The Role of Instructor in Virtual Environments: Enhancing Action Learning in Higher Education

Philosophical Values

As an online instructor in higher education it is important to understand the philosophical underpinnings upon which active learning and learning online is predicated. There are post-structuralist values (Travers, 2001) that could be associated with online learning and these are seen as residing in skepticism about most institutional arrangements or forms of order including conventional forms of learning. Online platforms emerged as a marked departure from traditional forms of learning and have steadily gained prominence in the last two decades, since the late 1980s. Founded on the notion of social justice (Rawls, 1971), there is also a global realisation that virtual learning environments open new alternatives for learning to those students who do not have access to conventional educational structures and forms. The virtual learning environment therefore tends to complement the social justice agenda as espoused in the United Nations Education for All agenda; the Widening Participation in higher education initiatives (UK Department for Business Innovation & Skills, 2015) and the Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that ‘everyone has the right to education’ (UDHR, 2015). Since education is not only a right but a passport to human development the virtual learning environment contributes in the opening of doors and the expansion of opportunities and freedoms, fostering peace, democracy and economic growth as well as improving health and reducing poverty.