1 Introduction

Over the past few decades, digital technologies have altered the ways teachers teach and learners learn (Fischer et al., 2020; Ilomäki & Lakkala, 2018). New tools and paths for learning and interaction have resulted in various educational innovations, as well as communicative and interactive challenges (Agélii Genlott et al., 2019; Willermark, 2021). In the context of K-12, digital solutions have, for example, resulted in new educational conditions affecting how to facilitate students’ learning and interaction (Costa et al., 2021). Remote teaching is one example. During lessons, students are in their physical classroom while the teacher is teaching, communicating, and interacting with them synchronously via digital technologies (From et al., 2020; Pettersson et al., 2022). To facilitate this learning and interaction, a facilitator is present with the students in the classroom (cf. Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). Compared to traditional classroom teaching, a facilitator’s presence in the classroom results in new ways of assisting learning and interaction (Skog, 2022).

Research focusing on the interaction and relations between teachers and students in these environments exists (Bergdahl & Hietajärvi, 2022; Borup & Stevens, 2017); however, previous studies have mainly focused on the teacher, seldom exploring the facilitator’s role in remote teaching contexts (Barbour, 2019; Borup & Kennedy, 2017; Borup & Stimson, 2019). Thus, there is more to explore concerning the different roles and tasks of the facilitator, the division of labour between the facilitator and other actors in class and how students use the facilitator for different learning tasks.

There has also been a lack of research on how contextual factors condition facilitating learning and interaction in remote teaching (Lin et al., 2016; Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021). For example, students’ and teachers’ location, group size, access and use of technologies etc. (Billmayer et al., 2020; Ilomäki & Lakkala, 2018; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). These aspects, forming the very nature of the learning environment, are interesting to consider when understanding this new role in remote teaching classrooms.

Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to explore remote teaching settings, where a facilitator is involved in the teaching situation. More specifically, the aim is to analyse the facilitation of learning and interaction, with special focus on the role of the facilitator. In doing so, frame factor theory by Lundgren (1972, 1979), including different educational conditions, will be used as an analytical framework. The following questions are posited:

  • How do different frame factors condition remote teaching?

  • How do these frame factors influence the role of the facilitator in remote teaching?

2 Review of research

In recent years, distance, online and remote teaching has developed in many schools. As remote teaching is used worldwide, there are differences in how schools and teachers decide to organize it (Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). In China and Canada, students can shift between taking classes in school or from home (cf. LaBonte & Barbour, 2018; Yang et al., 2019). The latter requires that students have (equal) access to a digital device and a quiet place to study at home (cf. Basham et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2023). In other countries, such as Sweden, the school law stipulates that students need to be in the school building and use the digital equipment offered in school when participating in remote teaching (Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). A remote class can consist of one group of students participating from the same classroom or smaller groups from different schools (Pettersson & Hjelm, 2020; Stenman & Pettersson, 2020; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). These aspects form a kind of semi-digital learning context where both the physical and the digital conditions influence the teaching (Skog, 2022; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). As such, the digital infrastructure, including a stable Internet connection, digital cameras in the physical learning environments, suitable software, and functioning digital devices, are important (Saqlain et al., 2020; Ilomäki & Lakkala, 2018; Kristensen & Bratteng, 2021).

These different educational conditions form different possibilities and challenges for the teacher (and in the end also for the facilitator, cf. Borup, 2018; Borup & Kennedy, 2017; Zhang & Lin, 2021; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). Previous research has shown, for example, that teachers experience difficulties in building strong and trusting relations, supporting students’ engagement, monitoring their progress, and maintaining classroom order when not sharing the same physical space (cf. Burdina et al., 2019; Farmer & West, 2019; Rehn et al., 2017; Rehn et al., 2018; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). Several studies show, for example, that remote teachers cannot physically walk around in the physical classroom to see if students are engaged (Raes et al., 2020), to read students’ body language (Kristensen & Bratteng, 2021; Skog, 2022) or promote interactions (Bond et al., 2021). To make it even more complex, there are sometimes students in two or more physical contexts, which challenge the teacher to detect what is going on in class (Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022). Other aspects are student group size which affects teachers’ overview and the amount of interaction possible during class (cf. Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021; Pettersson & Hjelm, 2020; Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). These educational conditions influence the teachers’ capacity to support students’ engagement, monitor their progress and maintain classroom order when not being in the same physical space (cf. Farmer & West, 2019; Rehn et al., 2017; Rehn et al., 2018; Åkerfeldt et al., 2022), which was also evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when many teachers were uncertain if and how they could support students (Barbour et al., 2020; Bond, 2021; Carter et al., 2020). In turn, demands were directed toward digital devices to enable learning and interaction (Carter et al., 2020; Kristensen & Bratteng, 2021), synchronous and asynchronous feedback (Zhu & Bonk, 2019) and course design, which needed to include interactive learning activities (Farmer & West, 2019).

