Different Strokes
F2F and virtual campuses march to different beats. For profit and traditional campuses differ as well especially on class sizes, instructor role and involvement, as well as venues of communication and contact hours. Other than the accreditors' requirements and rationale, should the responsibilities and expectations of the instructors vary? Your views are solicited with thanks.
Samia
Dawn,
We certainly need to reach our students based on their learning styles. We can accomplish much of this through our online course design, ensuring we provide students with a variety of learning actvities and interactions that meet different learning styles. This way we connect more effectively with our student population. Students need to be actively involved in their learning, not just passively trying to absorb information.
Herbert Brown III
Hi Samia -
I believe that regardless of whether someone is teaching onground or online, or for a for-profit or not-for-profit university, the responsibility is to the student. No matter where one teaches, the how is what is important. If we cannot reach our students in order to engage them in the learning process, then the teaching is worthless.
Thanks for the question.
Dawn Kaiser
Samurai - Great question and I think the expectations and responsibilities should be basically the same. And we know that on-line instructors can teach from home in their "fuzzies".
Rebecca Smith
Samia,
I believe the short answer would be no. It seems the responsibilities and expectations of the instructor should be to guide students to the successful attainment of the class objectives. However, I the various methods, philosophies, logistics and means by which that might be done are very great in number and divergence.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
