The Principal Investigators acknowledge the participation and contributions of the research team members: Cathy Andrews, PhD, RN; Pamela Magnussen Ironside, PhD, RN; Patricia Young, PhD(c), RN; Laura Stewart, MS, RN; Nancy Ranum, MS, RN; Ann Woodward, MS, RN; and Kara Groen, MS, RN. It would not have been possible to complete this study without the distance teachers, students, and technology specialists who generously created a place in their lives to reflect on their experiences and participate in the on-going interpretations and final research report. We are particularly appreciative of the expertise and counsel throughout this study of Kathleen Christoph, Academic Computing Services/DoIT, Learning Technology. The principal investigators acknowledge the timely and insightful reviews of the final research report by Stephen Ackerman, Atmospheric Sciences; Patricia Lasky, School of Nursing; Margaret Geisler, Director, Continuing Education; Chere Gibson, Schools of Education and Human Ecology; and Michael Streibel, School of Education.

The Study 1

Assumptions 2

Methodology 3

• Study Participants
• Hermeneutical Analyses

Findings 5

A. Making the Common Practices of Teaching Visible: "Everything

changes!"

B. Un-at-homeness: "I found it’s a whole different world for teachers."

2. Challenging Conventional Pedagogies: Questioning Reliance on the Visual and

Physical Presence 9

A. Deconstructing the Visual and Embodied in Conventional Teaching:

"You can’t see their faces."

3. Reawakening Roles: Creating New Partnerships 15

5. Creating New Pedagogies: Re-visioning Schooling, Learning and Teaching 25

Converging Conversations of Distance Education: "What Works and What Doesn’t" 32

Continuing Conversations: Listing to Students, Media Specialists and Technical Staff 37

References 39

It is a tenet of the University of Wisconsin, dating back to the turn of our century and our origins as a land grant college, that the walls of the University are the borders of the state. Perhaps our best opportunity to realize that ideal may be the development of technology-based distance education, arriving at the end of the century. Through the use of emerging communications technologies, contemporary distance education teachers and students do not need a common place, or even a common time, to teach and to learn with a high degree of interactivity. In Wisconsin, as elsewhere, this concept of instruction is being evaluated as a model for education in the 21st Century.

Early studies of technology-based instruction have focused on the merits of the technologies themselves in terms of cognitive gain and learning outcomes. As distance education courses have become more commonplace, however, more recent studies have also begun to focus on the pedagogies of distance teaching, as suggested by recent publications on the instructional interaction of students and teachers (Thomerson and Smith, 1996; Wagner, 1997), student attrition in distance education (Gibson, 1996, and student expressions of academic confidence and doubt associated with their participation in distance education offerings (Egan & Gibb, 1997; Gibson, 1996; Wagner, 1997. It is timely, therefore, to explore how distance education, largely undertheorized, differs pedagogically from the more customary classroom instruction.

This study was jointly commissioned by the University of Wisconsin-System and the Madison campus to (1) describe the common experiences of University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and academic staff who use distance technologies, (2) discuss the issues and implications of these common experiences across a variety of disciplinary contexts and educational offerings, and (3) increase the understanding of the ways in which instructional technologies and technology-based education currently are succeeding and not succeeding. Using interpretive phenomenology as the philosophical background, this study analyzed hermeneutically interviews of distance faculty from the Madison campus describing their experiences in distance teaching between 1994 and 1997.

In the broadest sense, pedagogy refers to the nature of knowledge and learning, specifically how knowledge is produced and reproduced, transformed and experienced, in situations created by students and teachers. It includes what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is learned and reflected in the experiences of distance teachers.

Common experiences embody the practical knowledge (wisdom) gained by reflecting on experiences. In interpretive phenomenological studies, the common is identified as a recurring theme or concern. It is familiar to the group being studied. Commonness is not a statistical frequency or occurrence, but rather a common voice judged by members of the group being studied to be familiar and representative. The uncommon or unique is preserved as counterpoint or illustrative of what is common.

The common experiences of teachers reveal an awareness of the pedagogical issues or problems as they are best understood in a particular context and discipline as well as an anticipation of the ways students comprehend the discipline, including their preconceptions and misconceptions about it. Only by combining a knowledge of the subject matter with pedagogical knowledge do teachers arrive at the most teachable content (Shulman, 1986). With distance education, use of technology becomes a part of pedagogical knowledge.

The premise in conducting an interpretive phenomenological study utilizing teacher narratives is that experienced teachers have invaluable, practical pedagogical insights to share with their peers. The work of Benner, Tanner, and Chesla (1996) supports that notion:

Teaching is a practice, and as such it is learned through experience, or rather by reflecting on experiences (Schon, 1983). Documenting the practices of distance teachers and describing the practical knowledge that they develop contribute to the recognition of how distance teachers teach and add to the understanding of how to prepare teachers for distance education.

Implicit in this study are several fundamental assumptions about the scholarship of teaching and learning that open up a pedagogical way of thinking about using technology in distance education:

• Our understanding of the nature of distance teaching using technology is increased when we listen to the narratives of teachers, and this contributes to a scholarship of teaching.
• There are limits to the applicability of educational learning theory to distance education. It is desirable, therefore, not to strive solely for theoretical knowledge, which can be used predictably only in particular situations, but to contribute as well to increased understanding by describing the practical knowledge embedded within the situation.
• Integrating technology into distance teaching creates a specialty discipline with different shared practices and common experiences. To date, little attention has been given to how distance teachers transform the practices of teaching such as preserving, reading, writing, thinking, and dialogue when using technology (Diekelmann & Ironside, In Press). As teachers learn to teach technologically, however, disciplinary content knowledge and technical content knowledge merge. This connecting creates the possibility of transforming and extending teaching in ways that reach students across distance, and therefore characterizes distance education as a specialty discipline.

