Teacher Roles in Distance Education

As I learned from Activity 2 in the weekly lesson, the differences between teacher roles in the distance classroom and traditional classroom are not as diverse as one might expect.  Both types of teacher are responsible to present content to the learners. Assess student learning.  Include a variety of learning resources that covers all learning modalities. Encourage students to create projects and /or artifacts that demonstrates they have gained the content knowledge.  Provide timely feedback.  Engage in parent-teacher communication when needed (and often IF needed). And provide homework and practice time for the assmilation of content presented in class.

One item that remains clearly in the field of the classroom teacher is the facilitating of record keeping such as attendance and lunch count as Activity 2 points out.  Distance educators don't have to worry about daily attendance concerns because the student is learning in an asynchonous environment.

The textbooks mentions further differences between eLearning teachers and face to face teachers.  Because the online learner is more often going to be self motivated to learn, the teacher will become a facilitator of learning rather than direct leader.  Distance educators will be classroom monitors.  keeping an eye on the activities of the students in order to make sure that no one is falling behind.  It is also the online teacher's responsibility to organize the lessons to encourage interactivity and to guide students on how to act appropriately in the online environment.  Lastly, distance education teachers provide two-way communication when the teacher and students are not in the same location at the same time.  Since the nature of asynchronous education removes the face to face daily contact, it is important for the teacher to replace that missing element with meaningful communication with the student.



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