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Changing instructor's roles in virtual worlds

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CHANGING INSTRUCTOR’S ROLES IN
VIRTUAL WORLDS

Zane L. Berge
University of Maryland Baltimore County

Berge’s Instructor’s Roles Model categorized the instructor’s roles as pedagogical, social, managerial, and
technical. Developed more than a decade ago, this model described changing roles for instructors as they tran-
sitioned from in-person classrooms to teaching online. Today, as virtual worlds emerge and are being used as
educational platforms, these same roles are valid, but again the emphases for teaching in virtual worlds are dif-
ferent than those in online or in-person classrooms.

It certainly is no longer unusual for instructors
to teach online in either real-time or asynchro-
nous learning environments. Over the past
decade and a half, thousands of online courses
have become mainstream at universities and in
the workplace. One phenomenon observed
during this time was the changes in student
expectations for their instructors as teaching
and learning moved from in-person classrooms
to online. These new dimensions of the learn-
ing environment and student expectations usu-
ally required changes in how teachers needed
to promote student motivation, and in how the
online classroom is managed (Berge, 2007).
Thus, changing student expectations led to a
demand for different instructor’s roles within
different learning environments.
Recently, a few instructors and students
have moved into 3D, virtual worlds for at least
some of their teaching and learning experi-
ences. To date, this is fairly unusual. This
paper discusses some of the changes this type
of learning environment demand of the
instructor. Over a decade and a half ago, dur-
ing the transition to online teaching from in-
person classrooms, Berge’s (1995) Instructor
Roles Model described the changing roles of
instructors. It will be used here for the frame-
work in describing the new transition. Second
Life, a popular multiuser virtual environment
(MUVE), will be used as an example of a pop-
ular virtual world for discussing these chang-
ing instructor roles.

• Zane L. Berge, University of Maryland Baltimore County. E-mail: berge@umbc.edu

The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Volume 9(4), 2008, pp. 407–414 ISSN 1528-3518
Copyright © 2008 Information Age Publishing, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
408
SECOND LIFE
Multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs),
such as Second Life, are metaverses where stu-
dents can create their avatars and in that pro-
cess, change appearance, gender, or clothing to
pretty much anything they can imagine. They
can teleport, walk, run, ride, or fly to where
they want to go in the virtual world. Net-
worked, three-dimensional (3D), virtual
worlds, are quickly emerging as a favorite
venue for social networking, collaboration,
and learning. Used for entertainment, profes-
sional, and educational purposes, millions of
people live their fantasies and a “second life”
in a metaverse where imagination is thought
by some people to be the only limitation. In a
MUVE, the user is represented by an avatar
that moves about the virtual world, communi-
cating and interacting with the environment
and other users.
In general, these worlds offer at least three
important elements: a 3D space or environ-
ment, avatars that represent the individual
user, and interactive chat, either using text or
voice or both (Dickey, 2005). Helmer and
Learning Light (2007) described Second Life
as:
a sandbox, a playground; a place where all
conceivable types of human interaction can
be tried out, with limited repercussions in the
real world when things go wrong; a place to
fail safely, and in relative anonymity; a place
to make discoveries about the self and others.
It has both public spaces and private spaces,
allows both highly structured linear experi-
ences and more free-form, open-ended ones
… and all points in between. It is in some
senses, an ideal space for learning. (p. 4)
Virtual worlds often replicate real life, with
its uncertainty, irrationality, and chaos at
times. The characteristics of virtual worlds, as
a medium, promote learning that is informal
and collaborative, with content and context
that is user-created. Along with being highly
social, the media-rich environment often pro-
motes quite intense engagement. All this leads
The Quarterly Review of Distance Education Vol. 9, No. 4, 2008
to certain changes in student expectations and
therefore a demand for changes in instructors’
roles.
CHANGING STUDENTS
As emerging technologies allow students to
connect with each other and to knowledge
sources, traditional training and educational
models are called into question concerning
whether or not they meet the needs of these
millennial learners (Siemens, 2008). Prensky
(2001) argues that students born after 1980,
who he calls digital natives, have been so
immersed in technology their whole lives that
most find it impossible to relate to the linear
logic of the traditional, in-person classroom or
have patience with an educational system that
has changed little for the last 150 years (Berge,
1999). Similarly, the online classroom will not
appeal to students either, unless opportunities
are presented that permit them to make con-
nections in online networks.
