Student Visibility and Focused Subject Interaction

Abstract

Distance between a learner and teacher in distance teaching is theoretically confronted as a challenge in terms of contact and communication. But geographical distance does not necessarily cause mental distance. Using case studies from schools in Denmark and Greenland, this chapter proposes theoretical concepts that frame distance teaching as pedagogical development. The findings support a focus on how distance teaching stimulates a proactive learner role, and how teachers might gain from the geographical distance in terms of contact with the learners’ learning and development. Teaching over distance might support an even better connection to proficiency levels and progress with the learner. Focused subject interaction and communication and enhanced student visibility are discussed as theoretical concepts for distance teaching research and practice, grounded in qualitative data.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic was a landmark for distance teaching development [1]. On a grim and less than preferred background, distance teaching in schools must be said to have had its finest hour, so far. But the experience for many teachers, students, and parents was a school system not prepared for elaborate use of distance teaching [2, 3, 4, 5]. Daily improvisation by dedicated teachers became essential for school systems to continue teaching and keeping students learning and development going. The result nationally and globally has been a diverse but also a rich experience with teaching and learning.

The experience reflects a lack of dedicated and elaborate didactical concepts and terms teachers and administration can turn to when schools operate across distances. Some theoretical concepts have been coined in the field of distance teaching: transactional distance and the terminology of different presences as the most prominent. They are contested and still in process [6]. Theory exclusive to research in distance teaching still seems preliminary. And when it comes to research in K–12 distance teaching, dedicated theory is absent.

As discussed in this chapter, these theoretical concepts primarily frame distance teaching as a challenge for schools and teachers as teaching in jeopardy of missing something essential: closeness between teacher and learner. In this chapter, I will try to show how this theoretical approach is insufficient. Contrary to the deficit framing of distance teaching and distance education, I find it relevant to look for elements of progressive pedagogical development embedded in distance teaching practice.

I will try to present preliminary theoretical perspectives: focused interaction and student visibility as relevant for researching and understanding K–12 distance teaching and distance teaching in general. These perspectives relate to autonomy, responsibility, and maturity with learners not only as a means for distance teaching but also as a learning outcome.

As part of my research in possibilities with distance teaching in the school in Greenland, I have been searching for more firm theoretical ground. The research presented in the following combines Grounded Theory from my PhD dissertation and recent qualitative studies on distance teaching in schools, in search of possible concepts and terms, which might add to the theoretical autonomy and solidity of distance teaching research and practice in schools and education.

2. Framing distance education and distance teaching

A challenge for distance teaching and distance education research is finding a standard practice to investigate. The subject includes great didactical and pedagogical diversity. Comparative case studies from Denmark and Greenland have shown how didactics found with distance teaching in schools can vary on all didactical and educational parameters, and hence be hard to perceive as a unified subject [7]. Distance teaching can be individualized, use group collaboration, or take place as classroom teaching. Time spent can be as scheduled synchronized meetings or as asynchronous flexible homework. Teaching can be divided in subjects or use extensive interdisciplinary projects. And the media use has a very wide spectrum in distance teaching, from books and assignments in paper to online learning communities collaborating through platforms and apps. On-site personal students meet also have great variety, from siblings and parents to educated teachers.

The diversity is related to the variety of educational purposes when distance teaching is chosen. Providing distance education can serve elite students striving to get ahead or maintain their social position. Distance education can also aim to provide education for all citizens, no matter where they live or their abilities to move. Practicing distance teaching comprises diverse political agendas, enhancing liberal, individualized education [8], confirming and reproducing social privileges, or carving out democracy [9] by providing access to education for more citizens.

In addition to comprising a spectrum of political agendas, distance teaching is embedded in cultural and social contexts, and sometimes encompasses dispersed and unique national locations. The inherent embeddedness of distance teaching adds to the cultural and practical diversity.

When institutions want to replace or enhance their activities through distance education, a relevant question is whether distance teaching provides the same quality as teaching in class or on campus. Following these intentions, a focus for distance teaching research has been the best practice [10]. Comparative studies establish a more clear-cut subject usable for quantitative research. But looking for the best practice substantially narrows the perspective, making it less likely to find original and unique qualities with distance teaching. The challenge of getting a scientific grip on the unique characteristics and possibilities with distance teaching is still present [11]. Research on distance teaching still seems an indistinct and fuzzy field, dominated by search for instructional advice, learner satisfaction, best practice, and applicability of distance teaching [12].

