The Role of a Virtual Teacher

The virtual teacher wears many hats: homeroom teacher, technical support, content expert, counselor, curriculum designer, attendance clerk, event planner, and more. The role of a virtual teacher is different depending on the program, grade level, content area, and even state. A newer, smaller virtual school or program may require the teacher to carry out a wider variety of tasks simply because the staff size is smaller, but as a school grows larger, individual roles tend to become more focused and specialized.

Ideally, an online teacher should be able to focus entirely on helping their students achieve course learning objectives primarily by communicating with individual students about their work. To this end, most virtual schools relieve teachers of course design duties by using teams of curriculum specialists, content experts, and instructional designers to build the courses thereby allowing teachers to focus their professional attention on students and their families.

The virtual teacher’s role involves getting to know individual students’ strengths, weaknesses, learning styles, and interests. If the school provides curriculum and lesson materials, the teacher can modify the pace and lesson content as needed to personalize the learning for each student. The teacher also helps students schedule their time and become independent learners. Individual support is provided through email, synchronous sessions, and additional supplementary resources. Finally, the virtual teacher must comply with state requirements to document attendance and student work.

According to NEA’s Guide to Teaching Online Courses (n.d.), an online teacher needs to:

• Understand the language of online education
• Design, evaluate, and deliver online courses with appropriate standards
• Communicate an appropriate online tone
• Participate and be present in an online course, meeting student needs and school expectations for teacher presence
• Communicate with students, caretakers, school administrators, and other teachers via a variety of online and traditional means
• Keep track of student participation in online courses
• Revise or write course documents in the LMS
• Use technology to support course design
• Foster student-to-student discussion and collaboration
• Intervene appropriately when students misbehave online
• Provide course materials to students in a timely manner
• Provide students with basic technical support, recognizing issues that should be forwarded to technical support teams
• Use LMS elements effectively to facilitate course design
• Incorporate internet resources into course documents
• Provide appropriate and timely feedback to students
• Communicate appropriately with students in one-on-one and group settings
• Track whether students are registered/enrolled in the course

Challenges of Transitioning to a Virtual Setting

Many of the challenges virtual teachers face can be attributed to the change of environment. Some teachers find that working in an office environment or working at home can be challenging; it’s hard to be away from the classroom. Teachers may miss the daily face-to-face interaction with students—especially if they find it difficult to build a virtual community or feel they lack the time to do so. Having a “virtual boss” (being supervised at a distance) or supervising students as they complete their work at a distance can also be challenging. It can be difficult to know if students are doing their own work or even completing lessons at all. It can be challenging to check in with students either synchronously or asynchronously. Virtual teachers must feel comfortable working with unmotivated students as well as with students who generally lack self-discipline and support.

Getting used to the curriculum provided via technology can also be a challenge for transitioning teachers. Staying up to date and current with the latest technologies and learning to use the technology to differentiate and individualize instruction for all students can be an important set of skills to master. 

Academic integrity can be a challenge in an online setting. Instructors are not always able to see students doing their work and are not sure what help from peers, parents, or other outside sources students receive on assignments or exams they submit. Technology like built-in plagiarism checker tools, lock-down browsers, and paginated assessments with question banks, can help but are not always available nor infallible. Instructors can help students be accountable for their own learning by educating students on the importance of academic integrity, getting to know students individually to recognize their level of work, conducting live student assessments, offering a variety of assessment questions and instructions, using authentic assessments, and employing other creative means.

New virtual teachers become successful when they develop a growth mindset, consistently ask stakeholders for feedback, and continually explore new and innovative engagement methods. 

Typical Day on the Job

One of the first things a new-to-online teacher may appreciate, as compared to the traditional classroom experience, is that bells do not dictate the schedule. For the most part, virtual teachers manage their own time and schedules including such activities as staff meetings, professional development, student calls, grading, lesson planning, synchronous teaching sessions, office hour availability, field trips, testing, and responding to messages. Many of the things that a classroom teacher would like to have time to do are the day-to-day tasks of a virtual teacher. Without having to maintain and entertain a classroom of students, time can be spent on individualizing education.

Below is a typical day for a virtual teacher working in a full-time virtual program where students are not required to have face-to-face meetings. A day may not be as flexible as this for a virtual teacher in a blended or hybrid program, but for the most part, virtual teachers do have more flexibility in their teaching schedules than traditional classroom teachers.

• Logging In: Log in to the LMS, staff calendar, email, and instant message systems. These stay open throughout the day to check for new communications. 
• Checking Messages: Check messages from staff, students, and parents, to prioritize any urgent changes, updates, circumstances, or questions that may arise.
• Grading: Some teachers enjoy using the early hours for grading student work, which is a good use of time if it’s still too early to make phone calls. The more promptly a student receives feedback, the more likely the student will be to review and use that feedback. 
• Phone Calls: After 8 or 9 am in the student’s local time, it’s appropriate to return calls missed from the previous day and initiate new or scheduled calls or contacts needed to check in with students, verify subject mastery, discuss a submitted assignment, or outline next steps.
• Planning:This includes planning for future synchronous sessions, drafting communications to students, mapping out needed phone calls, etc.
• Synchronous Lessons: This includes holding virtual lessons for students or opening up the virtual classroom platform for students to drop in for help.
• Meetings/Training/Collaboration: Virtual teachers may attend staff meetings, collaborate with their professional learning community (PLC), and participate virtually in professional development activities as part of the workday. 

Virtual teachers are most successful when they deliberately plan time for each of these activities throughout the day rather than jump around from task to task when something comes up. It’s okay to not answer the phone if you are in the middle of grading or planning tasks and then set aside time to return and initiate calls later. Keep in mind that a response can still be considered “prompt” if it occurs within an hour or even a day of receipt of the original assignment or email message.

A typical virtual teaching schedule follows a predictable, consistent school year cycle. While there are weekly and monthly routines that affect your planning, there may also be opportunities to add some variety to your schedule by setting up field trips to meet students, becoming involved in school committees, administering state testing, and helping to run information sessions for prospective students and their families. There is a consistent schedule, with some variety added in.

Source: https://www.coursera.org/learn/virtual-school/supplement/FmyCK/the-role-of-a-virtual-teacher