According to Murray (2007), digital natives
are adept at, and enjoy multitasking, working
in groups, and absorbing information rapidly
with greater access to information and
resources. Learners often have multiple paths
to content and they want learning that is fast-
paced, multimedia, and interactive (Richter,
Anderson-Inman & Frisbee, 2007). These
changes involving students, the Internet, and
the communication technologies that bring
connectedness to the millennial generation,
have implications for instructors and teaching.
INSTRUCTOR’S ROLES MODEL
As learners assume more responsibility for
their own learning than they have in the past, it
changes the role they have in their learning. The
role of the instructor changes, too. As access to
information becomes more readily available to
students, the faculty member’s role shifts from
expert and perhaps the sole or major informa-
tion source, to facilitator, coach, or mentor—in
other words, to one who, first and foremost,
Changing Instructor’s Roles in Virtual Worlds
Technical
Role
Pedagogical
Role
Model of Instructor’s Roles
provides leadership and wisdom in guiding stu-
dent learning. Over the years, numerous roles
and functions that the instructor assumes, both
in-person and online, have been listed, includ-
ing: chair, host, tutor, mediator, provocateur,
network administrator, concierge, curator,
observer, colearner, community organizer, and
even lecturer (Berge, 1992, 1994; Berge & Col-
lins, 1993; Brochet, 1989; Feenberg, 1989;
Morris, 1993; Paulsen, 1995; Siemens, 2008).
These various functions led to the Instructor’s
Roles Model (Berge, 1995).
Essentially, the Instructor’s Roles Model
identifies the functions of instructors in four
categories: pedagogical, social, managerial,
and technical. As may be suspected, some
functions and roles overlap or can be placed in
more than one category. Not all of these roles
need to be carried out in their entirety by the
same person. In fact, it may be rare that they
are in most classrooms, either in-person or in
elearning. But it is the instructor’s job to make
409
Social
Role
Instructor’s Managerial
Roles
Role
FIGURE 1
sure all the roles are successful. Whether
teaching online or in-person, the four functions
in the model are equally appropriate. However,
compared to strategies used for in-person
teaching, the emphasis sometimes shifts when
discussing online classrooms. Following are
the four categories of the Instructor’s Roles
Model as described in 1995 describing a shift
from in-person to online instruction.
Pedagogical Role
Many of the most important roles of online
instructors revolve around their duties as edu-
cational facilitators. The instructor uses ques-
tions and probes for student responses in ways
that focus discussions on critical concepts,
principles, and skills. A main role of the
instructor is to model effective learning and
accept “the responsibility of keeping discus-
sions on track, contributing special knowledge
and insights, weaving together various discus-
 410 The Quarterly Review of Distance Education
sion threads and course components, and
maintaining group harmony” (Rohfeld &
Hiemstra, 1995, p. 91).
Social Role
Creating a friendly, social environment
where learning is encouraged is also important
for successful learning. In online learning, this
suggests promoting human relationships,
developing group cohesiveness, maintaining
the group as a unit, and in other ways helping
members work together for their mutual bene-
fit are all helpful to the success of any online
learning activities.
Managerial Role
This role involves setting the agenda for the
course: the objectives of the discussion, the
timetable, procedural rules, and decision-mak-
ing norms. With online teaching, managing the
interactions with strong leadership and direc-
tion is considered a sine qua non of success.
Au: italics not
need for sine
qua non. Technical Role
The online facilitator must make learners
as comfortable as possible with the ICT
(information and communication technology)
hardware and software that is being used for
the online learning environment. The ultimate
technical goal is to make the technology
transparent to the user. The closer that this
goal is reached, the more the learner may con-
centrate on the academic task and activities
necessary for successful learning. It is impor-
tant to note that as online education grows and
matures, more of this role is handled by sup-
port staff and not the instructor. Still, the
instructor is often the first person who stu-
dents call on for help when a technical issue
interferes with their learning.