The conclusion is that the field still needs open questions. We still need to ask what a distance between the teacher and learner means in terms of literacy, competencies, the fabrication of knowledge, identity development, inclusion, etc. What relations and roles are provided with distance teaching? What kind of behavior and conduct is learned? How is subject matter shaped in this kind of setting? What is at stake with distance teaching?

In 1993, researchers in the field joined forces in an attempt to establish a more solid theoretical foundation for research and practice in distance teaching and distance education. The anthology Theoretical Principles of Distance Education [13] was written just before the internet started working its way into teaching and education, and into society in general. The anthology expressed expectations for a paradigmatic change away from distance education as comparable to industrial production [14], merely providing access for the masses to knowledge and exams, toward distance education embracing pedagogical development. The framing was expected to change from distance education as an individualized endeavor for diplomas (later named mass-individualization by Francis Lee [8]) to distance teaching exploring two-way communication, creating learning environments, and drawing on collaboration [15, 16]. The paradigmatic change anticipated in the anthology from 1993 has been fueled by the expansion of digital technology and the advent of the internet. The transformation of distance teaching and education toward pedagogical development needs more theoretical backup and underpinning. The guiding research question in the following is how to describe distance teaching in theoretical terms comprising pedagogical development. Before I go into methods and suggestions for theoretical terms, I will shortly go give a critical discussion of prevalent theory and terms in the field of distance teaching and distance education.

3. The distance in distance teaching

A widespread and recognized theoretical perspective for studying distance teaching is transactional distance [10, 17]. Transactional distance describes the interaction between teacher and learner in a learning environment where they are geographically separated. The perspective is presented in the anthology from 1993 and was developed by Michael G. Moore [18, 19]. According to Moore the combination of fixed educational structures and little dialog with a teacher transforms to distance in the teaching setup. Distance teaching with less dialog and thus greater transactional distance demands learners to display autonomy. More dialog and more organizational flexibility mean less transactional distance, and hence require less autonomy from the learner [18].

It seems relevant to relate distance to educational structures and dialog between teacher and learner seems relevant. But the relation proposed by Moore is worthy of critical scrutiny. Autonomy for the learner is considered a prerequisite for highly structured teaching. However, highly structured teaching, for example with fixed learning goals, leaves little space for unfolding and developing autonomy. Conversely, looser structured teaching is considered adequate for students showing less autonomy. But looser structures require greater self-management and require students who are ready to show self-reliance and maturity. In the same vein, the theory opposes autonomy and self-management with dialog with the teacher. However, most educators will have experienced how contact with mature and autonomous students easily causes a lot of dialog, just as contact with less mature students may lead to less dialog. The a priori correlation between more structure, more dialog, and less autonomy from students needs data and a more thorough and nuanced examination.

But more important is what makes the concept exclusive for distance teaching and distance education. The concept of transactional distance is about structure and dialog related to learner autonomy. But relations between structure, dialog, and learner autonomy are relevant considerations with all teaching and educational activity. Attending campus, auditoriums, and classrooms can just as well be an experience of educational distance. I need an argument for why these considerations change because of the geographical separation of teacher and learner. The theory implies a connection between geographical distance and psychological distance, but it appears as theoretical speculation [20].

Another widespread theory developed for distance teaching research is a terminology comprising various forms of presence [21]. According to this theory, presence in distance teaching can be analyzed in three forms: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence [22, 23]. Cognitive presence describes learners’ possibilities to interact with the content. Teaching presence captures the presence of didactical structures with the learner. Social presence is the essential concept, and it can be described as the degree of being personally present in a distance teaching situation. Teaching presence conceptualizes learners’ possibilities for projecting their personality into a learning environment and connecting with a learning environment across distance [24]. Though the different kinds of presence seem relatively definable, there is considerable ongoing debate about defining especially the term social presence [6]. A question is how broad this term should be defined, also comprising normative aspects as intimacy, social respect and recognition, student satisfaction, and more structural questions about immediacy of feedback and contact.

Following the paradigmatic change predicted in the anthology Theoretical Principles of Distance Education [13] Randy Garrison combines the presence perspective with learning communities as a progressive framing of distance teaching activity [13, 23]. Inspiration comes from John Dewey’s concept of learning as reflective investigative processes [23, 25] and from Vygotsky’s cognitive learning psychology [23, 26].

According to Garrison, communities of inquiry (CoI) is a potent structure to follow for digitally supported distance teaching [23]. Communities of inquiry is suggested as distance teaching providing a high amount of presence [27]. Fueling distance teaching toward progressive pedagogical change and development is the advent of digital technology supporting dialog and collaborative learning environments across distance [16, 23, 28].

