Independent study, transactional distance, guided conversation and adult learning

Abstract

The chapter describes four of the early, foundational theories of learning and teaching that underpin today’s open and distance learning in higher education: independent study, transactional distance, guided conversation, and adult learning. The first three of these theories have their roots in the education of the Greco-Roman world in which one of the primary goals was to inculcate the skills of learning in the learners in order to enable them to learn on own throughout their lives and to use a dialectical mode of examination and reflection to deepen understanding. By comparison, adult learning as we understand it today, with older learners seeking new knowledge, skills, attitudes or values through study groups, lectures and debates, only dates back to the 1800s. This chapter examines how these interconnected modes of learning and teaching have evolved into twentieth and twenty-first centuries.