Expert, Guide, Tutor, Leader?

The interaction of the teacher with students has traditionally been considered a privileged kind of interaction. In the traditional classroom, the instructor often takes centre stage talking to a group of learners and different kinds of interaction take place between teachers and learners. Learner-instructor interaction can vary from the instructor making a presentation of information to multiple students at the same time to the instructor interacting one-on-one with a student about an individual concern. These kinds of interaction include organisational, administrative or logistical interactions in which the teacher gives information to the students about dates or times, or instructions for doing an activity, or requests a task to be done. But, there are also social interactions in which the aim is to promote a sense of the group and an atmosphere conducive to learning.

What implications might there be for the teacher’s role in this kind of context, as opposed to a traditional classroom context?

In a world increasingly shaped by scientific advances and rapid developments, the fields of communications, science, technology will certainly enjoy the prospect of rapid growth in coming years. However, educators in these fields face a range of challenges.
The role of the instructor in a Web-based pedagogical format implies a series of changes. In a Web-based environment the instructor is more like a tutor, a facilitator of learning, who reinforces understanding of the course content and clarifies nebulous learning points. Actually there is a movement away from the teacher as the central focus of the learning experience. The teacher is more a guide than a leader, so may need to develop listening and interaction skills.
In this type of interaction the instructor is responsible for stimulating and continuously maintaining the learner's interest in the topic, motivating the student to learn, assessing the student's progress, and finally providing support and encouragement to each student (Moore, 1989).