Sunday, February 13, 2011

Changing Roles and Pedagogy

Over the last four weeks in the online facilitation course, I learn that there is a difference between teaching online and teaching face-to-face and that a teacher who teaches online has different roles and responsibilities and different expectations for learners. I learned that online instructors must work towards becoming successful teachers in order for students to be successful. Online instructors must use science to explore boundaries in learning and teaching. He or she must feel confident to use science in teaching to help us teach effectively, and use evidence-based learning to develop as instructors. I learn that there are seven principles of effective teaching, encouraging student participation, cooperation, active learning, providing prompt feedback, allow students to work at their own pace, communicate high expectations, respect individual learning styles and acknowledging that students in the course room has diverse talent and ways of learning. The instructor should keep these principles in mind at all times and apply these principles in the course room.


I learned that online instructors have different roles, pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical. There must be personal adjustment made to teach effectively in the online environment. There are certain strategies that online instructors must use to engage students in the asynchronous environment such as allowing students to interact and share their knowledge since personal experiences varies with a diverse group. The instructor should encourage reflection and allow students to reflect on ideas so that new concepts are clear in the minds of students so that they can take the information and process it then share the knowledge and experience in the course room.


The instructor/facilitator should allow interaction in the discussion room to permit critical thinking and improve the critical thinking process of students. This approach is especially good because during the critical thinking process, students make data comparison; they contrast the data, analyze, synthesize, and they evaluate the data using the discussion board as the vehicle and information sharing medium. In the discussion board, the instructor can use case scenarios, brainstorming, role-playing, reaction postings, and sharing of new information by searching the internet for article related to the topic of discussion, and the instructor can extend the discussion if it is producing substantial data that could benefit learning.

The online instructor should stipulate the number of postings required for a discussion and ensure discussion and interaction in the course room. The instructor should determine the acceptable manner of communication in the course room, student led or student controlled and what the role of the instructor will be in the discussion room, and whether there will be a grade for posting and the grade value. The instructor is to develop effective responses to student posts to maintain and deepen student learning on the asynchronous discussion topics.


Managing difficult behavior in the online environment is also an important role of the online instructor. Students can have a variety of characteristics in the course room that is not healthy for learning, distractor, questioner, apologizer, intellectualizer, and monopolizer. The instructor is to curtail disruptive behaviors and ensure a conducive environment for learning. Sometimes hot moments can occur in the course room and it is left to the instructor to see the opportunity as positive and to find teaching opportunities to enhance learning. The instructor can handle conflict in the course room appropriately by doing a variety of things, not reacting instantly, read the post later, discuss the situation with another person, and choose to respond or not. The instructor can view the conflict in a good way by considering that people do not normally have bad intent, use clarification, and use emotion to express his or her tone, step in the shoe of the person, and choose the best words to express thoughts and feelings in working through the conflict.


In the online environment, the instructor is to demonstrate effective teaching, keep the discussion in the course room on track, contribute to the discussion and introducing personal insights, and maintain and sustain a healthy online environment. The instructor must have knowledge about teaching and command of the topic, create a friendly discussion and interaction environment, set the rules for the discussion in the course room, and support the technology for the course room to communicate and interact with students. The instructor should have clear objectives, allow flexibility, encourage participation, avoid an authority figure in the course room, and be objective. In addition, the instructor should not expect too much during a discussion and settle for two or three good post on a topic, try not to use offline materials, communicate privately when necessary or in the discussion forum when necessary, and use a combination of threads to stimulate the discussion on a topic. The instructor should set simple assignments, provide relevant materials; do not use lectures, and request responses. By keeping all these factors in mind, the instructor can promote a high performing online environment and be successful in promoting successful student outcomes.


The instructor and students has roles in the online environment and this course, facilitating online learning provides the opportunity for both experiences. As a student/learner, there are roles in the online course room, freedom of information, active learning, authentic activities, and generic skills. As a facilitator, there are roles coaching, designer, teaching for outcomes and assessment. Hence, roles interchanges and responsibilities differs form one role to the other but roles blend and complement each other to create a successful learning environment. In the online environment, students have the opportunity to take the information provided and create meanings that are real to them and then share the experiences in the course room to enhance learning. As active learners, students share, collaborate, and interact together to learn, grow, and develop. Authentic activities are possible in the online environment where students have assignments that allow them to apply the theoretical knowledge to practice through case-based learning and work-place learning experiences. The generic skills that students in the online environment gain are the ability to take the knowledge gain in the course room and applying it to their personal and professional lives and make life long changes.


The changing role of the instructor as a coach is that he or she guides the learning process and allow the students to engage and interact. As the learning designer, the instructor plans the learning activities for students and creates opportunities for authentic engagement of students. The instructor role as teaching for outcomes is where the instructor provides the learning opportunities and then students leave the learning environment and use the knowledge and experiences to promote change in their personal and professional encounters.


I learn that instructors can provide feedback to students in the asynchronous discussion board by providing feedback directly through the discussion board, using the question and answer thread, via e-mail, or by using the communication tool in the course room. The instructor can communicate with students in the synchronous live Wimba classroom to communicate in real time.


I learned that instructors have administrative, personal, technological, instructional design, pedagogical, assessment, and social competencies that is necessary to be successful and effective as an online instructor. These complementing competencies are what set an excellent instructor apart from an average instructor. It is the instructor responsibility to harness these competencies to ensure effectiveness in the online environment. For example, a competent instructor knows that interaction and collaboration is necessary and required in the online environment to support learning. A competent online instructor knows that communicating in the online environment with high integrity and honesty is important to promote and build the instructor-student relationship that is important to learning. A competent online instructor knows that keeping current in knowledge and practice is necessary and mandatory to supporting an effective online environment. A competent instructor knows that understanding technology and keeping up with current technology that could advance education and promote efficiency in the online environment is important to success as an instructor and a students. In this facilitating online course, the introduction to HTML is a focus which is hyper Text Markup language. It is important for the instructor to understand the use of HTML because it will be the tool that the instructor will use to help develop a course or course materials. At this point, learning HTML is at the begenning phase, but as the course progress, the facilitator will learn how to use the tool completely in order to develop a course in the online certification program. The instructor must take the initiative to master technology because it is the most effective way for delivering course materials and interact online. The instructor can complete tutorials on using new technology or access resources for support that is available through the academic environment for technology users.


Knowledge is power and knowing the roles and responsibilities of the online instructor and online learner and gaining the online instructor competencies necessary to be a successful online instructor can translate to a powerful online learning environment and lead to successfu outcomes for the instructor and learners.


Bernadette