As such, facilitating learning and interaction in remote, distance and blended environments differs from in-person teaching where teachers and students share the same physical classroom (cf. Borup, 2018; Borup & Kennedy, 2017; Zhang & Lin, 2021). To support teachers and students in these environments, a facilitator is sometimes involved in remote teaching (Barbour, 2017; Borup & Kennedy, 2017; Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). The role of facilitators has its roots in earlier correspondence courses (Barbour & Mulcahy, 2004). Back then, their role was mainly to manage information and distribute teaching materials to students (cf. Borup et al., 2019; Freidhoff et al., 2015). Today the role is more focused on supporting students in their studies. The role has been focused on providing auxiliary learning support to reduce lack of teacher immediacy, support students with technological problems, and compensate for students’ low self-regulation and insufficient metacognitive abilities in these highly autonomous learning environments (Cavanaugh, 2007; Hannum et al., 2008; Moore, 1993; Rice, 2006). As such, facilitators have contributed to reducing student attrition rates and students’ lack of motivation (de la Varre et al., 2014; Drysdale et al., 2014, Taylor et al., 2016).

Over time, other functions have been added, including supporting students’ social and relational issues (Åkerfeldt et al., 2022; Carter et al., 2020; De la Varre et al., 2011; Zhang & Lin, 2021). De la Varre et al. (2011) and Pettyjohn (2012), for example, point out that facilitators have opportunities to encourage and foster healthy relations with students, often in informal and spontaneous ways during and between lessons (see also Charania, 2010; Murphy & Rodríguez-Manzanares, 2008, 2009). These relationships make the supporting role easier and benefit students in their efforts to learn and navigate in the digital learning environment (Borup, 2018; Borup & Stimson, 2017; Borup et al., 2019). These relationships between the onsite facilitator and students have also proved to contribute to content-related questions, such as whether the facilitator has expert knowledge or not (cf. Borup, 2018; Hendrix & Degner, 2016; Tylor et al., 2016).

Researchers have made efforts to thematize the responsibilities of the facilitator role. In the United States, Borup and Drysdale (2014) and Borup (2018) identified two commonly used facilitator models: on-site and online. On-site facilitators offer face-to-face contact at a brick-and-mortar school to students enrolled in supplemental online courses. This can also include face-to-face contact at a study centre for students enrolled in full-time online programs (cf. Borup, 2018; Borup & Kennedy, 2017). The online facilitator model is often used to offer support to full-time online students, which means that students and the online facilitator can meet online, either regularly or when the student needs some kind of support (Borup, 2018). Responsibilities for these roles are commonly summarized in three themes: (a) motivating and encouraging communication, (b) nurturing, and (c) monitoring, where the focus and extent depend on the contextual factors (cf. Borup, 2018; Borup et al., 2014; Borup et al., 2019; Freidhoff et al., 2015).

In a Swedish context, the role of the facilitator differs from these two models due to the educational and contextual conditions of its own. The facilitator is located with the students in or nearby the physical classroom, ready to step in when needed. The teaching is conducted synchronously, and students interact with the teacher through their laptops or the big screen in front of the class. This means that the facilitator in some ways is a part of the pedagogical interactions happening in the classroom. The question is, however, how this affects the responsibilities and tasks of the facilitator in a Swedish context. The few studies focusing on the facilitator in a Swedish context argue that the facilitator is expected to impact the processes of learning and interaction through a real-time presence in and during class, but educational conditions are not explicitly a part of their analysis (Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021; Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022).

