United States Distance Learning Association

Table 3.
Changes in Learner and Instructor Roles
Changing
learners’
roles
Changing
instructors’
roles
• from learners as passive receptacles for hand-me-down knowledge to learners as constructing
their own knowledge;
• learners become adept at complex problem-solving activities rather than just memorizing
facts;
• more activities in which learners refine their own questions and search for answers;
• more collaborative/cooperative assignments with learners working as group members;
• group interaction significantly increased;
• increased multicultural awareness;
• independent, self-motivated managers of their own time;
• discussion of learners’ own work in the classroom;
• emphasis on knowledge use rather than only observation of the teacher’s expert performance
or just learning to “pass the test”;
• emphasis on acquiring learning strategies (both individually and collaboratively); and
• access to resources is significantly expanded
• instructors’ role changing from oracle and lecturer to consultant, guide, and resource
provider;
• instructors become expert questioners, rather than providers of answers;
• instructor provides structure to student work, encouraging self-direction;
• from a solitary instructor to a member of a learning team (reduces isolation sometimes
experienced by instructors);
• from instructor having total autonomy to activities that can be broadly assessed;
• from total control of the teaching environment to sharing with the participants as fellow
learner;
• more emphasis on sensitivity to student’s learning styles; and
• instructor-learner hierarchy is broken down
bility for his or her learning (Brown, Murphy,
& Wade, 2006; Murray, 2001). To
remain competitive, an instructor-centered
approach to training will no longer work
in today's workplace. The new emphasis
helps employees to handle a variety of jobs
and unpredictable problems (see Table 3)
(Berge, 1996).
STAGES OF ORGANIZATIONAL
CAPABILITIES
Organizations struggle with this type of
change—and they do not have it all figured
out yet, but some companies are
closer than others in their understanding
of when, where, and how distance training
can help them become competitively
advantaged. These organizations have a
better understanding because they have
integrated a combination of project management,
program management, change
management, and strategic planning to
include distance education as part of the
profile of their organization.
When considering the distance delivery
of education and training, it is useful to
think of the learning “stages” the enterprise
goes through that are analogous to the
learning processes of maturing individuals.
A brief model that describes stages of organizational
maturity, or capabilities, with
regard to the delivery of distance education
(Schreiber & Berge, 1998) might be:
• Predistance Training and Education
Stage: The organization has not
attempted to use distance learning.
• Stage 1: Separate or sporadic distance
learning events occur in the organization.
• Stage 2: The organization’s technological
capability and infrastructure can
support distance learning events. When
distance education events occur, they
are replicated through an interdisciplinary
team which responds to staff and
4 Distance Learning Volume 4, Issue 4