Just How Important is that Instructor, Anyway?

One of the major issues in distance education is the role of the instructor. This can be seen most clearly in distinction between asynchronous and synchronous distance education. In asynchronous mode the student interacts with prepared course materials in an asynchronous fashion which means they fit the course work into their schedule and do it as they feel like it rather than at an appointed time.  There may still be an instructor or even a facilitator available. But the role of the instructor is greatly diminished. In synchronous mode the student must appear at assigned times when the instructor is there and interact with the instructor and class mates. The synchronous mode is largely although not completely an extension of the classroom into cyberspace.

There are four main drawbacks to the synchronous model. First, the student has to appear at an assigned time. Second, the student must proceed at the speed of the class. Third, synchronous education is not scalable which means class sizes are still limited although no longer by the size of the room. They are limited by the number of students that one instructor can attend to. Finally, synchronous mode, like any custom made product is expensive and the products are not reliable. 

One of the main arguments put forth by the advocates of synchronous mode distance education is the importance of the instructor and the role of the instructor in education. Over the next few posts, I am going to take the devil's advocate position and argue against the importance of the instructor. In fact, I am going to argue that the importance of the instructor is largely a myth and that the negative consequences of instructors far out weight the positive ones. This is, as you might imagine, not a popular position to take. But, I believe, it needs to be considered.