DISTANCE LEARNING AND IN SERVICE TEACHERS: AN EXPERIENCE OF COURSE DESIGN

Designing courses for in service teachers is at the same time really difficult and a very big responsibility. It is really difficult not only because course design is a hard an intricate activity itself, but also because it implies a solid training in the subject as well as a specific kind of personality to plan something for other teachers who are working on the same field as the designer.

In this talk, the author will present relevant information about his experience in the designing of courses for in service teachers. The information will be divided in seven sections as follows, the technical training to design distance courses. The technical knowledge on the subject of the course. The technical training for training teachers. The in service teachers personality. The designer personality. The institution and its resources. The possibility to make mistakes.

The technical training to design distance courses is different to the training to design traditional ones. The “how to teach” is different, because we do not rely on working with the participants on a face-to-face basis. On the other hand, they work with the activities when they are able to do it and the communication is almost never direct. The tutor should take care of the participants with this information in mind, and obviously it has to be considered when planning the course.

The technical knowledge on the subject of the course also has to be very solid. In fact, it would be preferable for distance learning designers to have experience as traditional teacher trainers before working in the design of distance courses for in service teachers. That way they would have the necessary input about the theoretical aspects to be dealt when designing the course.
As mentioned above, technical training for training teachers needs to be taken into account because it is the starting point to design distance courses for in service teachers, that means that it will not be easy for an in service teacher, who has never trained any colleague, to design this kind of courses.

Two other important aspects that need to be considered are the personality of both, the in service teachers and that one of the designer. The designer needs to plan activities that will not confront tutor and participants, and since he will be the first tutor, he needs to know what the best way to interact with in service teachers is. His interaction will work for him as a model for future tutors.

Knowing what resources the institution has is very important for the designer because by doing this he is able to know what technical affairs he will have to personally take care of when designing the course.

Finally, the designer needs to know if she/he can make mistakes and if she/he will be able to correct them, in other words, what would happen if when validating the proposal, when being piloted, the designer finds mistakes? Will she/he be able to correct them? Will that interfere with her/his payment? Will the course be used?

At the end of the talk, the author will present his conclusions related to his personal experiences in the designing of distance courses for in service teachers.