Abstract:

In the past years, the number of courses taught in an online or blended learning environment increased significantly in Flemish adult education centres. In view of the focus of current research in the field of online teaching practices on the perceived importance of online teaching roles; indications of which online teaching roles are actually used have been overlooked too often. Moreover, the focus is often on higher education or university level courses, whilst studies on online teacher roles in online and blended courses in adult education centres are far less available. Therefore, the current paper presents the results of a survey administered in Flemish adult education centres involving 163 educators (in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium). The survey questioned how often the adult educators performed a specific role (developmental, instructional, social, evaluative, and administrative) in their online teaching practices. Preliminary analysis suggests that adult educators mainly adopt an evaluative and administrative role; the participants indicated that they frequently analyse online assignments and provide digital feedback. Next to that, they also work frequently on making the course objects easy accessible for the adult learners. The social role is the least enacted; which can be illustrated by the finding that teachers rarely or never follow and/or guide online discussions among the adult learners. The current and expected results from further analysis can inform adult educator professional development initiatives and contribute to the knowledge and recommendations pertaining to the teaching roles of adult educators. Furthermore, the presented paper can contribute to the current debate on the perceived importance of various online teaching roles and how these can differ from the actual enacted roles. It can be of particular importance to researchers, trainers and teachers to have a better understanding of the roles and activities that are adopted most frequently by online teachers. This can inform inter alia personal professional development trajectories and can be used as a base for the design and development of professional development strategies for online and blended learning.

Keywords:

Online learning, online teaching roles, blended learning, adult education.