Interpretive phenomenology, specifically Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology, was the background for this study. Hermeneutics as an approach to scholarship acknowledges the temporal situatedness of both the researcher and the participants. Hermeneutic scholarship works to uncover how humans are "always already" given as time. Hermeneutics has no beginning or end that can be concretely defined, but is a continuing experience for all who participate. The work of the interpretive phenomenologist moves beyond traditional logical structures in order to reveal and explicate otherwise hidden relationships and meanings. Calling attention to human practices and experiences, hermeneutics is closely related to critical social theory, feminisms, and postmodernism. Unlike them, however, philosophical hermeneutics does not posit a political or psychological framework, nor does the interpretive phenomenologist attempt to posit, explain, or reconcile an underlying cause of a particular experience. Rather, the description of the common experiences is intended to reveal, enhance, or extend understanding of the human situation as it is lived. The intent is to evoke thinking in the reader concerning the matter at hand.

Participants for this study were recruited widely from the Madison campus through letters to departments and schools, a call for participants in Wisconsin Week and announcements distributed at campus committee meetings such as the Teaching Academy. Thirty-one faculty and academic staff who had participated in distance learning using technology were interviewed from twenty-seven departments or schools. Informed consent was given to assure each participant of confidentiality. Non-structured, audiotaped interviews were completed in person or by telephone. A transcriptionist, experienced in interpretive research, transcribed each audiotaped interview. All identifying information (such as names and places) was deleted from the transcribed text and replaced with pseudonyms that were utilized throughout the data analysis and in this research report.

Participants were asked the following:

While the thinking that accompanies hermeneutical scholarship is reflective, reflexive, and circular in nature, describing the process of hermenutical analyses may suggest a linearity and structure that belies the seamless, fluid nature of this approach to inquiry. Although a brief summary of the hermeneutical analyses conducted in this study is described here, adapted from Diekelmann & Ironside (1998), the reader is referred to several authors--Benner (1994), Gadamer (1989), Grondin (1995), Heidegger (1993, 1996), and Palmer (1969)--who discuss hermeneutical approaches in more detail.

Each interview was read by team members to obtain a general understanding of the text. The team consisted of two experienced interpretive phenomenologists, seven masters or doctoral students, and two experienced teachers, one with and one without experience in distance teaching. Common themes were identified within each interview and each member of the team shared his or her written interpretations with the team. Dialogue among team members clarified the analyses. As the team analyzed subsequent interviews, each text was read against those that preceded it while comparing and contrasting themes. Thus, new themes were allowed to emerge, and previous themes were continuously refined, expanded, or overcome. Team members clarified any discrepancies in interpretations by referring back to the interview text or by reinterviewing participants for clarification. Phenomena were not reduced to differences or similarities, but rather, team members explicated the practices of identifying the seemingly simple and overlooked.

Team members identify and explore themes that cut across interview texts. They reread and studied interpretations generated previously to see if similar or contradictory interpretations were present in various interviews. Although it is an underlying assumption of hermeneutical analysis that no single correct interpretation exists, the team’s continuous examination of the whole and the parts of the texts with constant reference back to the participants ensured that interpretations were focused and reflected in the text. Whenever conflicts arose among interpretations of the interviews, team members provided extensive documentation to support their interpretations.

Reading across post-positivist, feminist, critical, and postmodern texts, team members held open and problematic the identification and interpretation of common practices of teachers. Team members read across all texts and wrote critiques of the interpretations. The purpose was to conduct critical scholarship using other interpretive approaches to extend, support, or overcome the themes identified using hermeneutics. In this way, analysis proceeded in cycles in which understanding, interpretation and critique are in the center of the dialogues and discourses pursued. Like the hermeneutic circle, interpretations are complete but never-ending.

The hermeneutical approach provided the opportunity for team members, and for researchers not on the team, to review the entire analysis for plausibility, coherence, and comprehensiveness. In addition, some participants in the study were asked to read interpretations of their interviews as well as the interviews of other participants to confirm, extend, or challenge the analyses. Others, not included in the analyses but likely to be readers of this study, reviewed the written interpretations as well as the final research report. This review process exposed unsubstantiated and unwarranted interpretations. In the final research report sufficient excerpts from the interviews were used to allow the reader to participate in the analyses. The purpose of the research report is to provide a wide range of explicated text so that the reader can recognize common practices and shared experiences.

The analyses of the narratives of experienced teachers from the Madison campus identified the following themes related to their common experiences in teaching at a distance:

1. Losing Familiar Landmarks and Touchstones: Rethinking Schooling, Learning and Teaching
2. Challenging Conventional Pedagogies: Questioning Reliance on the Visual and Physical Presence
3. Reawakening New Roles: Creating New Partnerships
4. Learning from Experience: Developing Expertise and Practical Knowledge
5. Creating New Pedagogies: Re-visioning Schooling, Learning and Teaching

Each of these themes is identified and described in the discussions that follow.

The common assumption that distance classes, utilizing instructional technology to reach a new population of students, are essentially extensions of on-campus classes was challenged by teachers in this study. With distance education, experienced teachers become beginners again.

Teaching at a distance is a new specialty that precludes teachers from teaching as they have always taught. What has worked in the past may no longer be helpful or reliable. Teachers described losing the familiar landmarks of schooling, such as semester breaks and summer sessions:

Many of the practices taken for granted in teaching suddenly were made visible in the distance setting. Small changes, such as a more prolonged course development schedule, could have profound, unanticipated implications for research and grant writing.

Many teachers acknowledged that they initially used familiar teaching skills but quickly discovered that they had to rethink their familiar ways as the landmarks and touchstones of teaching were changed or missing. One teacher described how teaching at a distance challenged as fundamental an activity as preparing course materials and teaching a class:

Common and familiar teaching practices became problematic and many teachers described their experiences as different.

Distance teaching was described as more than just doing familiar activities in new ways or with modified timeframes. Teachers described how the spontaneity and the familiar ways of teaching were lost, creating a profound sense of being un-at-home. One teacher described how preparing for class each week was changed:

All teaching is time-consuming, but the time-consuming nature of distance teaching was extraordinary, a common experience described by all teachers. Although teachers expected to spend more time in preparing their courses for distance formats and expected that it would take time to learn the new technologies, most did not anticipate the amount of time it would take. Many described the first time they offered their courses as "stiff," "full of breakdowns," "using trial and error" and "much more work" than anticipated. As a consequence, one teacher stressed the need to "start small." Another described being given release time to develop new distance courses:

Making time for teaching reflects contemporary concerns in higher education (Adelman, Walking, Eagle, & Hargreaves, 1997). Issues surrounding creating a space and place for distance teaching resonated throughout the interviews.

Creating new partnerships with technical staff and media specialists was a common experience for distance teachers, as will be described in more detail later. The more complex the course was, the greater the requirement that teachers work with a variety of technical staff. These new partnerships bring with them a time component as well. For the distance teacher, the familiar touchstone of "walking in the door" with slides to give a lecture becomes an activity that now requires anticipating the need to collaborate with others. The following story is from a technician who relates the example of one teacher who did not know when to seek help in reformating slides and consequently did not allow enough time:

The implications for new partnerships influenced the familiar activity of revising a course. A teacher described the substantive difference in teaching when updating a distance course:

As familiar landmarks and touchstones are lost, practices that have been done alone, routinely and unreflectively are made visible. This is a disconcerting experience, and an un-at-homeness sets in. Distance teachers described how these background practices, such as relying on the rhythms of the school year in their research programs emerged.

Simultaneously, distance teachers told of how this experience caused them to rethink some of these assumptions about schooling, learning and teaching. One teacher said:

As teachers were forced to reflect, they often challenged the common practices of conventional pedagogy. Distance teachers worried, for example, that they would not physically see their students or be able to get to know them in their usual ways. What was notable as familiar landmarks and touchstones were lost were the new possibilities distance teachers explored. These often led to new pedagogies. The issue of challenging conventional pedagogies as a way of creating new ones resonated in the narratives of distance teachers throughout the study.

In conventional pedagogies, teachers rely on visual and verbal cures in practicing teaching. They learn to read situations and faces to assess their ability to connect with students. Knowing and connecting is a common practice of teachers (Diekelmann, Douglas, Diekelmann, In Preparation). As the familiar landmarks and touchstones of conventional pedagogy were challenged, distance teachers talked about exploring new ways to reclaim familiar practices. Often this entailed rethinking their familiar and embodied relational skills.

Teachers pace course content and alter course activities based on verbal and visual cues from students. Teachers can often tell from body language in the classroom and their own intuitive embodied grasp whether students are understanding the material being presented (Atwell-Vasey, 1998). However, distance teachers must rely on other less obvious signs. As one teacher explained, gaining experience in distance teaching taught him how to pace himself in the classroom, as well as how to engage the distance student by reading the invisible signs:

Embedded in this story there is a challenge to the conventional pedagogical notion that visual and verbal cues are central to teaching and learning. The culture of pedagogy turns on language as an embodied, cultural experience of schooling (Kelly, 1997). Many narratives described how teachers, often with "simple," but significant acts, were able to recall ways to know and connect with students. That is not to say, that the deconstruction of the embodied experiences of teachers in some distance technologies was not, at the same time, a continuing concern. This teacher describes her continuing concerns about connecting with students:

One dilemma in distance education is anticipating how the technologies transform the embodied experiences of the visual and auditory. With some technologies, teachers can no longer see students and can only hear their voices. Reading students’ faces becomes difficult as teachers develop new ways to gauge how they are connecting with students whom they can’t see. Distance education teachers developed different ways, dependent on the particular technology, to know and connect with students. One teachers described the struggle and irony of losing the visual sense of reading students’ faces. In this audiographics situation the class is a stranger to the teacher but not the teacher to the class:

A teacher summarized the "worst thing" about distance teaching as the fact that "you can’t see their faces." Some teachers attended to losing one embodied sense, the visual, by emphasizing the verbal. In asynchronous learning, on-line dialogues were used as visual. This distance education teacher describes reclaiming a new embodied sense to guide her teaching by emphasizing the verbal:

One teacher described the advantages of this anonymity--a reawakened knowing and connecting through hearing and listening--and its influence on the lived experiences of thinking:

Teachers described the ways that different technologies influenced their embodied experiences of distance teaching. For example, there is a different sense of embodied presence in teleconferencing than in interactive video. All of these shape and are shaped by the embodied practice of dialogue. One teacher described a familiarity with telephones that assists in dialogue and connecting because using the phone is a common practice for students and teachers:

In distance teaching, the conventional ways of seeing and hearing that teachers use to connect with students are often no longer possible. But as new pedagogies emerge, teachers do develop alternative ways to stay connected to students in distance education courses. How these alternative ways influence schooling, learning and teaching need to be more fully explored.