In summary, the role of a facilitator, as described in previous research, can take different forms in different educational settings. It can involve supporting students online or on-site, or as in this study, being present and supporting students and teacher during class in real time (cf. Borup, 2018; Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021; Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). Other educational conditions influencing the role of the facilitator can be students’ and families’ access to digital technology, class size or students’ locations during lessons. In this study, the remote teaching is so-called supplementary (cf. Barbour, 2018), which means that the students are located at a school unit. Students are using digital technologies provided by the school and the facilitator is in or nearby the classroom.

3 Analytical framework

In this paper, frame factor theory (Lundgren, 1972, 1979) is used to analyse the facilitation of learning and interaction, with a special focus on the role of the facilitator, in K-12 remote teaching.

Previous research has used frame factor theory to analyse educational conditions at different levels. For example, in curriculum research, it has been used to investigate educational conditions important for the realization of a particular curriculum content (cf. Lundvall & Meckbach, 2008; Rapp et al., 2017; Öberg, 2019). Other studies have focused on how the societal context influences the classroom context, based on the idea that classroom conditions are societally situated (cf. Maxwell, 2010; Persson, 2015). Still other studies have used frame factor theory to investigate the classroom situation. For example, Lindblad and Sahlström (1999) used it to study interactions between students during class, Bäckström (2021) studied peer effect in relation to student learning, and in a similar study, Isriyah (2022) used it together with situational analysis to investigate peer effect in online learning environments.

These previous studies relate to the basic idea of frame factor theory: that education and teaching always are affected by a range of educational conditions, i.e., frame factors. Subsequently, teaching cannot be designed and conducted only by teachers’ own instructional plans and choices, as they are dependent on various frame factors that limit and enable certain teaching and learning situations (Dahllöf, 1967; Lundgren, 1972, 1979). Frame factor theory can therefore be viewed as an analytical model that includes frames, process, and results, where frames shape the pedagogical process and outcomes in terms of learning (cf. Gustafsson, 1994; Lundgren, 1994). As Dahllöf (1999) states, frame factor theory makes it possible to “study how a frame, or a combination of frames, impacts the pedagogical processes that lead to results in different dimensions” (p. 10).

From this theoretical perspective, the pedagogical processes realized in practice can be analysed based on different frame factors, conditioning the actual pedagogical process, because any given set of frame factors limits and enables a pedagogical process in various ways (Lundgren, 1999). For this purpose, Lundgren (1979) made a distinction between three sets of frame factors when analysing pedagogical processes: constitutional frames, organizational frames, and physical frames. Constitutional frames refer to legal regulations and curricula and form a sort of outer frame for organizational frames, which refer to working hours, group size, teacher density, age, etc. This, in turn, affects physical frames, which refer to school buildings, premises, inventory, teaching materials, and so on.

4 Methodology

Data in this study were generated through observations of teacher meetings and semi-structured interviews with remote teachers and facilitators. In total, the data consist of 12 h of observations and 18 interviews.

4.1 Observations

Observations of teachers’ collegial meetings were conducted during spring 2022 and spring 2023 (12 h). These meetings were held online on a weekly basis with a general focus on technical and pedagogical issues regarding teaching remotely. All meetings were led by two remote teaching coordinators responsible for pedagogical and organizational development. Depending on the aim and topic of the meetings, other actors were invited to participate. Facilitators attended twice to discuss common topics between teachers and facilitators regarding the teaching situation. During these meetings, field notes were taken by one researcher, which included short descriptions of topics, discussions, and presentations made by the participants. After every meeting, thicker descriptions and reflections from meetings were documented by the researcher. These notes served as a background when formulating the semi-structured interview guide.

4.2 Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structed interviews (N = 18) were conducted during fall 2022 and early spring 2023. Ten interviews were conducted with qualified/certified teachers, and eight with facilitators. The teachers consisted of three men and seven women with one to six years of experience of teaching remotely. They ranged in age from 35 to 59 years with a median of 52 years. The facilitators consisted of three men and five women and had one to three years of experience in the facilitator role, and two to seven years of experience of pedagogic practice. They were employed as pre-school teacher, teacher, student assistant, and social educator, and ranged in age in age from 39 to 67 years with a median of 55 years.

