In Xu & Finnegan’s (2005) piece entitled, “Roles of Faculty in Teaching Asynchronous Undergraduate Courses,” the authors interviewed thirteen online faculty members to determine their perception of their role in the classroom; data was also analyzed from archived online course content to study faculty roles in the online classroom. The framework used was Berge’s typology of online facilitator roles and the relationship between the perceived and enacted roles. Many online faculty members modified “canned” course content, and half of the instructors implied or explicitly stated that students should take the primary responsibility for learning and that the instructor was to facilitate the learning process. This brings to mind a piece by Anderson (2008) which begins the articulation process of separating the facilitator as classroom agent (a temporary role taken on at certain times in the online classroom) from that of the facilitator metaphor (a more all encompassing role of DE instructors). In this argument Anderson puts forth the idea that a “guide on the side” is not enough and is really only one part of establishing teaching presence - it is not the main goal that everything stems from. I believe that what Anderson is suggesting here, and what I plan to finish articulating, is that the facilitator metaphor has not been really critically challenged or questioned. Are we “merely” facilitators?
In Xu & Finnegan (2005), a senior professor, experienced in F2F and online teaching, characterized himself as a “teacher.” Grading was a priority for all instructors even at the expense of discussion interaction. The study concluded that almost every instructor claimed to be a facilitator in the online course, but the frequency and type of participation online was substantially different. Online instructors were classified based upon interaction and presence in discussion board as follows: online monitors, online facilitator, or online teacher/participant. The authors asserted that the online facilitator had the better balance. The study leaves much to be desired such as what is facilitation? What does it entail? And why has the metaphor of online facilitator remained unquestioned (including its assumptions) in the DE community?
References
Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in An Online Learning Context. In The Theory and Practice of Online Learning. 2nd Edition. Edmonton, AB: AU Press. p. 343-366.
Morris, L., Xu, H., & Finnegan, C. (2005). Roles of Faculty in Teaching Asynchronous Undergraduate Courses. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 9(1): 65-82.
The primary argument that I have been trying to “suss out” in my research has to do with theorizing DE as it exists beyond the technology. And, as you can well imagine, I am asked in response – how is it possible to discuss DE without the technology? To be frank, I still haven’t really figured out a response to this question. All I know, a gut feeling really, is that there has to be more to DE than the technology. Of course, as it is with all research, I am not the only one with this mindset – Kimball (2001) is touting this exact same argument and even though her focus is on identifying aspects of DE culture (where I am concerned with online instructor’s occupation identity), her argument is useful to my research for one main reason: it identifies DE as a field with a body of knowledge and theories – only some of which should be centered on the technology or medium.
In “Managing Distance Learning – New Challenges for Faculty,” Kimball (2001) points out that DE programs are more impacted by teaching strategies and style than anything else. As an extension of this idea, I am arguing that such consideration, management, and negotiation hinges on the delicate balance struck between one’s own pedagogy and the institutional constraints (often learned through the hiring and recruitment process including online instructor training). For Kimball, DE courses are effective based upon how well online faculty manage “metaphor, meaning, culture, roles, time, awareness, and collaboration.” Whether we are teaching online or on-ground, we should be asking the same questions of our teaching and learning process: (1) how to properly balance presentation and experiential activity; (2) how to balance individual and collaborate learning; and (3) how to balance teacher-driven and learner-driven assignments (p. 27). These same questions should be asked of all teaching and learning environments because teachers should be constantly questioning and testing the environment, making adjustments when necessary.
Kimball also asserts that a new mindset must be used in DE as compared to face-to-face models, and she makes a very good point in stating that “Learning to manage distance learning is about understanding more about the learning process” (Table 3.1 Shift in Mindset). For Kimball, and myself included, DE is not about how to use the technology. She then goes on to provide several examples of how metaphor can be used in DE to foster learning and a sense of community (i.e. “The Porch,” “woods meetings,” “The raft”). The premise of her argument about metaphor is that we should not attempt to take old teaching methods/models and map them directly onto DE. This is what many teachers, programs, and DE designers attempt to do because they think it will “ease” students into the DE environment. However, as Kimball points out, this should not be done because with educational models or metaphors, there are built-in expectations. “It is important to signal to participants that they are not entering a traditional classroom where they would expect to wait for the instructor to tell them what to do” (p. 30). Much like Kimball, I agree that metaphor is the key to changing perceptions of DE and for truly developing effective DE courses.
The raves, and rants, of DE technology has been a topic of discussion for far too long and my sense is: When teaching on-campus, is there not more to teaching than how “hip” or “savvy” an instructor may be with his/her use of technology? The focus is on student learning and producing the optimal learning experience for that particular group of students, which can be accomplished just as easily regardless of the degree, or level of technology, used in the classroom. If we are to build an understanding of the DE field and a complete, robust body of knowledge, we must truly analyze, or separate, all aspects of our field for closer examination.
References
Kimball, L. (2001). Managing Distance Learning - New Challenges for Faculty. In R. Hazemi, & S. Hailes, The Digital University: Building A Learning Community (pp. 27-38). London: Springer-Verlag.
The one thing that most scholars can agree upon when it comes to DE is that it has fundamentally changed the education landscape. Peterson (2001) identifies how DE has changed the roles of teachers, modified education goals, and drastically changed student learning. She begins by encouraging writing instructors/teachers to get more involved in the discussion about DE for two reasons: DE is all about writing and writing teacher’s should be driving the content creation; and writing courses are required courses, even in DE. Much of the scholarship about DE has come from outside the field of English Studies, which is likely the reason for the trends of DE to have the content designed by someone other than the instructor teaching the course. Such practices are actually the opposite of what DE is supposed to accomplish – it works to further separate the student from the instructor instead of bringing them closer together.