Distance teachers often told narratives of ways they taught to create dialogues between themselves and students and among students. They defended the centrality of dialogue in teaching and learning. Dialogue and the power of address in the teacher’s participation in schooling reflects contemporary educational scholarship (Chavez & O’Donnell, 1998; Cohee et al., 1998; Ellsworth, 1997). Some teachers did not feel on-line dialogues were adequate, and they defended synchronous learning. A central concern for all distance teachers was the loss of classroom "dialogue" or "face-to-face" interactions.

One teacher valued the "interactive component" of physical presence in teaching and learning and understood its essential quality in distance teaching. For this teacher, sensitized to the learning needs of students enrolled in this beginning course and the need for a "live and interactive" (physically present) teaching format, the teacher defended synchronous learning:

The interactions here between students and teacher, altered by distance is one of presence both visual and verbal (Bleich, 1998). This study revealed how in varying ways, distance teachers challenged the role of physical presence in conventional pedagogies. Some teachers described how relationships between students and faculty had changed. Student accessibility to faculty was limited in distance teaching because casual conversations with students via offices with "open doors" were no longer feasible (Diekelmann, 1993). One teacher commented, when using audiographics, "head nodding" and all the "face-to-face, verbal and non-verbal cues" that are important in conventional teaching was missed. Cognizant of this challenge and concerned about how to overcome the absence of presence, distance teachers learned new possibilities for distance education. One teacher explained:

Some teachers used humor: "I’ll say okay, we don’t leave early. I know you’re walking out the door!" Others use an "e-mail connection." One distance education teacher reminded us, "You can’t just bump into somebody. You have to make a deliberate contact, a telephone call or write them a letter." One teacher described dictating a lot of letters. Another described using a letter that answered common questions as a way of interacting with students:

Some of the struggles distance education teachers experienced will in time disappear, if resources are available. For example, Web sites with on-line course readings will lessen the time that teachers spend managing connections with students through a letter and narrative course syllabus.

Encouraging participation so that teachers can determine how their students are doing is also challenged in distance teaching (Egan & Gibb, 1997). One teacher struggled with never satisfactorily knowing and connecting with the students:

The practice of putting students "on the spot" can be challenged as oppressive. This teacher is describing a loss of power and control usually experienced in conventional, teacher-centered pedagogies. Decentering teachers--although even here there is still a "center" of power--is a common concern of new pedagogies. Attending to how discourses and modes of address shape and are shaped by students and teachers is a part of creating new pedagogies or possibilities for learning (Ellsworth, 1997). Many of the oppressive practices of classroom teaching were present in distance education. Of particular concern to distance teachers was the absence of physical presence and how this influenced their power and ability to know "what’s going on." Many teachers responded with practices that were similar to conventional teaching, such as calling on students to participate.

The issue of the absence of physical presence in distance education is a complex one. It influences the practices of teachers, the interactions between and among students and teachers, and learning community activities. For example, the absence of physical presence made having a gathering at the end of the course an impossibility. One distance education teacher described this as a great disadvantage:

These interviews are rich with stories relating the struggle to come to terms with the loss of embodiment in teaching. Many describe strategies for using email, faxes, the telephone, in establishing connections with students despite the loss of direct contact with them. A few describe a developing perception that out of the technology of distance education they are finding new opportunities for teaching and learning that are not available in the traditional classroom.

Teaching and learning are lived experiences and, as such, embodied. However, embodied experience is an area that is not fully explored in higher education. Currently, the experiences of students and teachers are studied from a variety of perspectives, but few attend to the nature of the knowledge and expertise that develops from teaching and learning experiences as lived--or embodied. The issue then becomes how are the embodied and lived experiences of students and teachers best studied? Would the narratives of distance education teachers and learners be a paradigm study to explore the absence of physical presence and the lived experiences of embodied teaching and learning in creating new pedagogies? MacLeod (1996) explores the nature of becoming experienced:

Perhaps because the nature of embodiment is recast in teaching at a distance, a hermeneutical study such as this of the lived experiences of teachers and students reveals the "problematic" nature of experiences in teaching and learning that would be invisible in conventional approaches. What emerges all the more pressingly in the narratives of distance teachers is how learning and teaching are more than just internal processes, but simultaneously are also social, situational, relational and embodied.

It is somewhat surprising that, given the claim that experiential learning involves the whole person, the body is almost completely overlooked by the experiential learning theorists and only minimally addressed by researchers studying learning experiences. Although Griffin (1987) and Denis and Richter (1987) address intuitive experiences, and Griffin (1987), Gray-Snelgrove (1982), and Jarvis (1987) allude to the body, in general references to bodily experience and the development of bodily knowing are noticeably absent. Just as the body is separated from the mind in most of the studies, other notions are also unduly separated. Many of these studies, particularly those underpinning the experiential learning models, separate learning and reflection, learning and experience, and action and reflection. It is notable that these demarcations are not made as sharply concerning learning in the midst of everyday experience (MacLeod, 1996).

Teachers and students in the new pedagogies of distance education experience a different embodied sense of teaching and learning in the absence of physical presence, when they are removed physically from one another. Technology recasts their relationships, and everyday experiences of assignments, questions and answers, and dialogues. Exploring the changing nature of these embodied experiences will document the new pedagogies emerging in distance education on this campus.