Questioning presence in teaching situations, especially when suggesting learning communities, seems a relevant focus for research in distance teaching and education. But as with Moores concept of transactional distance the exclusive relevance for distance teaching research is not obvious.

When questioning presence in distance teaching and distance education, the theory is based on the assumption, that physical presence provides optimal conditions for communication and contact between people. However, conventional classroom teaching can be a lonely and isolating experience for learners, comprising the absence of relevant content, the absence of meaningful structures, and the absence of contact with teacher and fellow students.

I find a lack of argumentation for why reflective investigation (Dewey) and social interaction (Vygotsky) should become weaker, when the teacher and learner are geographically separated. Engaging with subject matter (cognitive presence), the presence of didactical structures (teaching presence) and projecting oneself into learning communities (social presence) seem as relevant and challenging for distance teaching as for all educational activity. It all depends on the kind of teaching teacher and the institution provides, regardless of physical attendance or spatial separation. The question of presence is about the quality of teaching and the quality of an educational institution, not necessarily about geographical distance.

The concept of the different presences frames distance teaching as an activity where contact with the learner is in jeopardy. There is documentation that school students taking part in distance teaching can feel a lack of community, a lack of social interaction, and feel isolated [26, 29]. Thus, the lack of presence can be an issue with distance teaching. But presence is not an essential condition for distance teaching to work. The definition of previous distance education as individualized [8] and industrialized teaching [14] does not define distance teaching as a question of presence, but as a question of autonomy at the students part.

The concept of transactional distance and the different terms of presences is well-established theory in the field of distance teaching research, but framing the phenomena as teaching lacking something essential to teaching is a dead end. Where media are needed because of physical separation, the theories propose harder conditions for communication and presence. But this is an assumption that needs documentation and theoretical clarification. Distance teaching might as well pave way for new educational shapes of presence and contact [7, 9, 23, 30]. This is what Garrison engages in, when he considers how distance teaching can be an advanced alternative to the conventional classroom by being organized as participation in collaborative communities, demanding presence from everyone involved to work [23].

4. Ontological considerations

The anthology Theoretical Principles of Distance Education from 1993 left a gap in terms of theory on distance teaching with schoolchildren [15]. Theory-devoted K–12 distance teaching is still in demand. Lokey-Vega et al. [10] go as far as calling out a theoretical crisis for research on K-12 distance teaching. Attention has been on adult education, as exemplified by Peters [14] and Lee [8]. Teaching at distance is connected to adult education, almost by definition [18].

This firm framing of distance teaching as adult education might be indicative of what is defining for distance teaching. Otto Peters pointed to the necessity for learners in distance education to take responsibility for their own learning, and the necessity of developing self-determination, self-direction, and self-control [31]. The prototype learner in distance education is expected to be able to operate without disciplinary surveillance in a learning environment demanding independency and maturity. This could leave out children as students. However, schools in Western countries have used distance teaching for about 100 years [32, 33, 34], in many places to a large extent. And COVID-19 forced thousands of schools to operate through distance teaching for a substantial time period. Teaching can be defined as a person taking responsibility for another person’s learning and taking responsibility for giving learning processes an intended direction, aiming for certain learning goals [35]. Education is, by definition, a guided activity with a defined learning purpose [23]. Watching lectures or tutorials on YouTube or reading books or manuals on your own is excluded as teaching from this definition. It might be learning, but the defining component for teaching is someone else taking responsibility for your learning, and engaging in your development, with intentional goals in mind. Distance teaching can be defined as someone taking responsibility for another person’s learning from a distant location.

Following this definition, a teacher responsible for each learners’ activities and progress is integrated in distance teaching. This definition explains why distance teaching has been possible with schoolchildren despite the demand for autonomy and self-reliance. There is, by definition, a supporting and responsible person involved when teaching. Autonomy is always balanced by cooperation with a teacher.

What the dominant focus on adult education reveals is a certain student role connected to teaching at distance. Otto Peters connected maturity to distance education not only as an a priori precondition with the learner, but also as a learning outcome. Learners in distance teaching have to behave proactively. In contrast, the physical presence behind school desks, in auditoriums and classrooms and in corridors and school halls, is accepted as the presence in brick-and-mortar schooling and education. But without support from physical structures, distance teaching requires another form of attendance. The learner is not supported by physical presence and has to be active. Without proactive students, distance teaching will dissolve and disappear.

