Shé Ní, C., Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Costello, E., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., & Eccles, S. (2019). Teaching online is different: Critical perspectives from the literature. Retrieved from Dublin City University website: https://openteach.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Teaching-online-is-different.pdf
What?
This reading provides the answer to the question of what is the role of the online educator? The author defines the several roles as an online educator from their literature review including managerial, pedagogical, social, technical, assessor, facilitator, content experts, instructional designer, researcher, and evaluator role. Also, this report demonstrates the related competencies for effective online teaching according to the online educator roles and the author emphasizes the importance of teacher presence in online learning presented in Community of inquiry (COI) model (Garrison et al., 1999).
So What?
The most interesting part of this report for me is the discussion on the idea of online educator presence in the community of inquiry model Garrison et al. (1999), in which includes the cognitive, social and teaching presence. As my topic of master’s thesis was the student’s social presence in the online learning environment, and I only focused on the student’s social presence, the ideas that both the students and the educator have roles within the three elements of the COL model was impressive. I agreed with the idea that participating in online courses can be challenged for learners with a sense of isolation which can affect learner’s satisfaction or learning motivation. Also, educator presence can be significant factors in online course discussion with social and cultural view.
Now What?
I am curious how to increase social presence in order to build international student and teacher relationships in online courses as international students are increasing all over the world. As well as international students might have difficulties in taking online courses as a second language student, but also the instructor might have barriers to promote international students to participate in the course actively and manage some problems with cultural differences. If there is a guideline for instructors and students how to design and take a, online course, this can help both of their teaching and learning.