The aim of using semi-structured interviews was to use pre-defined questions concerning frames while being open to new turns and insights unknown to the researchers (e.g., Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014). The first set of interviews conducted with teachers concerned with the development of and conditions for remote teaching, competencies and qualities needed by remote teachers, prerequisites, and the implementation of the daily teaching situation, as well as the collaboration and interaction with students and the facilitator. Interviews with facilitators included topics and questions related to the teaching situation and the role of facilitating teachers and students in the classroom, tasks and responsibilities, and competencies needed by a facilitator. Interviews lasted 16–65 min (M = 37). All interviews were conducted via Zoom, except for one conducted at the respondent’s workplace. Before the interviews, an e-mail was sent to each respondent with a letter of information and consent attached. This letter addressed ethical issues, such as consent, confidentiality, and anonymity, as well as how collected data would be processed and protected. After conducting the interviews, they were transcribed by using DSS Player Standard Transcription Module.

4.3 Analysing data

Analysing data from the interviews and field notes was conducted in two steps using NVivo 1.7 and following the instructions of Bingham and Witkowsky (2022). The first step was deductive and used frame factor theory as an analytical tool. Data were read, and read again, to determine how to organize in relation to the initial codes, that is, constitutional, organizational, and physical frames. Thereafter, data were sorted into topical categories, that is, specific frame factors relevant to how frame factors condition remote teaching (RQ1). The second step was inductive and based on the deductive analysis in step one. By open coding, codes and themes were extracted to analyse how specific frame factors influence the facilitator’s role in remote teaching (RQ2). In this process, three overall themes were extracted with sub-themes: the facilitator as a practical resource (technical issues, teaching materials), a pedagogical resource (pedagogical leadership, recognizing students in need of help, building relationships), and a social resource (addressing social issues, information channel, encouraging and supporting students). As the interviews were analyzed, the data material showed less and less variation. Finally, no further themes could be extracted, and it was concluded that additional interviews would not add further analytical insights. Therefore, data saturation was considered to have occurred (Guest et al., 2006).

5 Result and analysis

The result and analysis section are divided into two parts. In the first part, frame factor theory, including the three pedagogical frames, is used to understand how different frame factors condition remote teaching (RQ1). In the second part of the analysis, the focus is on how these frame factors influence the facilitator’s role in remote teaching (RQ2). Respondents are referred to as teachers (T) and facilitators (F).

5.1 Conditions for remote teaching

Based on the rationale in frame factor theory, constitutional frame factors in many ways condition organizational and physical frames. Constitutional frames consist of rules and regulations that form a basis or serve as a foundation for pedagogical processes (Lundgren, 1979, 1984). In the case of remote teaching, constitutional frames primarily consist of regulations found in the Education Act (SFS 2010:800). The regulation formulates the basic rules for remote teaching; it stipulates that (a) it should be conducted synchronously and supported by ICT (information and communication technology), (b) a facilitator must be on site with or nearby the students, and (c) students must be on premises at a school units’ disposal. These constitutional frame factors are the same for all Swedish remote teaching practices and form both affordances and constraints for the pedagogical processes in the classroom. For example, these constitutional frame factors prevent students from being schooled from home, put high demands on schools to recruit facilitators, and demand meticulous scheduling, as other school units may share the same remote teacher. On the other hand, the regulation means that students, besides online contact with a remote teacher, have access to an additional adult in the form of a facilitator and the possibility to have additional classmates as students partake in the same remote lesson from another school unit. In conclusion, constitutional frame factors form an outer frame of limitations and opportunities influencing the teaching and learning context of remote teaching.

5.1.1 Two different classroom contexts

While constitutional frame factors form an outer frame of limitations and opportunities, the organizational and physical frame factors seem to affect the teaching situations differently. Subsequently, frame factors seem to form two different classroom contexts with different conditions for the teacher and facilitator to handle and relate to (see Table 1 below). These two classroom contexts are hereafter analysed as the large and the small classroom context.

The most prominent organizational frame factor conditioning these two classroom contexts is group size, followed by age, which affects the range of tasks and responsibilities. In the large classroom context, the number of students varies between 10 and 20, and students’ ages vary between 13 and 16 years (lower secondary school). The facilitator is in the physical classroom with the students during lessons and sometimes has some subject knowledge themselves (modern languages, i.e., French, Spanish, and German). In the small classroom context, the student group is normally 1–4 students, and the age-span is wider, ranging from 8 to 16 years. The student group is small, which means that the facilitator is often located near the classroom, doing other tasks at the same time. The facilitator seldom has subject knowledge (mother tongue intuition).