Professor Norm Friesen from Boise University in the USA has described how digital online distance teaching is demanding activity:

By requiring users to log on, to click here versus there, to choose some words but not others in composing and submitting explicit communications, Web technologies repeatedly foreground explicit action over inaction. ([36], p. 158)

This brings Friesen to the conclusion that distance teaching using digital online platforms demands proactive student behavior:

Online experience unfolds in locations in which silences associated with stasis and rest is rendered problematic, and in which it is not possible or easy to distinguish between passive presence and the simple probability of absence. ([36], p. 158)

Solid and reliable participation from the learner seems to become crucial for educational activity across distance. Cavanaugh et al. propose that digital learning engages teachers, as well as learners, in transparent collaborative reflections on learning and progress, empowering learners to be part of teaching and education in a much more responsible and active way [28]. Outlining benefits of online education, Boboc also points to a next generation of learners embedded in distance teaching in schools [37].

Research presented in the following shows how mediated communication is supportive of teaching activities to a degree, where teaching at distance seems to potentially outdo classrooms and auditoriums in terms of producing visible and mature students.

5. Building new theory for distance teaching research

The following presents preliminary results from a research process initiated with my PhD dissertation from 2015 [38]. The dissertation was a study of possibilities with distance teaching in a school in Greenland. As a method for getting more firm theoretical ground to work from Grounded Theory was applied. Grounded Theory is an iterative process laboriously extracting new concepts and terms from gathering and interpreting empirical material: creating theory from the ground [39]. The developers, Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, contested the idea that research should be confined by current terms and concepts and advocated for creativity on behalf of researchers. According to Glaser and Strauss, new terms and concepts can perfectly be the primary objective for research ([29], p. 18).

The qualitative method of digging for theory has been criticized for expecting new terms and concepts to emerge from data by itself [40, 41]. Following a hermeneutic tradition, no a priori interpretation is possible, and new theory will always be framed by established consumptions. Glaser and Strauss confronted this methodological challenge when they developed Grounded Theory. Their solution was to develop a systematic method, where articulations, terms, and concepts from the field, as well as from researchers, integrate in an iterative creative process ([39], p. 253). In parallel with the data collection process, findings are summarized in applicable but always provisional terms and concepts. This clarification unlocks the hermeneutic restraint on working with data when developing a new theory. The decisive question for Glaser and Strauss was whether a systematic and thorough method was employed, and the iterative process sustained long enough for new concepts to emerge in the process.

6. Empirical work and data

According to Glaser and Strauss, a variety of data is pivotal for challenging established concepts and perspectives, and to feed the creative process toward new concepts. For the Grounded Theory presented in this chapter, a wide variety of empirical material has been used. Part of this work is presented and discussed more thoroughly in my PhD dissertation [38]. Open focus group interviews have been conducted with teachers, students, parents, and administrators in different combinations.

I have made observations in schools, looking at distance teaching activities, as well as observing everyday routines, where distance teaching took place. I looked at products and assignments made by students. A useful method for data collecting has been utilizing tablets (iPads) students and teachers used for communication and production purposes. Activities and traffic have been recorded and stored, which have provided a unique look into teaching and learning during the course of the cases.

Documents and reports from consultants and administrators have also been included. This data is mostly relevant for analyzing discursive positions and can be misleading when looking for concepts grounded in practice. Where documents and reports have been valuable, is when elements of evaluation and case presentation have been documented.

A recurring circumstance is that informants relate distance teaching to conventional teaching. This is in line with the general construct and discourse of distance teaching. Assessing the quality of providing access to a conventional teaching setting is the backdrop when discussing distance teaching. In the interviews, this tendency has required guided comparisons to support the process of connecting different and new words and concepts to distance teaching practice.

From this diversity of qualitative data, it is possible to discern teaching patterns and conditions that define distance teaching. The creative next step is to articulate and choose words and concepts that seem to be connected to or cling to the research object.

A premise for this work has been that data exclusively comes from distance teaching in schools. And data only come from Greenland and Denmark. The applicability of the resulting theory to other groups of learners, to other parts of the educational system, and to other countries calls for more research thorough considerations and discussions, which lie outside of this chapter. For now, I rely on the theoretical discussion above that distance teaching as such can be comprehended and discussed across sections, and that there are theoretical commonalities to be found.

