If an instructor was unclear about directions or descriptions, then students would interact with one another in order to clarify the ambiguity. These two elements can and should play an important part of any classification of interactions. Another finding is that interactions themselves are trigger events for yet other interactions. We do not know about the patterns and sequences of interaction chains. This is a promising area for further research because it offers promise for even deeper understandings of distance education.
Parallel learning The learning environment in distance education is a dynamic one.
Parallel Learning is defined as the acquisition of content taking place concurrently with but independently from the delivery of instruction. Students can and do acquire content independently of instructors in any kind of learning method, however, in a distance education setting such behaviors are distinctly observable because they usually involve other students at the receive site. Triggering mechanisms provoke interactions. For example, if an instructor is boring, confusing, or irrelevant students will engage one another about the subject matter at hand while ignoring the instructor. At some point they are brought back into the instructional stream by the behavior of the instructor or some other event.