CHANGING ROLES OF THE
INSTRUCTOR IN VIRTUAL WORLDS
A decade ago, when a great deal of instruction
started to move online, it was noted that
Vol. 9, No. 4, 2008
instructors had to change their roles from what
they knew in their in-person classrooms:
Enthusiastic faculty, experienced in face-to-
face teaching, who adopt computer confer-
encing are sometimes dismayed when their
on-line classrooms go awry. Feenberg (1986;
Feenberg, 1987) suggests this is because
potential moderators are unable to overcome
the initial difficulty of transposing leadership
skills developed in contexts that are rich in
social signaling (e.g. the tacit signs of
approval like smiles, heads nodding in agree-
ment; frowns that indicate puzzlement or dis-
agreement) to the “artificial” setting of a
computer conference where the very context
of communication and meaning-making must
be explicitly stated and negotiated. Berge
(1997) speculates that those instructors who
are philosophically oriented to student-cen-
tered teaching may make an easier transition
to on-line teaching as they are already ori-
ented to discussion and interaction. (Collins
& Berge, 1997)
Today, due to the nature and different charac-
teristics of virtual worlds, other changes in
teaching roles are needed. In virtual worlds
such as Second Life, the major goals are often
for students to build things or explore ideas
and other’s role-plays, demonstrations, or sim-
ulations. While the same four roles (pedagogi-
cal, social, managerial, and technical) need to
be addressed, there is a different focus than for
either in-person or online teaching and learn-
ing. The following list of selected changes to
instructor roles for teaching in virtual worlds
came from personal experience, discussions
with instructors in virtual worlds, and a review
of the literature (Antonacci & Modaress, 2005;
Bainbridge, 2007; Bellman, 2005; Berge,
2008; Brown, 2005; Cheal, 2007; Deubel,
2007; Dieterle & Clarke, in press; Eliens, Feld-
berg, Konijn, & Compter, 2007; Graetz, 2006;
Helmer & Learning Light, 2007; Karlsudd &
Tågerud, 2008; Kemp & Livingstone, 2006;
Lancefield, 2006; Nicholson, 2006; Villano,
2008).
Changing Instructor’s Roles in Virtual Worlds
Changes in the Pedagogical Instructor’s
Role in Virtual Worlds
• Students should mainly be building or
exploring in virtual worlds. Often, pre-
existing tools for building allow for less
expensive and more efficient-to-develop
learning objects and contexts than could be
the case outside of the virtual world.
Another thing this may mean is a list of
resources for students to explore. Activities
for building things need to accommodate
the student’s skill level and the goals of the
course.
• When an instructor starts planning a Pow-
erPoint presentation or a lecture in Second
Life, that is pretty much going to end up as
something that could be done more effec-
tively in another medium and not in-world.
• Any activities that can be designed for stu-
dents to work on outside of the classroom
(i.e., asynchronously) should be given
every consideration to be design as such.
• Learning in virtual worlds may be better at
meeting the expectations of the “digital
natives” generation described above.
Changes in the Social Instructor’s Role
in Virtual Worlds
• How the instructor presents himself or her-
self to the class is important. How the
instructor’s avatar looks is often as impor-
tant as what the instructor says. A deroga-
tory, cute, or off-color name for the
instructor’s avatar is unprofessional and
will speak volumes before the instructor
even starts the class. Class rules for stu-
dents’ names and avatar appearance set
expectations, too.
• Remember that every avatar has a real per-
son behind it. Instructors must take a proac-
tive approach to acculturating students into
the learning environment of the virtual
world.
• Instructors should consider group work
when it makes sense to the instructional
goals of the course. Virtual worlds are
411
social networking platforms by their
nature.
• Expect that “griefing” may occur. Griefing
is the virtual world equivalent of flaming in
online courses. Participants may breach eti-
quette and respond with harsh or vulgar
language. If this problem should occur, the
instructor needs to react and remind people
(privately) about classroom etiquette.