7. Focused and transparent subject interaction

I now turn to the data analysis. A case study from my PhD dissertation exposed relations and contact between teachers and their distance students. The study is from distance teaching in a small settlement in Greenland [7, 38]. The settlement had a school building and schoolchildren, but no teachers. Distance teaching was implemented from the municipality in 2010 to serve all subjects and all teaching. The students experienced distance teaching as individual activities in a classroom with a teacher giving instructions from an online screen. The teachers were aiming for conventional teaching.

A schoolgirl in this case study experienced how the teachers wanted her to be more explicit in her communication. She communicated mainly by moving her eyebrows or wrinkling her nose, which is common way of expressing “yes” and “no” in Greenland. Although the teachers were Greenlanders, the girls’ sparse communication was not satisfying for them, and they asked the girl to communicate more explicitly. The distance teaching situation demanded this student to be more talkative and engage more in the teaching situation, which she quickly learned to the teachers’ satisfaction.

In an interview with one of the students and his mother, who had moved from the village and now lived in the city, the boy and the mother reflected on the teaching experience in the village. In comparison, the boy experienced much more random and insecure attention from teachers in the town school than he had experienced in the settlement from the distance teachers. According to the boy and his mother, the distance teachers had a very exact feeling of his progress, and they followed him closely. The boy and his mother reported a decline in the boy’s skills after he left the distance teaching and moved to the town school.

The closer contact with the boy’s progress and development could be explained by the much lower teacher-student ratio in the distance teaching situation. It was clear from the interviews that this low ratio provided the boy with teacher attention. But the teachers were at the same time enrolled as ordinary teachers at the town school, which put a limit to the amount of extra attention they could give to their distance students. The case is about teachers showing good contact with student progress in a distance situation.

A second relevant case study from my dissertation is from a school project that ran over the course of a few weeks across three small schools in Denmark in 2012 ([38], p. 72). Distance teaching in this case differs in every aspect from the distance teaching in the small settlement in Greenland. For a limited period, the students engaged in communities of inquiry under the headline leisure time activities. Students formed groups across grades and across schools, and teachers were appointed supervisors, also across participating schools. The subject was English. The assignment for the schoolchildren was to form associations about interests they shared in each group. Associations were formed for angling, pets, computers, etc. All written communication had to be in English.

The geographic separation supported communication between students and teachers: explicit exchange of tasks, assignments, questions, and answers became necessary.

The teachers reported in interviews how the use of media provided opportunities for detailed and focused support and instruction. Contact through media added transparency to the learning processes their students were engaged in.

Teachers agreed in interviews that the distance teaching brought them in closer contact with the progress and development of their students than they were used to in the classroom. The teachers experienced exceptional professional contact and communication with their students. Some teachers valued that for this reason, they might even prefer distance teaching to conventional teaching.

A third case study is from another small village school in Greenland. This study was conducted in 2016 and not part of my PhD dissertation. Again, the distance teaching differs in every aspect. For half a year, schoolchildren at all levels had regular individual conversations with an English-speaking teacher in Kenya. The distance teacher did not speak Greenlandic, and this way, the schoolchildren were forced to develop skills in spoken English. The conversations were held with headphones one on one in a quiet corner of the small school building. Occasionally, teachers or other students would join in to help with translation or supply with English vocabulary. The distance teacher made notes on the schoolchildrens’ interests and on their progress and shared her observations with the teachers in the village. Together, they decided on subjects for the conversations and how to support the students’ progress.

These weekly conversations typically lasted from 5 to 10 minutes. The distance teacher was very confident that these short but regular conversations were enough to generate good progress for her students. This was also the experience that the teachers in the village had.

The method used by the distance teacher in Kenya was to establish a personal relationship with each student, and let the personal contact guide the way to better language skills. She did not want her students to experience the sessions as teaching but as friendly conversations.

The short friendly meetings were concentrated, and the contact immediately focused on English dialog. The devoted contact made the contact between teacher and student transparent, which is reflected in the distance teachers’ observations and reports being in line with observations made by the teachers at the village school. The distance supported personalized contact, and made communication and meetings between teachers and students concentrated, focused, and transparent, and thus, the distance gave the teacher in Kenya effective and sufficient tools for her English teaching.

The final case study, I include showing focused and transparent subject interaction is a research project on distance teaching in crafting and design from 2019, again from a small village school in Greenland. In this distance teaching, an important part of the teaching subject was bodily embedded competencies and skills for woodworking. An interest with this research was to see how distance teaching conveys this type of content.

