Distance learning opens doors

Blended learning – a combination of on-line and videoconferencing – and straight on-line learning provide a much needed opportunity for adult students in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo to improve their lives.

“It’s learning anytime, anywhere,” said Catherine Koch, vice-president academic, at Keyano College, “and then people have access to things they wouldn’t otherwise have.”

It also allows students, many of whom have other commitments such as children and jobs, to remain in their home community.

Although Keyano College’s main campus is in the Wood Buffalo centre of Fort McMurray, the college operates adult learning centres in Fort McKay, Gregoire Lake, Conklin, Janvier and Fort Chipewyan. Each centre has an instructor and an instructional aide; is equipped with classrooms, computer laboratory, and library materials; and serves as a community access point for the eCampusAlberta and Alberta-North initiatives.

“It’s really hard to get the people the courses that you want when you only have one or two teachers in a centre, so we’re doing more blended learning,” said Koch.

Keyano has turned to Adobe Connect, which allows the college to offer teachers with specialized training. 

“We have a teacher in Conklin but don’t have any students physically located in Conklin right now, but she’s there’s at our centre, and she gets on-line with a camera and she teaches  courses to students in Fort McKay, Janvier, in Fort McMurray and in Fort Chip. We have someone in Fort Chip delivering, we have someone in Fort McKay delivering other courses so it’s a way for us, using technology like that, to have the right specialist in front of the classroom,” said Koch.

When curriculum, knowledge and practises change on a continual basis in such subjects as math, chemistry and biology, it is important to have teachers, who have the expertise.

Age range for adult learners is wide, anywhere from 19 years old in to their 40s. The reasons for upgrading are also wide, with some participants never having graduated from high school and others having a high school diploma that is over 10 years old. Numbers of students upgrading in this manner have increased substantially, says Koch.

Two years ago, Keyano College went beyond simple high school upgrading at their sight in Fort Chip to offering specialized upgrading for students to qualify for training in carpentry. This year, upgrading will begin with an eye toward entrance into a welding apprenticeship program, an option Keyano is presently exploring for Fort Chip.  

Operating satellite sites provides future students for Keyano College, says Koch. After achieving their high school diplomas, some students travel south to Fort McMurray and enroll in business administration, office administration, university studies and trades.

In February, Keyano College guaranteed another choice for their satellite students. The college signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Alberta that will allow the college to offer a four-year Bachelor degree in elementary education.

“It’s really important, because it guarantees that we will be able to offer degree-level programming for teacher education for our region,” said Koch. While the college has graduated three cohorts of students in the past with an elementary education degree from the U of A, it has never been a program that Keyano has been able to count on. Usually, as Keyano does not grant degrees, students take their first two years of their degree program before transferring to U of A.

Now, the 32 students who have enrolled for the September 2015 offering of the elementary education degree program will be able to complete their full four years in Fort McMurray as well as get placements for practicums in the north. Local corporate partnerships, such as with Shell Canada, help offset the costs of housing and transportation to northern communities for student placement.

“There’s such a need for teachers in our region always and we have a growing population, particularly a young population (because) we have a really high birth rate here,” said Koch. “(Graduates) stay in the area and they get hired by local boards so it’s really good locally and they love our teachers.”

If students have to travel south to complete their B.Ed., chances are they will not be returning to the Wood Buffalo region to begin their teaching career, says Koch.