Pattern Name
INVISIBLE TEACHER (Eckstein, Bergin, Sharp, & Manns, 2002b, p. 9)
Pattern Language
Category
This pattern is a meta-pattern. It helps to establish a learning environment, where formative feedback and assessment can emerge.
Active Role
This pattern was written for teachers.
Summary
Traditional learning environments usually have the teacher in the center of the learning process and students only trust the teacher to be competent enough to give feedback or to provide help when struggling during the learning process. In everyday life, the teacher is not be always around to help. Therefore, the teacher supports peer mentoring in class (Eckstein, Bergin, Sharp, & Manns, 2002b, p. 9), which requires a TRUSTED SPACE in class.
Example for Technological Support
The teacher is invisible but still supportive, if he or she provides necessary information online, eg. in a Wiki or as FAQs. This way, the teacher helps students to help themselves and to be independent learners. A further support of peer mentoring can be opening up online spaces for the mentee and the mentor, maybe offering a structure (workflow, bullet points, questions,…), as well.
Literature
Eckstein, J., Bergin, J., Sharp, H., & Manns, M. L. (2002b). Patterns for Active Learning. In Proceedings of PloP 2002 (Vol. 2002). Allerton Park, Illinois. Retrieved from http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/ActiveLearningV4.doc