Distance Education Theory Moore Opens Thesis

He begins by introducing the concept of neo-Fordism (or neo-industrialization) which was characterized by product innovation. The age of neo-Fordism led to distance education adapting itself to the more demanding consumerist society as it started to produce a wider array of small-scale courses on which constant innovation can be made possible. Post-Fordism (or post-industrialization), on the other hand, does not have much difference from neo-Fordism only that it adds "high labor responsibility" prompting to the creation of "decentralized working groups who would be responsible themselves for the development of their own teaching programs (par. 27).

Pedagogical Consequences

After presenting how education revolved in accordance with the historical specificities of its time, Moore resigns to the fact that education will always be subjected to economic considerations, technological and organization efforts, as well as instructional motives. In the case of traditional and distance education, the considerations and motives to which it is subjected to, is simply obvious with the latter.

In the neo-industrial teaching and learning experience where product innovation has a central status, the students, at the onset of the learning experience, must make it clear what s/he really wants to do, learn about, and need from the learning program that will be created for him/her. This gives the student a proactive stance.On the other hand, for a post-industrial teaching and learning experience, professors and lecturers will be responsible for the over-all phase of the study program. They would also need to "familiarize themselves with production technologies in the field of printing and video..." (Kaderali et al. In Moore, par. 32). Moreover, those coming from the post-industrial learning school of thought promote mixed mode university or the combination of a traditional university and distance teaching university to reduce education cost and produce a more diversified teaching program (Campion and Renner in Moore, par. 34).

Final Note

Moore points his article to a task at hand for scholars and pedagogues. He maintains that there remains a need to analyze the validity of the concepts of neo-Fordism and post-Fordism as observers remain unconvinced of the proposed "automatic adaptation of the methods of distance education to the latest structural alterations of methods in industrial production" (par. 35). Some of the causes of these doubts are as follows: universities have withstood some social transformations unfazed. Distance teaching universities are essentially universities, hence they can "resist the realization of the post-industrial concepts" (par. 37), these models also were not able to account for the constitutive advantages of industrialized teaching and learning.

These doubts, nonetheless, strengthen the….....