Environmental Education Towards Personal, Professional and Societal Change: Possibilities for Distance Education

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper I describe the design of distance education texts that encourage the kinds of student-tutor dialogue which ‘industrial’ methods of course delivery may find hard to achieve, and how such texts enable students and their tutors to be critically reflective about the theory and practice of environmental education in different cultural contexts. Aspects of the following are discussed - the limitations of ‘new technologies’ in resolving issues faced by distance educators; the potential of open texts in distance education; ways of supporting students in necessary critical reflection; the Importance of social belonging for students, especially those of distance education courses in environmental education. The paper concludes with a series of suggestions for colleagues wishing to establish culturally sensitive, critically reflective distance education courses in environmental education.