In this article, I am primarily interested in the changing role of faculty. Specifically, who is teaching online writing courses? And what type of “labor” is required of the online writing teacher? Many writing instructors fear that DE will change them into a “deliverer of corporate values and goals, instead of a deliverer of traditional, liberal humanistic goals” (360). I feel that such fears are justified when you consider proprietary schools that offer online courses and degree programs that typically offer pre-canned courses, restrictions on academic freedom (i.e. limits to how much a course may be supplemented with instructor materials), and even rules about how often and when an instructor must be present in the online classroom. As Peterson suggests, academic freedom, typically a fundamental of university-level teaching, is threatened “because corporate interests, rather than faculty members, determine the curriculum” (361). Just take for example, the statistics presented by Brabazon (unknown) in “Let’s Make Lots of Money,” where it was discovered that e-learning could actually fail – imagine that idea! Schools such as NYU Online, University of Maryland College, and Virtual Temple University, pumped millions of dollars into their e-learning or DE programs only to receive low student enrollment which could not sustain the programs – in short, these schools had to drastically cut-back or close their online/virtual campuses. So, if the moral of the story is that education is not a business, then why do we still have large hordes of online institutions, both proprietary and traditional, racing to get on the bandwagon? And, what, if anything, have they learned from such failures in DE history?
Ultimately, Peterson suggests that the spatial changes in DE have forced writing instructors to reconsider their roles. Students are no longer tied to physical spaces such as libraries, writing centers, and other face-to-face or traditional based notions of education. And most importantly, we cannot penalize students for not conforming, valuing, or appreciating such physical academic spaces, as suggested by Anson (1999). So, what I think is most important to consider in this changing role of faculty is also how the identity of faculty has changed – how do online writing instructors see themselves and their role? And more importantly, how is the role influenced by outside pressures? When training online instructors, we must remember that nothing exists in a vacuum – the identity of DE, as a whole, hinges on how faculty negotiate and manage their own identities. Writing instructors must get involved in this debate so that we are not exploited by institutions as they attempt to create greater efficiency and greater revenues (Peterson, 2001; Anson, 1999).
References
Anson, C. (1999). Distance Voices: Teaching and Writing in a Culture of Technology. College English, 61(3), p. 261-280.
Brabazon, T. (unknown). “Let’s Make Lots of Money: Digital Deals and Trafficking Truth In the Virtual Classroom.”
Peterson, P. (2001). The debate about online learning: Key issues for writing teachers. Computers and Composition, 18, p. 359-370.
I am interested in understanding how new online instructors are inoculated into the field of online teaching. Specifically, my interest here is with occupational identity - how one “becomes” an online instructor (inoculation) and how this identity is negotiated or maintained. In this process, I expect to analyze the recruitment and training practices used by employers when seeking to hire new online instructors, while spending a great deal of time identifying existing metaphors of distance education that work to confirm/reinforce an online instructor’s habitus.
Consider, for example, the concept of a “facilitator” who does the routine work of maintenance in the online classroom - the degrees of which vary according to the institution (to be discussed at a later date). The “facilitator” is a socially acceptable term used to describe the online instructor’s primary role or function in the online classroom. Most find this term to be self-explanatory and encompassing of the necessary skills needed to teach online; however, other interpretations can be gleaned from this term. If the term “facilitator” was analyzed as a metaphor, how might a closer examination shed light on the audience’s perception of the topic? How might the facilitator metaphor be interpreted differently? And, more importantly, how does such a label help to define/shape/reinforce an online instructor’s self-perception?
My interest in the inoculation process for new online instructors is rooted in understanding the implications of such prevalent metaphors (i.e. facilitator metaphor) in hopes of answering questions such as, how are online instructors trained? brainwashed? manipulated? and otherwise convinced to work as “cogs in a virtual machine”? Even as I employ such loaded terminology, I am not suggesting that it is a bad thing to be a “cog in a machine” (since most of you reading this blog will likely fall into this category) and I am instead utilizing the idea of MacQueen (2006) who suggests that cog be thought of as a neutral term - a minor person in a larger bureaucracy who has given up something personal, such as independence, often in return for money or other reward. Even in a looser sense of the word, then, facilitators could be classified as cogs in a machine (i.e. reduced to paper correctors) as has been touted by several scholars in the field. The fact remains, however, that even in the face of seemingly horrible working conditions, the astounding increase in online instructors is definitely a phenomenon worth studying.
So, in the face of such circumstances, how does one become a “good online instructor?” It is such an elusive and vague concept, if you really think about. In fact, such a question leads to just as much debate as the age old question of “what is good writing?” So, when you combine the two, you have, “What is a good online writing instructor?” or “How should writing be taught online?” Well, such questions have already been answered, and in astounding detail I might add, by Warnock (2009), Neff & Whithous (2008), and many others. But, what about the softer side of the issue, if you will? I argue that the missing part of this equation - understanding all the components needed to make distance education successful - is to also attempt to understand the occupational identity of online instructors. I believe that distance education can learn from the introspective nature of English Studies - we need to look within the deepest, farthest areas of our field to understand our own identity before we can assert its legitimacy and value to others. Because in the end, this is what we are all here for anyways, right?
References
MacQueen, L. (2006). Just a Cog in the Machine? Orange: A Student Journal of Technical Communication, 3 (1). Retrieved on May 13, 2010 from http://orange.eserver.org/issues/3-1/macqueen.html.
Neff, J., & Whithaus, C. (2008). Writing Across Distances and Disciplines: Research and Pedagogy in Distributed Learning. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Warnock, S. (2009). Teaching Writing Online: How &Why. Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.
April 5th, 2009 in
Visual Rhetoric/Doc Design
Comments Off
