2.3 Towards the virtual k-12 educational organization: an emerging  (Page 5/11)

The expectations presented by the administrators of this district reflected an orientation to the necessary skills and abilities as an instructional leader for the future. Leadership required an understanding of how technology changed the locus of learning from the teacher to the student:

"I want a principal to know, I want a principal to be sold on the idea that a classroom has to be student centered. I want them to emphasize constantly and to understand that we’re talking about learning. We’re not talking about teaching. And that changes the whole dynamic for a teacher. So they need to know that technology has to be a tool to affect a kid’s learning. And they need to be a source of, a resource for [a] teacher to know where to go to become better at being the classroom facilitator."

In this district there was a growing awareness that software was changing the act of teaching. Thus, the position of instructional leader had to be one that understood, and had the ability to support, an emerging approach to teaching in a high tech and high touch environment that placed more responsibility for learning on the student.

Teacher as facilitator of learning

Teaching has traditionally been a job in which a captive audience of students was required to listen to teacher directed performance. Although this study sought to determine aspects of structural change due to the introduction of technology/software, teaching in this school district remained primarily a directed, didactic approach to lesson presentation. That is, the teacher served as the filter through which most of the content and information in the learning process passed. Students were recipients of a teacher-centered approach to knowledge acquisition.

However, the evidence suggested in this study that introduction of a personal computer—that contained software to enhance teaching and learning—produced an organizational structural change in teaching pedagogy that carried over to student learning. Because students were able to interact with the software in ways that expected and required more self-directed learning, teachers adjusted their teaching pedagogy to a more facilitative approach. Although the teacher as a facilitator of learning can be used, and has always been used, as a pedagogical approach to teaching, it began to take on new meaning in the digital learning environment. As one administrator described teaching in a digital classroom:

"To a large degree it’s more of a technical support person. You know, making sure the students can navigate the various programs and they have what they need and they’re being encouraged. It’s different than when you’re providing the instruction."

If one contrasts the primary mode of lesson presentation—directed teaching—with administrative expectations in this district, the teacher as facilitator captures a shift in how this district was in an early stage of developing a culture that, pedagogically, shifted more learning responsibility to the learner.

The administrators saw signs of this shift.