Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

Table 3. Adjustment to Teaching Presence
176
The Role of Learner in an Online Community of Inquiry
Students’ selected comments Instructors’ selected comments 3
Interaction Once we were comfortable with his role as more of a guide
and facilitator than an omni-present being, we were able
to take more ownership for our role in the program and
for our own investment in the course.
Instructor Role I’m certain that [the professor] reviewed the discussion
threads regularly but he seemed more like the virtual “fly
on the wall” than an active participant.
Self-identity I personally felt that a little more input and guidance from
the instructor might have removed some anxiety and
stimulated some interaction on my part.
Course Design I think the instructor needs to be a very active participant
at the beginning of the course. Everyone seems eager to
talk to each other at the beginning (how many times did I
log in on the first day to see if there was anything new?),
and the instructor should tap into that by starting to focus
that energy on the content.
Technology Most emails sent by my instructor disappeared and I did
not know what I had to do.
Figure 2.
Because I leave the forums open they can come back
to these discussions going on. So often in the discussion
of the latter books people would make postings
where they make connections between the previous
six weeks. Its interesting how they would do that loop
without my prompting. They were making these connections
so that is an important part of leaving those
open so they can go back.
(42)
I mean it is not just by default that, though I do try
to word things for some of the conferences in such
a way that they won’t get enough, they won’t get
everything they need out of the lessons unless their
fellow students share.
(116)
The students would acknowledge to each other that
something was very sobering and thank each other.
That’s, that’s like, “Oh, right on!” You know, that
typical thing that teachers feel when students have
had an “A-ha” moment. And I find, to be honest, I
find the ones when I wasn’t responsible for that much
more gratifying… It happened because of this organic
thing that happens, you know, between each student
in the class and the unique entity that is the group of
students.
(52)
But um but getting back to the notion of collaborative
learning I mean, that could be, that could be
happening in the discussions, but um, if it is it`s not
happening by design, like they`re not designed with
that in mind… It`s more the discussions are about
sharing ideas um, so that…Yeah, so that collaborative
learning if it`s happening, it`s incidental or accidental.
(32)
There’s also issues of technical problems, where,
for example, they can’t even get into the discussion
forum they’re supposed to be in, to post at all.
(5)