Schoolchildren in seventh grade in a small and isolated settlement were taught crafting and design for one and a half hours once a week by a teacher situated in a town school. The students shared three iPads devoted to contact and communication for the distance teaching lessons. The lessons began with the students fetching the iPads and the tools, going to the workshop, and collectively making a call to their distance teacher. The teacher instructed the class together. During lessons, there was an open synchronous call. Whenever the students had a question or wanted feedback on their progress, they went to the tablet and had a short dialog with the distance teacher, and then carried on with their design. The teacher also commented and adjusted their use of tools through the iPad call. The synchronous contact with the teacher was combined with dissemination of subject matter through instructional video clips on their iPads made by the teacher in advance. In Greenlandic, he instructed the correct use of different tools. Each weekly session was rounded up with an online evaluation of each student’s individual work, followed by the students tidying and sweeping the workshop on their own.

The teaching in these case studies differs in many aspects. Together, they show a great didactical diversity. What they share is the geographical separation of teacher and learner. The geographical separation framed communication and contact in ways that supported firm and detailed focus on the subject matter. The interaction and communication between the teacher and students were focused and relevant. The separation brought transparency to the interaction so the teachers all experienced a satisfying connection to their students’ progress and development. In these cases geographical separation made the teaching go through different media which came to function as magnifying devices.

8. Student maturity connected to distance teaching

I now turn to a related theoretical perspective relevant for distance teaching research. Focused and transparent interaction seems connected to a certain way of taking part as a student in distance teaching. As mentioned, engaging in teaching and education at a distance is associated with adult education. It is expected that students are able to operate on their own without surveillance. A mature and proactive learner role might be closely connected to distance teaching.

Starting with the case study on the school project leisure time activities from island schools in Denmark, the teachers reported a rare level of productivity and engagement from students. They had never seen specific students write as much before, and even in a foreign language new to some of them. A problem the teachers usually dealt with was students being kept dependent on their help. The teachers explained that the safe and intimate learning environment in small island schools made it too easy for schoolchildren to ask for help from their teachers and too enticing for teachers to help. The distance teaching situation demanded the students to be self-reliant.

In interviews, students reflected how the separation from the teachers inspired them to be productive. They exemplified with the necessity of helping each other to develop a functional written English, so they could work together across distance on their association about their favorite leisure time activity.

Students reflected in a group interview on the freedom, power and control they experienced that they were entrusted with in the distance teaching situation. They were aware that they could turn off the internet connection at any time (in fact, turn off their teacher) and be left alone to do whatever they pleased. This freedom was a bit worrying to some of them. They discussed the limits of schooling, and at what point teaching and learning would dissolve from too much flexibility and freedom. They felt there would come a point, where distance teaching would be too demanding, when it would be too hard for them to show the self-discipline they felt was necessary for their learning ([38], p. 77).

In another interview with students, the debate also revolved around the limits of adult presence for sustaining order and discipline. They wondered if a robot present with them would put a limit on conflicts and gaming. A robot would not be enough they concluded. The demand was contact with a real person if the distance teaching situation was to make sense for them. They had to feel responsible to a real person they knew ([38], p. 80).

What stood out from these interviews was how the students reflected on their responsibility for the teaching to work. It was obvious to them that the distance teaching gave them real responsibility, and that it was more demanding in terms of autonomy, self-reliance, and cooperation. These considerations were reflected by both teachers and students. They all experienced how the students matured and rapidly became able to cope with the demanding teaching situation.

The same experience of maturity and responsibility on the part of the learners was found in the case study from a municipality solution with distance teaching in a small settlement in Greenland. The boy became very involved in the distance teaching to a point where it caused him trouble. The pedagogy chosen by the teachers and the administration was not progressive, and the teachers did not want the boy to “take over the teaching” as they expressed it. He was proactive to the extent that the teachers became insecure and reprimanded him, though it is clear from interviews that his intentions were good, and his behavior was constructive and supportive. Although the teachers strived for firm control, the distance teaching situation stimulated this student to show independence and be proactive, and challenge the conventional didactical design.

Student maturity was also a theme in the second case from Greenland, where the school had an English teacher from Kenya. When calling up on Skype, the distance teacher was very careful to make the student lead the conversation. In advance, each student prepared by making drawings or collecting personal items to show their distance teacher in Kenya. It was very clear from observations, footage from iPads, and interviews with teachers that students of all ages and at all levels reacted with engagement and responsibility to the preparation their teacher in Kenya demanded from them. Sometimes their conversation would turn around, and the student would take over as teacher, teaching the Kenyan woman Greenlandic or informing her about their everyday life in Greenland. The conversations became a platform for the students to be proactive, and a platform for growing responsibility for their own learning.

