DE Track

Hello and welcome to the Distance Education (DE) Track at Lake Tahoe Community College. Historically, the term “Distance Education” has been used to mean a form of education in which the instructor and student are not physically connected as they would be in a face-to-face class. Prior to the age of technology, the Internet, and LMS (Learning Management Systems), some distance education included correspondence education in which instructors and students communicated through written means that was delivered through the mail. Surprisingly, such education can be traced back to the 1850s in Europe. One concern with this form of education is the lack of real-time communication and pedagogical conversation between the instructor and students. We sometimes refer to this sort of education as “asynchronous” as real-time interaction is not present in the teaching process. Since the mid-1980s, we are witness to a new and more interactive form of distance education known as Online Learning. Online learning takes the idea of distance education and improves it by providing more frequent asynchronous communication between instructor and students. As well, due to the advent of the telepresence of video and audio technology, online learning may be offered in a “synchronous” mode in which the instructor and students are able to interact in real-time as they would in a face-to-face class. While some would call our ISP education a form of distance education, for clarity sake, we will refer to distance education as that which only involves online learning. 

Not all of our faculty begin their teaching in the distance education modality. Many have transitioned from the face-to-face to the DE one. This transition can be challenging, particularly if you are not technologically inclined in terms of your everyday life. No matter your technology background, we believe that each and every one of you can train and develop the skills needed to be an effective an outstanding distance education faculty member at LTCC. Here is a video that discusses the basics of distance education instruction.