Distance: Conversational Theory

In Holmberg's article, "Course development—fundamental considerations" I was surprised by the strong constructivist bent. I have always thought of distance education as simply dispensing information. But Holmberg believes that distance education cannot be simply content delivery. Helping students connect with prior knowledge and create their own knowledge is of paramount importance. One thing I did not understand was on page 48 Holmberg states that students who do “too much elaboration seem to risk having difficulties in retracing the text information in the multitude of connections they have established.” I can understand the danger in too little elaboration, but I am not certain of the dangers of “too much elaboration.”

One of his key points was that students will be more likely to engage if there is a conversational feeling to what they read. He gives specific ideas about how to write texts—not too dense, a personal tone, attempts to engage the student in conversation so to speak, and engage the student emotionally. Using personal pronouns.

Another suggested idea was to imagine that you are tutoring and individual and then write down that conversation as though you were having it with an individual

One specific suggestion I found interesting was regarding the insertion of questions into the text to increase the conversation-like quality. Holmberg states, “To the extent they make students aware of how they learn and direct their attention to reflection, inserted questions are likely to support learning” (66).

I particularly found the following valuable from a practioner’s standpoint. :

1. 7 points of guided didactic conversation (p.47).
2. 6 points of creating a conversation text (p. 48).
3. 9 suggestions of making a tutorial in print (p. 52).
4. Gagne’s 9 events of instruction (p.66).

In the article “A theory of distance education based on Empathy,” Holmberg presents information that is largely similar to the previous article. He states that the first part of his theory of distance education is that it serves people who cannot or do not want to have face to face instruction, assuming it seems that f2f is the de-facto method of teaching.

Holmberg also states that having students feel an empathy and belonging will help students want to learn—thus the reason for “conversation-like presentations of the subject matter” (82).

In each of these readings Holmberg talks about how “three empirical studies” tested his conversation theory “to rigorous falsification attempts” but admits that although his theory has not been proved false, neither is their evidence that assures us it is true. I would like to learn more about the research that was done and if other research has validated his theory.

Holmberg cites Baath as doing research that shows that the frequency with which assignments were turned in did not seem to affect the course completion or test results of students. Did it affect their empathic feelings towards the course or subject matter?

To me, the tenets of the conversational approach are somewhat at odds with the industrialization approach. The "empathy" idea does not seem to be in harmony with the "get as many students in and out" approach. I do believe that as long as one is going to write text that is intended to be used as a way to dessminate information using the principles espoused by Holmberg could help make the material more palatable.