Journal Name:
- The Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education
Key Words:
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Abstract (2. Language):
The main characteristic of Distance Learning is that the student is taught and learns
without his tutor’s physical presence in the classroom. The opportunity for a direct
(face to face) communication between all members of the educational group [tutor
counselor (TC) and students] in Distance Learning is offered by the Tutorials/Contact
Sessions (CS). Although these CSs are not compulsory, it is estimated that they are of
high importance, since among other things, they help in clarifying difficult to
understand points and they also help in the cognitive subject becoming more fully
comprehensible by the student (Holmberg 1995).
For the discussion of the various issues at the CSs many different educational
techniques within the framework of adult education such as teamwork, short
lectures, debates, questions and answers, case studies, simulations, role play, etc are
used in combination. These are techniques raising the student’s interest, facilitating
his/her participation in the learning process and developing interaction between TC
and students and between students themselves. They also create a learning and
research environment; encourage the students to work in a group and to learn by
acting (Kokkos 1998).
One of these educational techniques is the field study, which is the subject of this
paper. To this day, no research has been carried out for the possibility of
implementation of this technique in Distance Learning nor have any results of such
implementation been studied. This paper comprising of three parts contains a general
presentation of the field study as a teaching technique in the first part while in the
second part the successive stages of development of this technique in Distance
Learning are analyzed. Finally, in the third part the students’ views of Hellenic Open
University on this technique are presented.
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