Learning to use the technical equipment of distance teaching often spurred or necessitated new partnerships. Distance teachers reported that students are frequently fearful of technology. One teacher consequently described a practice of nurturing new partnerships by filling a "cheerleader" role:

At issue in developing partnerships is whether the teacher will be decentered or remain, to a large extent, in power and control.

In their interviews, many teachers focused on how their relationships with students were influenced in distance teaching. One teacher described how the loss of physical presence in his distance course caused him to rethink his partnership with students:

Comparing and contrasting classroom and distance teaching often enhanced the reflective thinking of distance teachers. Knowing and connecting with students is a common practice of students and teachers (Diekelmann, Douglas, & Diekelmann, In Preparation; Diekelmann & Ironside, In Press). How teachers shape experiences that leave students free to disclose or not disclose, participate or remain silent, is a concern that remains problematic for distance as well as campus teachers. Writing experiences in distance education often were initiated by teachers to foster connections with students. The issues of power and disclosure in writing activities deserves more investigation (Bleich, 1998).

It is not just among students or between students and teachers that new roles and partnerships are developing. The roles of media specialists and technical staff take on new meanings as well, as one teacher described:

While distance teachers often receive a formal orientation to the use of distance learning technologies, there is a remarkable uneasiness on the part of many teachers with their first encounters. One teacher described a combination of a lack of proper practical knowledge and a lack of conceptual understanding of the technology, which resulted in a "hated" experience for the faculty:

The awkwardness and uneasiness that accompanies instructional technology was a recurring theme in the narratives of distance teachers. Most, however, related that through experience they gained practical knowledge about technical equipment. They learned how important it is to have students become familiar and comfortable, and they developed practical knowledge about how to teach students the use of instructional technology. One teacher explained:

As students became more comfortable with the technology, teachers reported they had to spend less time "getting the students going." Likewise, when the equipment was simple the teachers and students learned to use the equipment and to "troubleshoot" on their own. But when the assistance of a technician was involved, the issue became more complex. Learning to work with technical staff requires a certain level of expertise and knowledge of the distance teacher. A common concern was using technical staff to select the right equipment and being involved in the purchase of future equipment. Teachers described how important it was to share their experiences in developing new partnerships with technicians. They described and identified the kinds and nature of problems they encountered. One teacher explained:

Cohorts in departments or schools who shared assignments in distance or outreach education and who were experienced helped those less-experienced teachers ensure excellence in their courses. Many teachers described meeting, often at "brown bag" sessions, to share their experiential wisdom and the importance of back-up when teaching. This knowledge was passed on through dialogue, which often evoked recollections of pertinent situations. One teacher expressed her view:

Some teachers told of how, in times of diminishing resources in their departments, technical support often consisted of student hourlies. And for simple monitoring skills and situations where two people are required to run equipment, this was satisfactory. But in situations where tasks were complex and the potential for mistakes was great, experienced support staff with significant troubleshooting skills were needed This kind of skill is only learned over time. The ability of a school or a department to know when one kind of assistance is required versus another affected both student and teacher satisfaction and learning.

In describing highly successful distance education programs, teachers commonly attributed the success to a climate of trust and shared dialogues within their schools or departments. One teacher said, "We were forced to start meeting, because there were so many problems about where we put the money for new technology. But the best part evolved when we realized how much we had to learn from sharing our experiences teaching. It’s a meeting I never miss now."

Resources were often described as "seriously threatened" because of competing demands. Guidelines were frequently created to set limits on the distribution of resources. Teachers revealed that departments that were open to frequent dialogue about these guidelines encouraged and challenged teachers to be innovative. In contrast, one teacher described problems within her department: "My distance course problems fall between the budget committee, the curriculum committee and the technology committee and no one wants another committee."

Some teachers recognized that they had to be careful not to become mired in learning the technical expertise rather than learning about the nature of distance education. One teacher described trying to keep current in an ever-changing field: "It’s hard to start backwards at nothing and not know where to go from there." Another teacher described the importance of sharing practical technical knowledge in order to keep pace in distance teaching:

Distance teachers described many occasions where they decried not having enough time to keep current, not only in their content area, but also in the learning of new technology. One teacher expressed ambivalence about the subject:

Knowing how to stay current in the new technologies, but not to let the technology dominate was a common experience. Teachers often reflected on the dangers of becoming consumed by technology. They averted this danger by focusing on learning and on reflecting on their experiences with other teachers, technicians and students.

As explained by Benner, Tanner, and Chesla (1996), the learning experience solicits the teacher as well:

As distance education teachers reflected on the common experiences (themes) of teaching, they became aware that their familiar landmarks and touchstones change. They also understood that their relationships with students, technicians, and other teachers is transformed, suggesting that distance teaching may be a new educational specialty.

A recurrent concern in the narratives generated by this study was that teachers in general have little preparation in teaching and learning and "very little in the way of technology education." Teacher preparation and graduate education is an issue in contemporary higher education (Tom, 1997; Zeichner & Gore, 1990; Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1991). At issue in preparing teachers for distance education as a specialty is to what extent is distance teaching a specialty of education or a discipline-specific specialty. Answers to the following questions must be sought: Would general coursework in technology education prepare teachers for distance teaching within a particular discipline? Is expertise in how disciplinary knowledge shapes and is shaped by distance teaching necessary for this specialty? For example, does the emergence of tele-health and tele-nursing require future teachers in nursing to have particular preparation in distance teaching? Is knowing how to teach tele-health and tele-nursing through distance education best taught in a school of nursing, in a school of education, in a technology department, or in all of them? The implications for redesigning curricula are significant (Beane, 1997).

