1. Three Generations of Distance
Education Pedagogies
Terry Anderson & Jon Dron
(International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning)
Presented by Elizabeth Akore

2. Presentation Outline
• Introduction
• The three(3)generations of DE Pedagogies
• Cognitive, Social & Teaching presence in the different teaching
models.
• Strengths & weaknesses of each pedagogy
• Future Generations of Distance education
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Summary of Distance Education pedagogies

3. Introduction
• This paper defines & examines 3 generations of distance education
pedagogy. Unlike earlier classifications on distance education based
on the technology used, this analysis focuses on the pedagogy that
defines the learning experience encapsulated in the learning design.
• “The three generations of cognitive – behaviourist, social
constructivist, & connectivist pedagogy are examined, using the
familiar community of inquiry model with its focus on
social, cognitive, & teaching presence (Garrison, Anderson, &
Archer, 2000).
• DE like all other technical – social developments, is historically
constituted in the thinking & behavioural patterns of those who
developed, tested, & implemented what were once novel systems.

4. The 3 Generations of DE Pedagogy
 COGNITIVE - BEHAVIOURIST Pedagogy of DE
 SOCIAL - CONSTRUCTIVIST Pedagogy of DE
 CONNECTIVIST Pedagogy of DE
• We will look at Cognitive presence, social presence & teaching presence
in and their strengths and weaknesses.

5. 1. COGNITIVE –BEHAVIOURIST Pedagogy of DE
• CB pedagogies focus on the way in which learning was predominantly
defined, practiced & researched in the later half of the 20th century.
• Behavioural learning theory begins with notions of learning which are
generally defined as new behaviours or changes in behaviours that are
acquired as the result of an individual’s response to stimuli.
• Note in this definition the focus on the individual & the necessity for
measuring actual behaviours & not attitudes or capacities.
For example, Gagne’s (1965) events of instruction proceed through linear &
structured phases, including to

6. Gagne’s (1965) events of instruction
1. Gain learners’ attention
2. Inform learners of objectives
3. Stimulate recall of previous information
4. Present stimulus material
5. Provide learning guidance
6. Elicit performance
7. Provide feed back
8. Assess performance
9. Enhance transfer opportunities

7. ’
Cont
• Behaviourist notions have been esp. attractive for use in
training programs as the learning outcomes associated with
training are usu. clearly measured & demonstrated
behaviourally. From the behaviourist tradition emerged the
cognitive revolution , beginning in the late 1950s
(Miller, 2003).
• Cognitive pedagogy arose partially in response to a growing
need to account for motivation, attitudes and mental
barriers that may only be associated or demonstrated through
observable behaviours.
• Although learning was still conceived of as an individual
process, its study expanded from an exclusive focus on
behaviour to changes in knowledge or capacity that are stored
& recalled in individual memory (Mayer,2001)

8. 2. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST Pedagogy of DE
• SCP developed in conjunction with the development of 2 way
communication technologies.
• SCP acknowledges the social nature of K+ & of its creation in
the minds of individual learners.
• Teachers do not merely transmit K+ to be passively consumed
by learners; rather, each learner constructs means by which
new K+ is both created & integrated with existing K+
• Although there are many types of social constructivism
(Kanuka & Anderson,1999), all models have more or less
common themes, including the importance of

9. Common Themes
 new K+ as building upon the foundation of previous
learning
 Context is shaping learners’ K+ development
 Language & other social tools in constructing
knowledge
 Metacognition & evaluation as a means to develop
learners’ capacity to assess their own learning,
 Learning environment as learner centred& stressing the
importance of multiple perspectives.
 K+ needing to be subject to social
discussion, validation, & application in real world
contexts (Honebein, 1996, Jonassen, 1991; Kanuka &
Anderson, 1999).

10. 3. CONNECTIVIST Pedagogy of DE
• The 3rd generation of DE pedagogy emerged recently. Canadians George Siemens
(2005a&b, 2007) & Steven Downes (2007)have written defining connectivist papers
, arguing that learning is the process of building networks of information, contacts &
resources that are applied to real problems.
• Connectivism was developed in the information age of a networked era ( Castells, 1996)
& assumes access to networked technologies.
• Connectivism also assumes that that information is plentiful & that the learner’s role is
not to memorise or even understand everything, but to have the capacity to find &
apply K+ when & where is needed.
• Connectivism assumes that much mental processing & problem solving can & should
be off-loaded to machines, leading to Siemens’ (2005) claim that “learning may reside
in non-human appliance.’
• Connectivist models explicitly rely on networked connections between people, digital
artifacts, & content which would have been inconceivable as forms of DL were the
world Wide Web (www) not available to mediate the process. Thus as we have seen in
the case of the earlier generation of DL technology has played a major role in
determining the potential pedagogies that may be employed.