The teachers in the village saw personal confidence as a very important part of developing oral English skills with their children. Talking in a foreign language with a person from outside, the village can be demanding and transgressive for Greenlandic children. But the experience in this case study was that distance teaching provided a safe and inspirational platform for schoolchildren at all levels to engage in developing their English skills.

The teenage girl in the village school reported how she found a personal friend in the young African woman. Their conversations became a platform for private talks and personal development, away from the teachers’ omnipresent attention in the small village school. The teachers in the village experienced how the girl surpassed the oral skills of her Greenlandic English teacher. The regular contact with a remote native speaker was very productive for the teenage girl’s skills and maturation.

Maturity was also evident in the case study on crafting and design from 2019. When the distance teaching was launched, observations found how the distance teacher felt safe after just a short time of instruction and dialog to challenge his distance students’ discipline. He turned off the online contact for short periods of time, leaving the students from sixth and seventh grade on their own in the workshop with the assignments and the woodworking tools. The students continued focusing on the assignment given by their distance teacher and kept the lessons going by themselves.

To start off the distance teaching, the schoolchildrens new remote teacher gave them detailed design plans to follow. They followed their distance teacher’s instructions precisely to a finished product. After a couple of runs with premade designs, the distance teacher was confident that his remote students were able to handle more open and individual designs. He gave a more open frame for activities, letting his students work on their own boat designs.

Observations and video footage found schoolchildren engaging in woodworking. Assignments and instructions from the distance teacher were obviously clearly communicated. The students copied what they saw on the premade video clips, got feedback from their distance teacher, and combined the information with trial and error, often in collaboration. Observations showed how the schoolchildren in the village adapted correct and disciplined use of woodworking tools and use of a workshop, and developed competencies to follow a design, and to work out their own designs.

The distance teacher felt he knew each one them to the extent that he had no problem relying on their self-management. He experienced that he had a better impression of skills, interests, and progress with his distance students in the settlement than he had with his students in the workshop at his school. He explained that part of this came from his distance students being very active and engaged in his crafting and design lessons. The teacher found his distance students to be very visible to him. The student’s maturity was exemplified by one of the students creating an iPad stand out of wood. On his own initiative, the boy wanted to support the communication with their distance teacher. Communication and visibility seemed to become a shared responsibility in the distance teaching situation. The freedom and the need for collaboration on making the distance teaching situation work were met with responsibility, and hence visibility from the Greenlandic schoolchildren in the settlement. The distance teacher expressed how he did not consider mediated contact a problem or a challenge but as a supportive element in his crafting and design teaching.

The case study about the project work leisure time activities from Denmark showed how distance teaching can also be vulnerable. One student reported how all his communication in English was made from copy-pasting. To his amazement, his distance teacher did not detect this. For the distance teacher, this student was invisible. This did not bother the boy; he was happy to get through the school project without making much effort. He did not sense how he was responsible for being visible for the distance teaching to work.

This instance reveals how it is pivotal that students take steps to become visible if distance teaching is supposed to work. Teachers also sense the necessity of student visibility. Hiding is made easy with distance teaching, but as the case studies show, schoolchildren tend to be aware of this and tend to take responsibility for being present and visible. The case studies show a connection between distance teaching and student responsibility for the teaching to work, and a decisive part of this is students becoming and staying visible for their distance teacher.

9. Discussion

Otto Peters described distance education as modern rationalization, effectively distributing more standard education to more people. His critic though relevant miss the didactical possibilities also part of the same rationalization and effectivization. The different case studies showed distance teaching as supportive of teachers’ contact with their students. Spatial separation of learner and teacher necessitates use of media and contact through media seems to concentrate and focus contact and interaction.

The first theoretical concept I will suggest for distance teaching research is focused and transparent subject interaction. It seems relevant to look into how separation exposes learning and brings teachers in contact with learning processes.

Theories framing distance teaching with the terms distance and presences assume geographical distance will provide challenging teaching situations. Distance/presence theory produces research questions basically asking to what extent distance teaching feels distant for the learner, which is relevant in some cases, but not enough to understand and grasp the diversity and changing development of distance teaching. In times of transition to new media culture concern about what might get lost is expected, in this case, social presence in teaching. However, this line of thought blocks the possibility that teaching across distance can bring changes that enhance contact, communication, and relevant learning. Results coming from the COVID-19 lockdown also show new kinds of contact, communication, and collaboration [42], which theoretical concepts should be able to grasp.