The process of "learning what it takes" for successful distance teaching was a common experience of teachers. Sometimes this involved selecting and purchasing the right technology for the course. At other times it meant developing the course. Activities in distance teaching that previously had been individual activities suddenly involved new partnerships with media specialists and technicians. When one course developer was asked for a "list of essential ingredients to get this all to work," he described the following:

The definition of knowledgeable referred to is not related to content expertise, but rather to knowing what it takes to specialize in distance teaching. For example, knowledge must embrace the limitations of technology, the need to work with teams of technicians, and the importance of helping students, as co-participants in distance courses to understand the limits of technology.

Some described developing new attitudes toward building new partnerships and support communities with faculty and staff with whom they had previously not had contact. As one teacher related:

It was a common understanding of distance education teachers that distance teaching is not for every teacher. As a specialty, it is best suited to particular teachers, and quite possibly to particular subjects. Curricula must be developed that will allow teachers to specialize and take account of this specialization in teaching assignments and workloads. One teacher explained:

Distance teaching challenges the assumption of conventional pedagogy that teaching strategies are neutral, that is, that they are just tools to be used by individual teachers in specific contexts. For example, showing a videotape to students is a teaching strategy, that is, a tool that any teacher can use. However, showing students a series of lectures via videotapes in a distance education course is more than just using a familiar teaching tool. How technology is used is a specialty practice of distance teachers.

Many faculty discussed the importance of their first experiences in distance teaching. Common experiences were shaped by the level of expertise, whether the teacher was an experienced or beginning teacher. In some situations, adding distance teaching to an experienced teacher’s practice was often seen as adding complexity. In other situations, where distance teaching was included in a beginning teacher’s schedule, the result was sometimes more positive than expected. A beginning teacher described his experience:

In some experiences, teachers discussed providing support for beginning teachers as the latter developed both their expertise in teaching and in distance teaching. One experienced teacher explained:

How beginning teachers should be taught distance teaching was another issue:

Teaching another teacher is in itself a valued common experience in distance teaching. It created community and overcame the isolation that can accompany distance teaching, as one teacher commented:

Most experienced teachers, when confronted with any new teaching challenge, will seek out their more experienced colleagues. Experienced teachers often described collegial learning. One teacher explained:

In distance teaching, there often is no one to assist or consult with specific teaching problems and decisions. While links among faculty are helpful, perhaps distance teaching as a specialty requires teachers learn to be at-home in doing things that have never been done before, becoming simultaneously an expert and a novice.

Changes in the familiar ways of teaching that accompany distance education, and the "relentless" new roles and partnerships that attend the use of technology, mean that experienced teachers find themselves becoming beginners again. One teacher described this as being "perpetually behind in everything" and "totally consumed in keeping up and keeping current." Another teacher eloquently described that experience as follows:

Every teacher described the need to rethink and relearn the fundamental skills of engaging and connecting with students, preparing and presenting materials, and evaluating student performance in the distance education setting. For many, however, there was also a sense of being a beginner in relation to the technologies themselves. One teacher described familiarity with the technology as a critical new element in distance teaching:

For still another teacher, the literature and scholarship of distance technologies is a new academic specialty, but one that needs to be mastered:

Having experienced the loss of what is familiar and comfortable in teaching, and faced with the unfamiliar, even experienced distance teachers often identify themselves as beginners despite the expertise they have demonstrated in their customary roles. As a part of rethinking the touchstones of teaching, this sense of beginning over argues for an understanding of distance education as a new specialty. And with this new specialty is a new commitment of time to "keeping up and keeping current" quite apart from the more visible time needed to adapt materials and the changes in the timeliness of teaching.

Teachers also talked about fundamental ways in which as a result of their experiences with distance education they changed their thinking and views of what constitutes schooling, teaching and learning. In this way, distance teaching is a nursery for creating new pedagogies.

The new pedagogies that are emerging in distance education are similar, but not identical, to conventional pedagogies. Heidegger (1957/1969) describes sameness and makes a distinction between identical and the same:

As distance education teachers taught the same content in a similar way, the differences in their pedagogies emerged all the more pressingly.

The new pedagogies challenge the assumption that, in extending the campus to the edge of the state teaching is simply extending what exists in the classroom. Distance teaching has summoned the distance education teacher to pursue innovative ways of building academic communities and learning partnerships. Implicit in this challenge is an acceptance on the part of the distance teacher to surrender the comfort of the familiar and to experience the discomfort of the unfamiliar.

To understand what is being asked, it is useful to revisit a passage from what may be the paradigmatic exemplar, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland:

Being un-at-home in the unfamiliar as conveyed by Alice is not unlike schooling, learning and teaching as experienced by distance education teachers. In a sense, distance teaching is creating a generation of Alices. The following reflection, already cited, of a distance education teacher underscores the contemporary Wonderland flavor of technological teaching at the turn of the Twenty-First Century:

Through her dialogue, this teacher reveals that she is still learning what it is she has to learn, that she is self-reflexive about it, that she is struggling to judge how well she’s doing, and that she is experiencing significant self-doubt. Although she is experienced enough to be able to know teaching, to reflect on good teaching, and to step back and ask if it’s working, she considers herself a beginner in teaching coupled with technology.

Scholarship on developing expertise has shown that through reflecting on experience comes expertise (Ayers & Miller, 1998; McEwan & Egan, 1995; Schon, 1983). Over time a comfort level, an at-homeness, develops as a person assumes a level of assurance that he or she did not have in the beginning. Based on this scholarship, however, a teacher would be expected in conventional pedagogy to be more comfortable than she is after an initial period of learning the new context (Benner, 1994; Benner, Tanner, & Chesla, 1996).

