Center for Teaching Excellence at AU: Distance Education Training Course

A Little History: A Distance Learning at AU and the Summer Niche

This is the fifth year of AU's effort to develop a niche program in distance education. AU has taken a cautious approach to distance learning. In part, this is due to the unique nature of AU, in part due to a strategic decision. The good news is that the dot-com crash and the loss of huge investments by many colleges and universities validated this caution from a financial viewpoint. The bad news is that, we have somewhat fallen behind in making needed investments in teaching and program building related to distance learning. AU’s strength is in face-to-face instruction and intensive, in-person faculty to student contacts. There are, however, distance learning niches we can and should exploit.

One niche area is summer courses. Summer is when distance learning may be most appropriate for AU students and faculty. Students are taking on full time internships in town and traveling to home or to other academic experiences. Faculty are also traveling but also working from off campus on research.

Results of a survey of AU students indicate that more than half of students enrolled because they could not have taken a course on campus otherwise, either because they were away from campus, traveling, or had schedule conflicts with on-campus classes. In general they enjoy DE courses and find them an interesting and valuable approach to teaching and learning. Learn more about what makes a distance education course work for students.

Contact
Jim Lee

Phone: (202) 885-2285
Email: jlee@american.edu

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DE Training Course Menu
-DE Course Overview
-Purpose of the Course
-Assignments/Objectives
-History of Distance Learning at AU
-Making DE Work for Students
-Details from Spring '07 Course
-DE Courses Recently Taught at AU

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