistry at Athabasca University.

Reviews

Kennepohl and Shaw are to be congratulated on bringing together accounts of new approaches to how we teach science at a distance. The possibilities that ICT provide have revolutionised the field, and this volume brings us up to date with what can be done.

 

It is thought provoking and challenging, and fills a gap for science teachers who wish to deepen their understanding and add to their repertoire of strategies.

Open Learning

Table of Contents

1. Foreword
2. Introduction
3. Learning
   1. 1. Interactions Affording Distance Science Education / Terry Anderson
   2. 2. Learning Science at a Distance: Instructional Dialogues and Resources / Paul Gorsky and Avner Caspi
   3. 3. Leadership Strategies for Coordinating Distance Education Instructional Development Teams / Gale Parchoma
   4. 4. Toward New Models of Flexible Education to Enhance Quality in Australian Higher Education / Stuart Palmer, Dale Holt, and Alan Farley
4. Laboratories
   1. 5. Taking the Chemistry Experience Home – Home Experiments or “Kitchen Chemistry” / Robert Lyall and Antonio (Tony) F. Patti
   2. 6. Acquisition of Laboratory Skills by On-Campus and Distance Education Students / Jenny Mosse and Wendy Wright
   3. 7. Low-Cost Physics Home Laboratory / Farook Al-Shamali and Martin Connors
   4. 8. Laboratories in the Earth Sciences / Edward Cloutis
   5. 9. Remote Control Teaching Laboratories and Practicals / Dietmar Kennepohl
5. Logistics
   1. 10. Needs, Costs, and Accessibility of de Science Lab Programs / Lawton Shaw and Robert Carmichael
   2. 11. Challenges and Opportunities for Teaching Laboratory Sciences at a Distance in a Developing Country / Md. Tofazzal Islam
   3. 12. Distance and Flexible Learning at University of the South Pacific / Anjeela Jokhan and Bibhya N. Sharma
   4. 13. Institutional Considerations: A Vision for Distance Education / Erwin Boschmann
6. Author Biographies
7. Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.