The experienced teachers that were interviewed for this study used the word "different" to describe distance education. For example, one commented: "You get all these tips, but nobody ever gives it all to you like this is really a different experience." For distance teachers it is different in a substantive way that challenges their understanding of schooling, learning and teaching, because it removes and transgresses what is familiar. The rhythms of teaching change and nurture the possibility of new pedagogies.

Distance education at the end of our century is dependent on technologies that are new and so rapidly changing that they permit little familiarity. It seems probable that even the act of staying current by reading journals will be replaced by other activities. As dramatized in Carroll's coming of age story more than a century ago, the academic community has neither come to terms with the technology that is reshaping it nor begun to understand its magnitude.

One teacher shared a brief story that illustrated the immediate problem of teaching as performing in this new pedagogy and its unfamiliar settings:

Another teacher spoke of a similar concern, and addressed the pervasive sensation of feeling unknowledgeable about the new pedagogies:

Perhaps distance teaching is at the heart of this discomfort, but interpretive analyses of these stories show that the "help me!" cry of teachers goes beyond mere unfamiliarity with the technology. Narratives relating the far-reaching, often unanticipated effects associated with distance teaching establish a pattern of unfamiliarity that reflects new emerging pedagogies. This pattern challenges the concept of the teacher-as-expert prevalent in conventional pedagogy.

That distance education may foster isolation, a familiar touchstone concern, is confronted. Teacher and student isolation has been identified as a broader issue for concern in contemporary higher education. Although the potential exists for distance education to foster disconnection, that is not what teachers described as happening. Instead, presencing is happening in distance classes despite, or perhaps because of, the new dynamics (i.e., the presence of absence) that are encountered when a different pedagogy emerges. The notion of distance education as community arises and challenges isolation. It may be that teachers and students reach out and make a different effort to connect when they can’t rely on the familiarity of face-to-face classrooms. Although it is an assumption widely held that distance education is constitutively impersonal, anonymous, and disconnecting (Rose, 1995), one distance student challenged the concern about isolation in distance education:

In distance teaching as a pedagogical specialty, perhaps, there str less hierarchical processes in the teaching-learning experience. Both teachers and students facilitate schooling and teaching as learning. While the educational landscape with it’s familiar landmarks and touchstones has changed; new pedagogies continue to promote learning.

In conventional pedagogy, the teacher-as-learner is a familiar role that is often present. In distance education, as well, the role of teacher-as-learner is underscored in the narratives of teachers describing their struggle to reclaim familiarity and become more at-home in distance teaching. However, a new role, that of the learner-as-teacher, also appears to be emerging in distance education. Teachers are relating that because of feeling un-at-home in teaching at a distance--constantly not knowing what or how to teach, as constitutive of the experience--they are attending to students to an uncustomary degree, as the students describe what they want and need to learn:

In this experience of learner-as-teacher, teachers allowed themselves to become learners, to engage in dialogue with and alongside students, to participate in the experience of learning with students. One teacher previously cited suggested that the new dialogues that arise in the midst of teaching with technology may reflect emerging pedagogies:

Another teacher described being sensitized by listening to the new voices in distance teaching, that she had begun to think differently about the pedagogy that she used in her campus classroom:

This teacher challenges what Shor describes as "faux learning," in which students posture in ways they think will help them get by (Shor, 1996, p. 51). With the advent of new pedagogies in teaching at a distance, the instructor's role is recast. There is a challenge to freedom, knowledge as expertise, and power when the curriculum is no longer centralized on campus. The teacher and the school are, in a curious way, decentered. Students have more power and control over their learning, although they struggle, too. Teachers struggle to connect and to evaluate learning that is very "uncontrollable" in comparison with traditional pedagogies The reshuffling of freedom, power, and knowledge in distance education creates possibilities for new pedagogies and partnerships by challenging conventional roles, assumptions and practices.

Distance teachers live in discomforting times. Their stories describe a pattern of un-at-homeness as they find themselves thrown into the midst of the changes that are beginning to reshape the society as a whole. This is not necessarily to be interpreted as a bad thing. As one teacher observed, being comfortable can get "a little stale." Their narratives suggest the possibility that, as distance teachers venture into unfamiliar pedagogies guided by their commitment to making learning happen, they may bring back something important to those of us who remain at-home in the classroom. In the following narrative, one teacher suggested the possibilities for new pedagogies that may challenge conventional assumptions and practices.

The new setting of distance education allows students to seize a moment of questioning, often a teachable moment, and ask a question of a peer while not disrupting the class, and the teacher continues teaching. The students in this situation appeared to "get further on" by participating in this kind of spontaneous dialogue. On the other hand, talking at the site could be disruptive to other students. The pedagogical possibilities evoke thinking about familiar, often invisible assumptions like when and how do teachers and students speak when they come together.

From teachers’ attempts to describe their experiences in distance teaching and to compare and contrast the differences between conventional pedagogy and distance education, there emerge new pedagogies. Through new partnerships these teachers are learning what matters about distance teaching. As they try to extend conventional classroom practices in distance education, they learn new pedagogical possibilities by attending to what works and what doesn’t. One teacher described such reflective thinking:

Although distance education teachers often expressed deep personal uncertainty, it is certain that, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, distance teachers are not who they were "this morning." For that reason, distance education may be the place to push the edges of what constitutes schooling, learning, and teaching and to create new pedagogies for the changing instructional landscape as education enters the new millennium.

