To effectively facilitate e-Learning, you need a diverse range of skills. Some you may already possess as a result of your face-to-face teaching experience, others you may have to acquire - such as the art of computer-mediated communication, as was discussed in the previous lesson.
In thinking about the role you would play as an e-Learning instructor, it is useful to reflect upon your teaching orientation or style. How you teach in any context is likely determined by a number of factors, whether you are aware of them or not. These might include: the age of the students; the content/concepts being taught; the design of the materials; students' levels of independence/autonomy or self-direction; your philosophy of teaching; your experience as a student; the learners' cultural contexts, etc. In the case of e-Learning, another factor is added to the mix; the delivery system. Does the delivery system affect your teaching style or orientation? In answering this, let's consider the options we have for how we teach in any context.
Listed below are 4 teaching "prototypes" (Dressel and Marcus, 1994) which can be used to describe the teaching orientations of individual instructors in classroom environments. Where does your teaching style fit and how might it apply in an e-Learning environment? Roll your mouse over the appropriate quadrants below to find out.
As the above interaction illustrates, it is possible to suggest ways in which different teaching orientations might be applied using different delivery systems. In other words, you don't necessarily have to change your teaching style if you change delivery systems (i.e. if you really believe in instructor-centered teaching, you can find a way to be instructor-centered on-line).
What may be more important to consider is how your teaching style suits
the learners and the task at hand in any given context; if you only have
one way of relating to learners (teaching style) you will become less
useful as a facilitator of learning for some people regardless of the
delivery system (Fahy, 1999).
To share your thoughts regarding this lesson, click the discussion button
on the left side of the screen and locate the link "Discussion: Module
5, Lesson 4". To include a message in the discussion, click the link
and follow the instructions.