Implementation Of Elaboration Theory In Material Design For Distance Education

Abstract

Distance Education is a kind of teaching in which a variety of teaching activities and the communication between students are achieved through peculiarly prepared contents and environments at a certain station in the cases when there is no possibility to conduct in-class activities. One of the most significant constraints of distance education conducted by several universities is the lack of qualified content and the limitations in the presentation of the content. Herein there is a need for reference models that will show how to make material design, constitute an efficient theoretical base for presentation of the course content. Therefore, in this study for material design in Distance Education, Elaboration Theory was employed, and a sample course design was accomplished. With its seven basic components (an Elaborative Sequence, Learning Prerequisite Sequences, Summarizers, Synthesizers, Analogies, Cognitive Strategy Activators, Learner Control) Elaboration Theory guides the teaching designers about how the teaching content and its presentations should be. In this study, a material design including four subjects was conducted for an introductory programming course in the scope of guiding principles of ET, and at every stage of this design, four experts’ views were received in order to ensure its validity. The suggested style of material design is hoped to eliminate at a visible level the insufficiencies in favor of synchronous distance learning practices.