The purpose of this study was to explore the common experiences of distance education teachers on the Madison campus. The goal was not to make specific generalizations or recommendations as has been done by the Teaching Academy Task Force on Instructional Technology in its paper on "Perspective on Instructional Technology." Nor was it to prove or disprove particular questions regarding distance education. Rather, the objective of this descriptive study was to increase our understanding of distance teaching and to evoke thinking and encourage conversations across the campus that arise out of the actual experiences of distance education teachers. This study also documents the expertise of distance teachers as a specialty, providing an example of the scholarship of teaching.

Perhaps it will be the conversations generated by this study that will be its unique contribution. This study has shown that in distance education questioning emerges as a central activity. As familiar instructional landmarks and touchstones are challenged, and as relationships among students, teachers, and staff are transformed, the basic understandings of what it means to teach and to learn are questioned. This questioning is a new path to thinking, a way of thinking that reveals a new kind of learning. Typically, questions seek answers. For distance teachers this questioning, rather than serving as a means to an end, puts this academic community underway, always holding open and problematic their teaching. The ever changing nature of the technology, always prone to breakdown, further encourages this questioning. In their rush to solve problems, perhaps teachers have not spent enough time questioning their teaching. There hardly seems time enough to answer the pressing questions, let alone participate in a questioning for its own sake. It is a contribution of distance education that this practice is made more visible. Distance education utilizing instructional technologies requires continuous questioning, and this questioning in itself points towards the development of new pedagogies at the millennium.

Teachers often described "what worked" for them. Sometimes they described the advantages of distance education in terms of using instructional technologies:

Appreciating that distance education worked when attempting to increase student and community access was a common experience of distance education teachers. Many teachers described how various life situations that kept students from returning or participating in school could be overcome through distance teaching. This teacher described providing access to graduate education for working students.

Another teacher described teaching an evening course for working students.

Being able to provide access and accommodate students’ lives was a common experience for distance teachers of what works. Providing increased access also meant honoring the social and educational commitment of the university to every citizen of the state. One distance teacher described this as the "outreach part:"

Providing increased access for students and members of the community was an aspect of distance education that worked. But there were other aspects that did not. Some teachers indicated that distance education, like other specialties, is not good for every teacher. As an approach to learning, it is not good for every student or every subject.

A common experience of breakdown, that is, where distance education did not work, involved inadequate resources. Some teachers described the difficulties that arose when teaching distance courses added considerably to the secretaries’ workloads. Others described inadequate support from technical people. One common query of distance education teachers was whether, and to what extent, resources are centralized. Library resources presented difficulties for some teachers. One teacher explained her frustration:

The DoIT brown bag presentations and the expertise available to help distance teachers was often described as "exquisitely" helpful. Another teacher advocated for a "technology camp." The issue of keeping current is not the same responsibility it is to every teacher in conventional pedagogy. Constantly questioning and seeking to keep current in an unsettled way is distance teaching at its most expert level. Thus, the provision of continuing education for this specialty takes on new meanings. It assumes the new pedagogy of the learner-as-teacher in which the teacher is always a co-learner in the course.

Many times the cost of distance education caused difficulties. Several teachers discussed needing better systems to "calculate cost expenditures," while recognizing that some courses, because they need constant updating, would always be expensive. One teacher described the complexities:

Clearly, the assumption of distance education being more economical over time is challenged. One teacher commented:

Technology is evolving and rapidly changing, but the issue of costs at the present time, given limited resources, is a significant concern voiced by distance teachers. The danger is that courses will not be not revised or updated as they should be because of time constraints or inadequate resources.

Another area where distance teachers voiced common concerns was the time-consuming nature of distance teaching. Despite the difficulty of creating a workload statement, distance education teachers felt it important. One teacher echoed this sentiment:

Workload was an issue both in developing courses and in offering them. One teacher described the difference in office hours and giving access to students:

Many teachers indicated that they were aware of ways, technically, that they could reduce their time in distance teaching. One teacher said, "New equipment would save me hours, but my department can’t afford it. So for me, it’s teach this time-consuming way or don’t teach distance at all."

Being rewarded was a common concern of distance teachers. One described the situation of not rewarding distance teaching as "embarrassing:"

It is anticipated that more tenure teaching cases will include the scholarship of teaching in the context of distance education. This study is an example of the scholarship of teaching that Boyer (1990) suggests is central to providing a "richer understanding of teaching." As a model, this study begins to document the practical knowledge of distance teaching as a specialty practice towards the recognition this specialty deserves. By understanding with greater clarity the common experiences, practices, and practical knowledge of distance teaching, teacher preparation and continuing education in this specialty will be enhanced. It is fitting that a major research university with a commitment to bringing education to the borders of the state would simultaneously encourage distance education and a scholarship of teaching to document and develop new pedagogies.

Absent from this study are the voices of students, media specialists and technicians. How they shape and are shaped by distance education is a study that is needed with some urgency. Without their practical knowledge and expertise, the insights generated in this study of teachers remains incomplete.

In addition, continuing the interviews with teachers would allow for more in depth exploration of the specialty of distance teaching and provide an important update of this study to reflect new concerns arising from rapidly changing technologies.

Whether distance education proves to be a model for instruction or represents an important specialty, it probes what is comfortable and familiar in teaching, stimulates reflection on practice, and invites the emergence of new pedagogies. Adding these new voices will extend the exegesis of distance education as the ground for the emergence of new pedagogies at the millennium.

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