Where is the Teacher in Online Learning: Centre Stage or Cameo Appearance?

Abstract

The www-culture of our now global village may increasingly be seen as aharbinger enticing us to follow a pathway from which will emerge the re-conceptualized educational practices of a new century. This research set outto discover where the highways of the Internet would lead me, the researcher-practitioner, in terms of the teaching and learning of mathematics in an onlineworld of my own design. The venue was a virtual environment which hadshifted from inter-active to interpersonal, from digital text to digital dialogue,and which had the potential to morph the traditional student role into a moreengaging self-organizing instructor role. My primary research questionsbecame: What would be the lived experiences, both cognitive and affective, ofadult learners taking an online program in developmental mathematics,without any face-to-face contact or means of support? Moreover, would ourlearning together be hindered or be enhanced by this disassociation ofpersons in both space and time?