Changes in the Managerial Instructor’s
Role in Virtual Worlds
• Arranging the meeting space needs to be
thought through and planned in virtual
worlds. In a learning management system
such as Blackboard, or an in-person class-
room, choices are limited. But in a virtual
world such as Second Life, an instructor
can meet in a lecture hall, a traditional
classroom, in a laboratory, at the Sistine
Chapel, a sandbox, a skybox, around a
swimming pool, at the beach, in a wood-
land, or any place else the instructor can
imagine and build or have built.
• Most virtual worlds are not complete learn-
ing management systems. For instance,
Second Life is pretty poorly designed for
such things as being a repository for articles
or submitting student papers. Generally,
some other system can be used in conjunc-
tion with the virtual world for asynchro-
nous discussion, course document storage,
and other functions better suited than Sec-
ond Life. E-mail can be encouraged for
group communication on projects.
• Vary the participants’ amount of contribu-
tion. If there is a participant who appears
overly outspoken, ask that person (pri-
vately) to wait for a few others’ responses
before contributing. Similarly, at some
point, it may be appropriate to ask less-out-
spoken individuals to participate more
actively.
• It is perfectly reasonable to design elements
of most instruction so that students take
turns as leaders in the class. This needs to
be determined by the content of the class,
412 The Quarterly Review of Distance Education
and the skill, knowledge, and attitude of the
students. But again, the instructor does not
necessarily need to solely execute all these
roles and tasks.
• Instructors find that planning, developing,
and distributing course materials needs a
substantially greater preparation time for
than may be anticipated at first.
Changes in the Technical Instructor’s
Role in Virtual Worlds
• At the current state of virtual worlds, tech-
nical glitches frequently occur (e.g.,
reboots, downtime, and re-installation
fixes). The instructor should have a back-
up plan if certain things are not working
exactly right. For example, what if the sys-
tem is offline at class time, or goes down
during class? What if a student(s) talk fea-
ture does not work even if it in every previ-
ous class? What if a student misses a class
or part of a class due to technical difficul-
ties?
• Having technical support lined up, beyond
what the instructor knows, is an important
element of teaching in virtual worlds. At
this time, Second Life instructors will find
their role has a relatively larger technical
emphasis compared with what it will be
when more students become familiar with
virtual worlds as time passes. It is reminis-
cent of teaching on the Web in its infancy.
• Given the steep learning curve, instructors
should consider job aids for builds and any
process that is more than a few easy steps.
In many cases, it may make sense for stu-
dents to make these checklists and job aids,
for themselves and classmates.
• Consideration should be given to system
requirements and Internet connection
speeds available to students and teachers.
High-speed processors, a lot of RAM, and
good graphics cards are needed.
• Think of new, efficient, and effective meth-
ods of indicating feedback to students in
virtual worlds. Instructors need to develop
standards for feedback to students’ work.
Vol. 9, No. 4, 2008
Certainly some feedback techniques may
draw from those used for in-person class-
rooms, and some may draw from feedback
to students’ work done online.
CONCLUSIONS
Historically, in-person formal education
was instructor-centered. The instructor’s roles
changed focus as online, asynchronous educa-
tion become commonplace, with a more stu-
dent-centered approach and an especially
strong emphasis on discussion-based activities
and flexibility regarding the time for accessing
the course. Learning in virtual worlds is driven
by a move toward informal, collaborative,
reflective learning, with user-generated con-
tent.
Virtual worlds, as engaging learning envi-
ronments, can contain problems and contexts
that are very similar to those in the sometimes
messy, real world, yet they are a safe place to
test ideas, fail, and learn. MUVEs such as Sec-
ond Life are places to collaborate, to build, to
explore, and places where students have con-
trol and freedom, which is critical to 21st cen-
tury lifelong learning. Immersive metaverses
let students interact as “if actually there, sus-
pending their attention to the real world and
transferring that attention to the virtual world”
(Richter, Anderson-Inman, & Frisbee, 2007,
n.p.). We can continuously improve the effec-
tiveness, cost, efficiency, and quality of the
learning environment and the learners’ experi-
ence. It may be that MUVEs help instructors
hone new roles as learning improves.
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