40th Anniversary of STOU School of Educational Studies and Its Success in Distance Learning

Abstract

The success in instruction of the School of Educational Studies, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) during the past 40 years has been caused by three factors, namely, the commitment of its staff members, the distance instruction system, and the cooperation of experts and external work agencies.
The School of Educational Studies started at first by offering instruction at the bachelor’s degree program level.  After that, it offered instruction in the master’s degree programs, the certificate of education program,
the doctoral degree programs, and the graduate diploma programs, respectively.  The distance instruction system is the system that does not offer instruction in normal classrooms; instead, students learn their lessons via multi-media learning materials.  In the early years the main instructional media were in the form of printed materials.  Later on, online media and online instruction were also offered in order to be in line with the present social context.  When instructional strategies employed by the School are analyzed, it is found that there are five main instructional strategies being employed by the School.  They are the following: (1) the instructional strategy employed with the use of printed media; (2) the instructional strategy employed with the use of supplementary media; (3) the instructional strategy employed in supplementary instruction, supplementary seminar, and intensive seminar; (4) the instructional strategy employed in professional experience training workshop prior to graduation; and (5) the instructional strategy employed in online instruction.  These strategies reflect the very interesting relationship of distance instruction management with learning theories and are the main keys that enable the distance instruction management of the School to be the educational management with high quality that can develop learners efficiently and creates profound pride for the School.