New Roles for Learners and Teachers in Online Higher Education (original) (raw)

What is higher education’s role when anyone can learn on the Internet?”

The much heralded technology driven disruption in higher education is challenging the worth of the bricks and mortar campus. In response, we must reclaim and demonstrate the transformative educational value of a full-time, physically located, humanities grounded, and technologically current undergraduate experience. Rather than debate modes of delivery, our focus should be on defining, designing, and deploying a higher educational vision that draws on the traditional American liberal arts model and builds on our collective knowledge of how humans have dealt with the innumerable challenges of transformative technological change in the past and how they have grappled with the enduring questions endemic to the human condition. Higher education, online and face-to-face, has a critical mission in cultivating the capacity for judgment, the development of values, and the practice of moral decision making, all of which have been defining purposes of the liberal arts and sciences tradition. “What is higher education’s role when anyone can learn on the Internet?” International HETL Review, 3, 10 (October 2013).

Paradox of Teacher and Student in Online Education and Societal Culture

Online education is strongly pushing campus-based, teacher-led instruction out of the traditional university framework, especially for the adult learners. With the growth of online enrollments universities are facing new challenges. A prominent place among them occupies the diminishing role of the instructor due to the learner-centered approach and specifics of the online learning. Students in a rich technology-based online environment feel more independent, which is certainly welcomed, however, to effectively manage their own learning they have to be autonomous and self-efficient. So far, according to research, only a small fraction of students is prepared for effective online learning, which necessitates extensive and continuous instructor's support. This paper addresses several critical, interrelated issues, such as consumerism and national culture's effects on education, learner-centered approach and quality of the learning outcomes, convenience factor and students' ...

Paradigm Shift : from traditional to online education

This paper discusses the philosophical and educational practice shift of two academics new to distance and online education. They identify the reasons for this paradigm shift. Beginning with the traditional teacher-focused model of education, they chronicle their adjustments and adoption of new approaches to adapt to Central Queensland University's more student-focused, distance education system.

Distance education as a facilitator of learning

2008

Whether based in traditional or virtual settings, higher education is going through a transformation, where the focus is shifting from a teaching environment to one of learning (Levine, 2003). The old model, based on a pedagogical structure, emphasized a commonly shared process where instruction was calculated by "seat time, or the amount of time each student is taught. Students study for a defined number of hours, earn credits for each hour of study, and, after earning a specified number of credits, earn a degree" (p. 21). As educational options expand and increasingly competitive institutions offer greater choice for a diversity of students both in the classroom and online, there also expands an individualization of education, where students instead of institutions will inscribe the educational agenda: Students will come from diverse backgrounds and will have a widening variety of educational needs. New technologies will enable them to receive their education at any time and any place-on campus, in the office, at home, in the car, or on vacation. Each student will be able to choose from a multitude of knowledge providers the form of instruction and courses most consistent with how he or she learns. (Levine, 2003, p. 20) Through necessity and the forces of competition, both traditional and innovative institutions of learning are seeking ways to meet the demands of andragogicallyoriented adults. This article considers various learning theories, applied to three key transforming areas in adult education in general, and distance learning in particular: the andragogical issues, the technical issues, and the cultural issues.

Improving the Development and Implementation of Online Courses: A Student’s Perspective

Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) 2017 Proceedings, 2017

As distance education continues to be utilized by higher learning institutions, many struggle in knowing how to effectively utilize tools for the benefit of the students, faculty and staff facilitating online courses, distance education departments, and the university as a whole. This paper will highlight survey and interview results from students, professors, and instructional technologists from four public southeastern United States universities centered on how online learning affects the varying levels of a specific university located in the southeastern United States. Current and future issues that and potential solutions to counteract these obstacles will also be provided. Moreover, strategies will be proposed regarding improving the institutional effectiveness of distance education by specifically tailoring approaches to the culture and the strategic direction of the institution. In order to provide a first-person narrative from a student’s perspective, these results and recommendations are discussed through the lens of an undergraduate student.

The Role of the Online Instructor

Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education, 2022

Online instructors draw upon a complex set of skills, activities, and values to meet the needs of students who are separated from them by time and/or space, but united with them through digital technologies. Berge (1995) introduced the idea that the instructor’s job could be represented through four interrelated roles: pedagogical, managerial, social, and technological. Instructors who develop expertise in all four of these dimensions are well-situated for supporting online students, who similarly must navigate these dimensions. This chapter explores each of these roles and their relationship to online learning. Two additional areas of concern for online instructors, the ethical dimension and the networked dimension, are also discussed.

Student Voices on the Roles of Instructors in Asynchronous Learning Environments in the 21st Century

The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 2017

This paper determines which instructional roles and outputs are important in the 21st century from the perspective of students in asynchronous learning environments. This research work uses a literature review, in-depth interviews with experts, and a pilot study with students to define the instructors’ outputs. Following this, roles are determined by using a quantitative methodology (in a sample of 925 students). To our knowledge, the remaining research works on this topic identify the online instructors' roles by a qualitative analysis. The findings suggest that a new role, the life skill promoter, has emerged. Furthermore, analysis of the remaining roles (pedagogical, designer, social, technical and managerial) showed that: (i) online instructors are, first and foremost, pedagogues; (ii) the design of the particular online program influences the pedagogical and designer roles and; (iii) the managerial role has declined in importance over the years due to the development of mor...

Shift happens: Online education as a new paradigm in learning

The Internet and Higher Education, 2000

This article addresses that paradigmatic shift. It begins by presenting an overview of the history of online education as a context and framework for understanding the state of the art today, especially the use of network technologies for collaborative learning in post-secondary education. Beginning with the innovations of early pioneers as contributing to the paradigmatic shift, it provides a framework for understanding this new field. The article then focuses on the Virtual-U, a Web-based environment especially customized to support advanced educational practices. The Virtual-U research team hosts the largest field trials in post-secondary education in the world with empirical results and insights generated from over 439 courses taught by 250 faculty to 15,000 students, attesting to what works in online education. This article concludes by discussing the signposts to future advances that these data suggest. D