Reflections on the role of the teacher in course development doc

Course development: the role of the teacher: Reflective Commentary


1.The teaching presence I intend to enact to enable my students to achieve the learning outcomes specified in my Needs Analysis Document will acknowledge the importance of my students’ prior knowledge, and encourage them to take ownership of their own learning.
The teaching presence does include some basic structure which doesn’t rely on learners having prior knowledge (provision of digitised talk etc.)
However, the structure will require learners to use their own clinical experience which will encourage authentic learning and motivation. The Experiential Learning Theory suggested by Kolb,(Kolb 1984), in (Reese 1998) seems relevant here: students use their concrete experience, followed by reflection/observation, development of theory and testing of that theory.
The teacher’s role here is to support that process, especially to encourage the reflection and observation which allows movement into the development of theory.
Students often seem to discount the relevance of their experience: my task will be to ensure that their experience is harnessed for their learning.(Harden and Crosby 2000)
Description of student’s own experience and issues that students have found relevant is one way that I will use in my course. It does seem important to have a structure to hang reflections around (as for this document) or else the reflection easily becomes irrelevant to learning goals for the course: but this is the same for face-to-face teaching.

2. The supports (eg strategies, templates, announcements) that I intend to build into the course materials and contribute during the course will model critical thinking and reflection appropriate to clinical practice.
Harden and Crosby (Harden and Crosby 2000) suggest that an important role for clinical teachers is that of role model. Therefore it will be important to demonstrate critical thinking: to provide some reflective comments, and to combine case discussion with reference to relevant literature in the initial postings which get students oriented and start the process.
Students will need some structures to develop their formulations. Although it would be possible to let students develop these themselves as part of their learning this seems rather inefficient as there are some already well-accepted structures. But it may be helpful to encourage some discussion of these.
Reflection seems key: perhaps I also need to ensure that reflection forms part of the assessment since assessment supposedly drives learning (Newble and Entwhistle 1986) although there has been recent critique (MacLachlan 2006) of the statement “assessment drives learning” as being over-simplified.
Encouraging reflection is not easy even in face-to-face settings and strategies which can be used for these purposes vary depending on the stage of the student group(Salmon 2004).

3. The strategy underlying the teaching presence I intend to enact reflects the view of teaching and learning evidenced by my Teaching Perspectives Inventory results, but also reflects new insights that I have gained into the role of the teacher and e-learning.
Given the broad range of my TPI, I think there is limited opportunity for comment. Clearly some of my role will be developmental, some apprenticeship and some nurturing. There is not likely to be much scope for a transmission perspective, although I am intending to provide some materials for students to read.
As suggested in the 5-Stage model of moderation (Salmon 2004), the role of the teacher must change depending on where they are in the course and their interactivity with each other. For example, teachers are likely to need to provide a lot of encouragement initially, while this can be replaced by other roles such as encouraging discussion in certain learning areas.

The role of the teacher as a moderator (even the term suggests a rejection of the transmission approach) is vital to good e-learning, even more than in face to face learning. E-learning requires considerable support and encouragement, regular checks on progress etc and even though many writers emphasise the relative importance of interaction with other students for motivation and deeper learning, without a clear structure (which a teacher puts together initially) none of this can happen. The trick is, just as with face-to-face teaching, to ensure that the teacher’s responsibility for structure doesn’t overwhelm the students’ interactions as they develop their knowledge and theory.


Harden, R. and J. Crosby (2000). "The good teacher is more than a lecturer-the twelve roles of the teacher." Medical Teacher 22: 334-347.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experimental Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall.
MacLachlan, J. (2006). "The relationship between assessment and learning." Medical Education 40: 716–7.
Newble, D. and N. Entwhistle (1986). "Learning styles and approaches: implications for medical education." Medical Education 29: 162–75.
Reese, A. (1998) "Implications of results from cognitive science research for medical education." Medical Education Online Volume, DOI: http://www.med-ed-online.org/f0000010.htm
Salmon, G. (2004). "The 5 stage model of E-moderation." Retrieved 27/04/07, from http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml.