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Although the goal of course management software, course websites, and all online learning is, ostensibly, to make the role of the instructor as transparent as possible in pursuit of effective “facilitating,” “mentoring,” and “guiding on the side,” the realities of online instruction suggest that the instructor’s role is far from transparent. In fact, instead of a clear shepherding role, what generally results is something fairly murky. The instructor quickly realizes that the course interface (the website or software “learning space” where the learners and instructor negotiate amidst the myriad “chunks,” “kernels,” or “objects”) is, de facto, a kind of learning partner. In this case, the term “interface” is narrowed include all the websites and software used as a part of the instructional experience, but does not include support and service functions such as registration, bursar, etc. The interfaces that learners and instructors primarily deal with are course management software, course websites, and e-mail clients.

It is not accurate to say that the course interface / software is the instructor, as was often considered to be the case in computer-based training (CBT). Because the instructor is a real person who plays a real role in developing the structure of the course and in directing the student’s learning activities and thinking processes, it is important to realize that the instructor continues to be a vital, mediating presence. However, the real mediation of instruction occurs on the interface level, in the way that the instructor may find his or her learning intents subverted (or, in a happier case, facilitated or expedited). A major pitfall in online instruction involves the phenomenon of interface-mediated instruction, particularly if the individual instructor is not aware that it is happening, and has not developed strategies for reacting or responding to it.

In the learning space, “mediation” occurs when something is brought about by intervening agency of something. Specifically, the instructor’s efforts are brought about by the intervening agency of the interface. This is not to say that the instructor is simply unshaped clay to be molded by a computer program. Nor is it to say that knowledge is somehow “pure” without the influence of the mediating presence of the interface. To put it in simple terms, the relation between the instructor and the learner is “mediated” by the interface. Communications are altered, “negotiated” (when comparative values, etc. are in place), or modified as they pass from the instructor, through the interface on their way to the learner (student). The identity of the instructor is modulated as well, as the interface elements tend to override or efface the differences exhibited by individual instructors to the point that they are blurred into a kind of “ur-prof,” despite all efforts by the instructor to provide biographical information, images, etc. and to create a unique presence or identity. Not only does the learning space efface or attenuate instructor identity, the computer interface(s) used in online courses mediate instruction in unexpected ways and can result in a very different learning experience and outcomes than what might have been intended.

Because the interface mediates the way that an instructor comes to be known as well as the instructional style, it is important to develop a strategy for working within the often slippery mediated space where learning takes place. Instructors and learners need to come to understand how instructional styles must be flexible in order to accommodate and/or overcome the “slip” and fluctuations that invariable and inevitably take place. It is also necessary for instructors to keep their narcissism (however healthy) in check and to accept that in a mediated learning space, truly representative identity has limits (although deliberate identity construction has no limits). The instructor will never be able to achieve quite the control over his/her self-presentation that he or she achieves in the classroom, at the podium or as the sage on the stage.

Traditional Onsite Instruction

The situation in online course instruction has significant differences. Although one might be tempted to say that the students have more autonomy in an online class, and critics of the “sage on the stage” model would assert that students are not as subjugated to instructor will (or caprice), a closer examination of the actual dynamic reveals a distinctly different situation.

The students have, in fact, less autonomy in an online course than in an onsite course. This is partially due to the fact that variations from course objectives can be negotiated directly with the instructor. However, the primary factor is that the interface itself exerts a force that controls and directs learning activities. Further, the interface controls the way that information is presented and delivered, and it constrains the way that instructors and students communicate and interact with each other. In addition to functional constraints imposed by the way that the software works, instructor “messages” to the students are mediated by the semiotic elements of the interface – the colors, icons, images, layout – all have an impact on the way that students perceive the course content, and there is little the instructor can do to alter or influence it.

Online Instruction with Interface-Mediated Instruction

As one can see in the table, in an online course, interface and instructor roles merge. The implications of that phenomenon are profound and far-reaching. To be an effective online instructor, it is necessary to address the following issues:

Shared roles. Instructors must understand and accept that they share a role with that of the interface itself. It is not necessary to understand all the subtleties of how and why it occurs. The major hurdle to overcome is the acceptance of limitations in order to be able to sympathize with the learners’ situations.

Understand both limitations and new possibilities. Effective faculty training helps online instructors understand the limitations and the possibilities of the interface in order to enhance the teaching experience and to guide learners to desired outcomes. At the outset, both administrators and faculty must understand that there is a steep learning curve. They should also be willing to engage in a systematic analysis of the shared content objects (SCO’s) to gain an appreciation of which ones will be most flexible and/or effective in the anticipated learning situation.

Expanded communications. The power of the online course instruction rests in access and communication. The effective faculty member will look at the instructor/interface mediated space as one that is “alive” 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, so that personal engagement and active learning are more viable possibilities than in a traditional onsite classroom setting. Further, tedious tasks are often automated, which can save time and energy. That said, one must recognize how the interface organizes both the knowledge and the ways of getting knowledge. Further, it imposes hierarchies within the knowledge items, and some of those hierarchies are not easily modified.

Interface and automation. If one is not careful, an interface-mediated environment can begin to resemble the learning space of old computer-based instruction, before the advent of the “intelligent” CBT system that uses artificial intelligence to “learn” from the learner and customize in-process the instructional strategies, etc. In online instruction, the instructor must understand how to effectively work with the interface’s strengths. For example, self-scoring tests should be designed so that they provide reinforcement and feedback for correct answers; concept mastery can be facilitated by means of icons and color-coding to provide a framework for easy classification and categorization; and interactive tasks can be standardized so that once a learner masters one, he/she understands others.

For convenience, a table has been developed to help instructors develop strategies for effective teaching within an interface-mediated environment: