One of the central tenets of the online networked learning approach seems to be that teachers do not drive learning. We do not (and cannot) transmit knowledge into learners’ minds. We can create situations, environments and events where learning can take place. And we can give learners the tools, resources and confidence to learn by themselves and, more importantly, to learn together. But we cannot make them learn.

This raises some questions about the role and the importance of the teacher in online networked learning (and in learning in general). If learning takes place collaboratively in communities of enquiry where the teacher takes a step back, what is the teacher’s value? Is she relegated to curating open resources, sharing MOOCs and reviewing assignments? What about teaching?

A colleague reflected on just this point when she told me how Lasse Åberg, a famous Swedish artist, explained that everything he learned at art school, he learned from the other students, from the creative milieu, and not, as one might expect, from the teachers. My colleague felt dishearten by this story, as if Lasse Åberg’s story made teachers somehow redundant.

But, for me, Lasse Åberg’s story does not illustrate the redundancy of teachers. Rather, it illustrates that, teaching, if done well, might be almost invisible. (And this applies whether we are in an online, offline or blended learning environment.) Rather than a traditional teaching role (transmitting knowledge) the contemporary teacher must focus on facilitation. This means creating opportunities or situations for learning. It means putting the building blocks in place to scaffold learning. And it means creating positive emotions around learning.

Our role is to facilitate learning. To push learners in the right direction. To ask an important question. To probe. To disturb the status quo and make learners think anew. To give learners the confidence to try and fail and, hence, to learn. If we do this well, it might feel like we do nothing at all, that the learners have done it all themselves.

So, Lasse Åberg’s teachers, far from being unimportant, perhaps performed the most important teaching role of all. They appeared to be unimportant while learning went on all around them.