A second theoretical focus I will suggest is how distance teaching promotes certain learning. An undercurrent of differentiated maturation seems to be integrated into distance teaching. In the case studies, the necessity of focused and transparent communication brought teachers and learners close together on the assignment of learning. Geographic separation supports sharing of responsibility between the teacher and students. Students in these cases typically felt and understood the demand for being proactive and visible for the distance teaching to work. The distance in distance teaching seems to encourage students to become professional students.

In an interview from the case study from Denmark, the notion of schoolchildren as professional students came to one of the headteachers mind. The term stems from the Norwegian professor in psychology Ivar Bjørgen (Ansvar for egen læring, AFEL: responsibility for own learning [own translation]) [43]. In pursuit of infusing school with meaning and necessity, Bjørgen suggests that students experience real responsibility. Bjørgen follows a tradition for progressive pedagogy, and his interest is a new learner role related to cultural changes in society toward equality and democracy. According to Bjørgen responsibility for own learning will engage students as professional students, which will develop relevant and contemporary skills and competencies [43].

Garrison explores similar contemporary changes with the learner role [23]. Garrison connects distance teaching and teaching as communities of inquiry (COIs). When teaching is about engaging in collaborative inquiries, teacher and student responsibilities and roles are shared and exchanged. For Garrison, COIs are a path to follow for elaborating on possibilities and potentials with distance teaching ([23], p. 23). When Garrison is connecting distance teaching to communities of inquiry, it is indicative of the progressive potentials imbedded in the distance.

On discussing the phenomenon of blended learning, Garrison arrives at the conclusion that distance teaching might be absorbed into conventional education for its benefits and pedagogical potentials, and disappear as a distinctive category ([23], p. 107). Communicating through email, SMS, social media, online platforms, learning management systems (LMSs), etc., is already integrated in most educational activities. Professor in public education Gert Biesta has made the same point [44]. In Denmark, the term hybrid school has been suggested by Sørensen and Levinsen [45]. They define the term as how school is already taking place in virtual spaces, as well as in real life. The combination of face-to-face meetings and omnipresent asynchronous contact through writing is becoming the norm.

In time, digital technology and rationalizations might make distance obsolete. Teaching will exploit the flexible potentials and gains in terms of learning and literacy, utilizing various forms of contact (polysynchronous dialog [46]) without hesitation. Theoretical attention to distance teaching might even be misleading, prescribing a challenge, where these case studies showed distance teaching as a solution to disengaging and anonymous teaching in classrooms and auditoriums.

The potentials for pedagogical development from distance teaching seems obvious. However, there is a call for persistent theoretical development with sufficient openness to breed new knowledge and understanding if the potentials are to be explored [1].

Theoretical tools to describe and understand distance teaching on its own terms are needed. The concepts proposed need more research in terms of imbedded values and normativity. A question is also to what extent focused and transparent subject interaction and student maturity are norms that can be found with adolescence and adults as learners, as well as in other cultural contexts than Greenland and Denmark.

10. Conclusion

Theories are tools for developing relevant and precise research questions. The presumption with theoretical concepts such as transactional distance and social presence is that media subtracts from the ideal communication situation, which is when teacher and learner share the same locality. Following the analysis in this chapter, it seems more relevant to ask how spatial separation and media dependency in teaching also can qualify and enhance communication and contact. Distance might be defined for distance teaching, but not necessarily as weaker contact between teacher and learner.

What the various case studies on distance teaching in schools have shown is how K–12 distance teaching can produce visible students. Not as persons the teacher can smell and pat on the back, but visible as individuals on learning paths. The distance gives teachers tools to look into students’ progress. Connected to student visibility is strengthened subject interaction. When the teacher and student had contact in the case studies, focus on the subject matter was immediate. Distance teaching supports focused interaction between the teacher and the learner. Based on the case studies, I suggest more attention is devoted connections between distance teaching and focused and transparent subject interaction.

This perspective on distance teaching is related to learners as proactive and professional students, which seems to be a fundamental component with distance teaching. The separation can cultivate a certain learner conduct. The separation of teacher and learner might be supportive of relevant learning processes in contemporary society.

Crisis situations from climate changes and the decline in biodiversity will become more frequent, and teaching and education will need to adapt to isolation and less mobility. In this cultural situation, distance teaching might be a main solution for the national educational systems. Gradually, new generations might adapt a more proactive and self-reliant learner role, designed to engage in an enhanced level of lifelong learning in a dynamic and changing society.