Student voices on the roles of instructors in asynchronous learning environments in the 21st Century

This paper determines which instructional roles and outputs are important in the 21st century from the perspective of students in asynchronous learning environments. This research work uses a literature review, in-depth interviews with experts, and a pilot study with students to define the instructo...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Gomez del Rey, Pilar, Barbera, Elena, Fernández-Navarro, Francisco
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2017
País:España
Recursos:Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
Repositório:O2, repositorio institucional de la UOC
OAI Identifier:oai:openaccess.uoc.edu:10609/93096
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/10609/93096
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:asynchronous learning environments
higher education
instructors' roles
life skills
student's perceptions
entornos de aprendizaje asíncrono
educación superior
roles de los profesores
habilidades vitales
percepciones de los estudiantes
entorns d'aprenentatge asíncrons
educació superior
rols dels professors
habilitats vitals
percepcions de l'estudiant
College teachers
Professors universitaris
Profesores universitarios
Descrição
Resumo:This paper determines which instructional roles and outputs are important in the 21st century from the perspective of students in asynchronous learning environments. This research work uses a literature review, in-depth interviews with experts, and a pilot study with students to define the instructors' outputs. Following this, roles are determined by using a quantitative methodology (in a sample of 925 students). To our knowledge, the remaining research works on this topic identify the online instructors' roles by a qualitative analysis. The findings suggest that a new role, the life skill promoter, has emerged. Furthermore, analysis of the remaining roles (pedagogical, designer, social, technical and managerial) showed that: (i) online instructors are, first and foremost, pedagogues; (ii) the design of the particular online program influences the pedagogical and designer roles and; (iii) the managerial role has declined in importance over the years due to the development of more intuitive and transparent online scenarios from the beginning of the course onward.