14.6.2.3. Instructors and Teaching. The role of the computer conferencing teacher is quite different from the traditional classroom instructor or lecturer. Course design becomes more important, and preparation entails the structuring of conferences and topics, and the design of activities and small group work. During a computer conferencing course, the teacher must adopt the role of facilitator not content provider.
The facilitator needs to pay careful attention to welcoming each student to the electronic course, and reinforcing early attempts to communicate. In the first few weeks, I make sure that my notes in the conference specifically reference prior student notes. I send many individual messages to students suggesting resources and generally reaching out to students. The coaching function is key to easing the students' transition to computer-mediated communication (Davie, 1989, p. 82).
While the teacher's role is particularly time consuming in the initial phase of a computer conferencing course, it usually reduces as students take over the discussions. Nevertheless, some reports indicate that teachers spend up to twice as long, overall, to deliver a course via computer conferencing as they do to give a course by traditional means.
Given that CMC is so time consuming, why are so many teachers willing to teach electronically? The reason lies in the reported rewards: tremendous satisfaction in working towards the goal of developing independent, questioning learners. The literature abounds with comments from teachers recording their personal learning experience in adopting this medium (Gunawardena, 1992). One of the additional rewards for computer conferencing lies in the flexibility it gives them to work at their convenience, not at set times.