The Hexagon Of Cooperative Freedom

This post aims to present a theory known as theory of Cooperative Freedom. This theory and Pro. Paulsen can be seen here


There are several theories on distance education and in1988, Keegan defined six important elements regarding Distance education:
• The separation of teacher and learner, which distinguishes it from face-to-face learning;
• The influence of an educational organization, which distinguishes it from private study;
• The use of technical media, usually print, to unite teacher and learner and carry the educational content;
• The provision of two-way communication so that the student may benefit from or even initiate dialogue;
• The possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialization purposes; and
• The participation in an industrialized form of education which, if accepted, contains the genus of radical separation of distance education from other forms.
With the introduction of CMC, same changes on the roles of both tutors and faculties took place, as well as the profund distintion on presencial educationa and distance education or the emergence of a network of scholar, never kwnown before.
There are many theories on distance education, but Keegan (1988b) points out these three theoretical positions:
 Theories of autonomy and independence – Moore identifies interaction between learner and instructor, structure as certain characteristics of course design, and autonomy as learner independence as main aspects of this theory; the author points out that many times courses aren’t designed or adapted to CMC;
 Theories of industrialization – Peters concludes that the structure of distance teaching is determined to a considerable degree by the principles of industrialization and is still to be known the effects of mass education with CMC;
 Theories of interaction and communication – Holmeberg states that interaction between the tutors, teatchers, authors and students comes both from pre-produced material and through writing or phone. Holmberg's theory focus on correspondence courses and one-to-one comunicaton, not mass communication.


The theory of cooperative freedom can be classified as a theory of autonomy and independence, as described above.
Main points:
 Aims juvenile and adult students;
 Values their experience;
 Sel-directed,self-motivated students;
 Values student’s experiencies, goals and achievements.
 "Cooperative" indicates group interaction;
 freedom is concerned with freedom from restraints, flexibility.

 The theory of cooperative freedom suggests that, independent of motivational orientation, distance students need cooperation as well as freedom.
Cooperative freedom might be seen as a contradictory term, but it is an expression that points out the advantages of both group interaction and cooperation with freedom for the individual.