In a community-based learning environment the role of the teacher is very much of a facilitator.

Once we have set the general structure of the environment and activity is underway, the teacher will take a back seat to allow room for the students to engage. Their role becomes one of monitoring, gently prodding and guiding students and to engage at points to steer conversation or activity to remain focused. The teacher cannot leave this to chance, so daily contact and maintaining their presence online is essential. As the course develops, and as students develop more understanding and ownership, the teacher will gradually pull back and allow the learners to take the lead. Collison, Elbaum, Haavind and Tinker (2000) note that good facilitation becomes apparent when the learners use the types of intervention the teacher might use. For example, in a working learning community you will see the learners themselves responding to questions their peers may raise or taking responsibility for pushing discussion or inquiry in another direction.

Erica McWilliams (2009) suggests another role a teacher may play within a learning community and that is of the ‘Meddler in Middle’. This is an “…active interventionist pedagogy in which teachers are mutually involved with students in assembling and/or dis-assembling knowledge and cultural products. Meddling is a re-positioning of teacher and student as co-directors and co-editors of their social world.” In this sense, the teacher is a learner as well. They are an active participant in the activity that the community engages in, alongside learners. It is these sorts of dynamics that learning and teaching online more readily presents, because the teacher is not present in the class.