11. Cognitive, Social & Teaching presence in the
different models
COGNITIVE PRESENCE SOCIAL PRESENCE TEACHING PRESENCE
C CP is the means & context thru What most defined the CB In its earliest as
O which learners construct & generation of DE was an almost correspondence education, the
G confirm new K+. In CB models total absence of social presence. tr. had only their words on
N
I
of learning, CP is created Learning was thought of as an printed text to convey their
T through structured processes in individual process, & thus it presence. Later technologies
I which learners’ interest is made little difference if one was allowed voice (audio) & body
V stimulated, informed by both reading a book, watching a language of the tr. (video) to be
E general & specific cases of movie, or interacting with a transmitted thru TV, film, &
overriding principles & then computer – assisted learning multimedia- based educational
B tested & reinforced for the program by oneself or in the productions. Despite the
E
H
acquisition of this K+. CB company of other learners. This general absence of the tr. in
A models of DEP stress the focus on individualised learning this CB pedagogies, one cannot
V importance of using an resulted in very high levels of std. discount the teaching presence
I Instructional systems design freedom ( space & pace) & fitted that potentially could be
O model where the learning nicely with technologies of print developed thru one-to-one
U objectives are clearly identified packages, mass media ( radio & written correspondence,
R and stated & exist apart from TV), & postal correspondence telephone conversation, or
I
S
the learner & the context of interaction occasional face-to –face
T study. interaction between tr. & std.

12. COGNITIVE PRESENCE ``
SOCIAL PRESENCE TEACHING PRESENCE
S Cognitive presence assumes that Social interaction is a defining Kanuka &Anderson (1999)
O learners are actively engaged, & feature of constructivist argued that in
C interaction with peers is perhaps pedagogies. At a distance, this constructivist modes of
I the most cost-effective way to interaction is always mediated, but DE, “ the educator is a
A support cognitive presence (not nonetheless, it is considered to be guide, helper, & partner
L requiring the high costs of a critical component of quality where the content is
simulations, computer –assisted distance education (Garrison, secondary to the learning
C learning programming, or media 1997). More recent developments process; the source of K+
O production).Cognitive presence, for in immersive technologies, such as lies primarily in
N constructivists also exploits the Second Life, allow gestures, experiences.” Given this
S human capacity for role modelling costumes, voice intonation, & critical role, one can see
T (Bandura, 1977), imitation other forms of body language that the importance of
R (Warnick, 2008), and dialogic may provide enhancements to teaching presence within
U inquiry Wegerif, 2007).Thus, social presence beyond those constructivist models.
C Garrison (1997) & others argue experienced face-to-face ( Teaching presence
T that CBL with rich std. – std. & Std.- McKerlick & Anderson, 2007). It is extends beyond
I Tr. interaction constituted a new , likely, as learners become more facilitation of learning to
V “post –industrialist era” of DE. skilled in using ever-present choosing & constructing
I However, the focus on human mobile communications & educational interventions
S interactions placed limits on embedded technologies, that & to providing direct
T accessibility & produced more barriers associated with a lack of instruction when required.
costly models of DE (Annand, social presence will be further
1999). reduced.

13. COGNITIVE PRESENCE SOCIAL PRESENCE TEACHING PRESENCE
C Connectivist cognitive presence begins CP stresses the As in constructivist
O with the assumption that learners have development of social learning, teaching
N access to powerful networks, are literate & presence & social capital presence is created by
N confident enough to exploit these through the creation & the building of learning
E networks in completing learning tasks. sustenance of networks paths & by design &
C Connectivist learning happens best in of past & present learners support of interactions,
T network contexts, as opposed to individual & of those with K+ such that learners make
I or group contexts (Dron & Anderson, relevant to the leaning connections with existing
V 2007). In network contexts, members goals. The activities of & new K+ resources.
I participate as they define real learning learners are reflected in Unlike earlier pedagogies,
S needs, filter these for relevance, & their contribution to the teacher is not solely
T contribute in order to hone their K+ wikis, Twitter, threaded responsible for defining ,
creation & retrieval skills. In the process, conferences, Voice generating or assigning
P they develop networks of their own & threads & other network content. Rather, learners
E increase their developing social capital tools. The activities, & teacher collaborate to
D (Davies, 2003). Cognitive presence is choices & artifacts left by create the content of
A enriched by emergent interactions on previous users are mined study, & in the process re-
G networks, in which others are able to through network create that content for
O observe, comment upon, & contribute to analytics & presented as future use by others. A
G connectivist learning. Connectivist guideposts & paths to K+ final stress to teaching is
Y cognitive presence is enhanced by the that new users can follow the challenge presented
focus on reflection & distribution of these (Dron, 2006). by rapidly changing
reflections in blogs, twitter posts & technologies.
multimedia webcasts.

14. Strengths & Weaknesses of Cognitive –Behaviourist
Models.
• To summarize, CB models defined the 1st generation of
individualized DE. They maximized access & student freedom, &
were capable of scaling to very large numbers at significantly
lower costs than traditional edu., as demonstrated by the
successful mega universities(Daniel, 1996). However, these
advantages were accompanied by the very significant
reductions in teaching, social presence & formal models of
cognitive presence, reductions that have come under serious
challenge since the latter decades of the 20th century. While
appropriate when learning objectives are very clear, CB models
avoid dealing with the full richness & complexity of humans
learning to be, as opposed to learning to do (Vaill, 1996).

