Didactical basis of distance education

Abstract

During last years the development of education with the aim to achieve the sustainable progress has been discussed at the level of governments, within different international and inter-governmental organizations and working groups, non-governmental organizations, associations of teachers and other societies all around the world. The use of the Internet is considered to be one of the ways to maintain such development. Two types of courses are usually used in the Internet. The first type of the distance courses has been designed for self-study. The second one can be used for the group study. So to use this kind of distance study it is necessary for students to have an access at least to the e-mail. Distance learning (e-learning) is a method of training on distance, when a teacher and students are physically in different places. Three kinds of systems are used here: synchronous, asynchronous and mixed. The synchronous systems provide simultaneous participation of the teacher and students in the process of training. The asynchronous systems do not require simultaneous communication of the teacher and students. The mixed systems are the systems in which the elements of synchronous and asynchronous systems are used. All psychological processes of training students that are the basis of education and cognitive activity of man should be taken into account at distance learning. One of them is the efficiency of perception and storage of knowledge. Therefore the creation of educationally-methodological materials for distance learning requires the consideration of the students’ psychological peculiarities of perception, memory, thinking and attention. The inverse relationship of a student and a teacher should be taken into account in the process of distance learning as well. The communication must provide a psychological comfort for a student in the process of training. Lack of such comfort creates different psychological barriers in the communication process and determines a student’s ability to perceive new knowledge. Thus, to provide the effective distance training, that has become the important constituent in sustainable development of education, it is necessary to take into account the technological progress of the society (wide use of the Internet) and the learning strategy application, psychological peculiarities of students’ understanding of information and individual approaches (pedagogical skills) of teachers.