Jacinto Dávila Quintero

A not-less-important activity the instructor is also responsible for is conflict avoidance and resolution. We must expect differences in behavior from students given their personal profiles. Those differences are likely to cause conflict if left unchecked. So, the instructor must manage the online environment to detect any possible cause of conflict and prevent it from arising. An effective way to do that is to engage in directly, private if necessary, interaction with the student involved. It is always important to remember that students may have or perceived good reasons to behave in ways that could be harmful to the learning… >>>

The role of the instructor is fundamental in an online course on other ways beyond their ability to share knowledge or skills on the subject matter. Fostering participation is the most important. One has to be aware of the possibilities and strategies to engage students on the different forms of participating and, always, provide timely and useful feedback. Of course, it will work if students also provide feedback about what the instructor does or does not do.

As normally the case with traditional teaching, an instructor must reach out to engage students in a virtual, online teaching environment. There are many ways in which an instructor can do that, including: conducting a round of presentations of the biography of all, marking the pace and rhythm of the course with regular reminders, writing directly to each students whenever there is a topic that could be of their interest and safe to discuss and promote online synchronous and asynchronous interactions on a determined online forum.

It's extremely important to familiarize oneself (as instructor) with the support and technical platform that delivers the course online, as well as with the course content. Any failure or lack of clarity may discourage or even frustrate students on the their learning process. Instructors must be vigilant to intervene at the earliest possible moment, should any problem occurs or any students offers signs of disconnection.