15. Strengths & Weakness of constructivist Models
Constructivist DE pedagogies moved distance learning beyond the
narrow type of K+ transmission that could be encapsulated easily in
media though to the use of human communication-based learning.
Thus, Garrison & others ague that the rich student – student &
teacher to student interaction could be viewed as a “post- industrialist
ea” of DE. However, Annand views the focus on human interaction as
placing limits on accessibility & producing more costly models of DE.
Ironically, constructivist models of DE began to share many of the
affordances & liabilities of campus –based education, with potential
for teacher domination, passive lecture delivery, & restrictions on
geographic & temporal access.

16. Strengths & Weaknesses of Connectivist Approaches
• Connectivist approaches used in a formal course setting , where top-
down structure is imposed over the bottom –up emergent connections of
the network, often heavily rely on the popular net work leaders. Such
people occupy highly connected nodes in their networks & can encourage
a sufficiently large population to engage so that there is continued
activity even when the vast majority does not engage regularly. Even
then, learners often yearn for a more controlled environment
(Mackness, Mak & Williams,2010)
• While a great many speculative & theoretical papers have been written on
the potential of connectivism, there is a clear need for a richer means of
establishing both networked & personal learning environments that offer
control when needed in both pedagogical & organisational terms. The
crowd can be a source of wisdom (Surowiecki, 2005) but can equally be a
source of stupidity (Carr, 2010), with processes like preferential attachment
that are as capable of leading to the Matthew Principle (where the rich
get richer & the poor get poorer).

17. Future Generations of DE Pedagogy?
• We have seen how different models of teaching & learning have evolved
when the technological affordances & climate were right for them.
Cognitive –behaviourist pedagogical models arose in a technological
environment that constrained communication to the pre-web, one –one
& one-many modes; social -constructivism flourished in a Web
1.0, many-many technological context & connectivism is at least partially
a product of a networked, Web 2.0 world. It is tempting to speculate
what the next generation will bring. Some see Web 3.0 as being the
semantic Web, while others include mobility, augmented reality, &
location awareness in the mix (Hendler, 2009).
• All of these are likely to be important but may not be sufficient to bring
about a change of the sorts we have seen in earlier generations of
networked systems because the nature & mode of
communication, though more refined, will not change much with these
emerging technologies. It is already becoming clear that connectivist
approaches must become more intelligent in enabling people to connect
to & discover sources of K+. Part of that intelligence will come from data
mining & analytics, but part will come from the crowd itself.

18. Discussion points
• Many educators pride themselves to being pedagogically (as opposed to
technology)driven in their teaching and learning designs. However, as
McLuhan first argued, technologies also influence & define the usage, in
this case the pedagogy instantiated in the learning & instructional design.
What did he mean by that?
• In an attempt to define a middle ground between either technological or
pedagogical determinism, the two are being intertwined in a dance; the
technology sets the beat & creates music, while the pedagogy defines
the moves (Dron & Anderson, 2009). What did they mean by that?
• They further went on by stating that “to some extent our pedagogical
processes may themselves be viewed as technologies move (Dron &
Anderson, 2009).
• The availability of technologies to support different models of learning
strongly influences what kinds of models can be developed; if there were
no means of two-way communication, what would it be like?

19. Conclusion
• Distance education has evolved through many technologies and at least three generations
of pedagogy, as described in this paper. No single generation has provided all the
answers, and each has built on foundations provided by its predecessors rather than
replacing the earlier prototype (Ireland, 2007).
• For each mode of engagement, different types of knowledge, learning, and contexts must
be applied and demand that distance educators and students be skilled and informed to
select the best mix(es) of both pedagogy and technology. Although the prime actors in all
three generations remain the same—teacher, student, and content—the development of
relationships among these three increases from the critical role of student–student
interaction in constructivism to the student–content interrelationship celebrated in
connectivist pedagogies, with their focus on persistent networks and user-generated
content.
• The Web sites, books, tutorial materials, videos, and so on, from which a learner may
learn, all work more or less effectively according to how well they enable the learner to
gain knowledge. Even when learning relies on entirely social interactions, the various
parties involved may communicate knowledge more or less effectively. It is clear that
whether the learner is at the centre or part of a learning community or learning
network, learning effectiveness can be greatly enhanced by applying, at a detailed
level, an understanding of how people can learn more effectively:
Cognitivist, behaviourist, constructivist, and connectivist theories each play an important
role.

20. Table 1
Summary of Distance Education Pedagogies
Generation of Technology Learning Learner Content Evaluation Teacher Scalability
distance activities granularity granularity role
education
pedagogy
Cognitive– Mass media: Read and Individual Fine: Recall Content High
behaviourism Print, TV, watch scripted and creator,
radio, one-to- designed sage on
one from the the stage
communication ground up
Constructivism Conferencing Discuss, Group Medium: Synthesize: Discussion Medium
(audio, video, create, scaffolded essays leader,
and Web), construct and guide on
many-to-many arranged, the side
communication Teacher
guided
Connectivism Web 2.0: Explore, Network Coarse: Artifact Critical Low
Social connect, mainly at creation friend, co -
networks, create, object and traveller
aggregation & and person
recommender evaluate level, self
systems created

21. The end