These differences in organizational frame factors lead to different conditions for teaching and the role of the facilitator. In the large classroom context, organizational frame factors generate more tasks, diverse responsibility, and more frequent contact with the remote teacher before, during, and after a lesson. For example, bringing headsets and teaching materials, ensuring a calm work climate, and notifying the teacher when students need support or additional instructions. On the one hand, students’ ages in the large classroom context mean they often have certain experience and digital competence to help each other. On the other hand, the large student group gives rise to more frequent troubleshooting of technical issues and dealing with social challenges. In the small classroom context, organizational frame factors generate fewer tasks and responsibilities but an increased need for technical support, as students are younger.

The most prominent physical frame factors are not physical but digital. Regardless of classroom size, all communication between students and teachers is mediated through technology. This means that sufficient digital infrastructure, equipment, and devices are crucial ‘digital’ physical frame factors in both classroom contexts, however, with some differences. In the small classroom context, students can participate from four different physical locations while participating in the same digital context using laptops and headsets. The facilitator doesn’t often hear all conversations in the classroom and can follow the lecture. The facilitator mainly helps students with technical issues or when the teacher or students actively call for help or support. In the large classroom context, students often participate from the same or two different physical classrooms while sharing the same digital context with the teacher. The teacher is projected on a big screen in front of the class, and students can use either the big screen or their personal laptops to interact with the teacher. The facilitator often hears all conversations and can help the teacher contact students as needed. In both classroom contexts, physical teaching materials are primarily used when digital subject-related books and tools are difficult to find (especially in mother tongue tuition).

To sum up, organizational physical frame factors seem to create different classroom contexts and teaching situations that condition the role, task, and responsibility of the facilitator. In the next section, the role of the facilitator in these two classroom contexts is further analysed.

Table 1 Frame factors in remote teaching
Full size table

5.2 The role of the facilitator in the two classroom contexts

In this second part of the analysis, the role of the facilitator in the two different classroom contexts is focused. The analysis is presented in three themes: (a) the facilitator as a practical resource, (b) the facilitator as a pedagogical resource and (c) the facilitator as a social resource.

5.2.1 A practical resource

In the first theme, the facilitator is understood as a practical resource. In the small classroom, this role involves distributing teaching materials, computers, and headsets to students, helping them log in and finding the right link to connect to the remote teacher, especially if they are young and inexperienced in remote teaching contexts. If the students are older, the position opens the physical classroom and helps students with technical issues when needed.

I have the students’ headsets that I carry with me in a basket and prepare for the lesson. I get the technology up and running, and the remote teacher has foresight and made a lesson plan that I show on the large screen when the students arrive. (F1)

In the larger classroom context, the facilitator needs to manage the digital connection to the remote teacher shown on the large screen. They also handle a larger number of headsets and help students with their digital devices.

5.2.2 A pedagogical resource

I the second theme, the facilitator is understood as a pedagogical resource, however, especially so in the larger classroom context. In the smaller classroom, the facilitator is, as previously expressed, seldom included in the teaching activities, and sometimes not even needed in the same room as the students during the lesson. There are fewer students, and the interaction happens on demand between the teacher and students. In the large classroom context, on the other hand, remote teachers and facilitators have more frequent and regular contact to consult and evaluate the teaching situation. This can occur both before and after lessons. Because the teachers don’t share the same physical location with the students, the facilitators sometimes need to help remote teachers draw the attention of students who seem to struggle or need additional instructions. On these occasions, facilitators contact the teacher via private chat or encourage students to make the contact with the teacher themselves: ‘If a student seems not to have understood the teacher’s instructions, I can send a personal message to the teacher, so the teacher can contact the student directly’ (F5). A teacher expressed: ‘[The facilitator] sort of catches students who I think: “Things are not really progressing here, here is someone who has drifted away on something else!”, but that it is something the facilitator really has his eyes on’ (T1). When the teacher is busy, the facilitators also help students themselves from time to time by repeating teachers’ instructions or answering students’ questions.

Another important task in the large classroom context is to help the teacher with the pedagogical leadership. The facilitator often helps the teacher create a calm and supportive learning environment for students to work in, which is a more difficult task with more students. Regarding such a task, remote teachers stress the need for leadership skills among facilitators. Facilitators themselves stress the benefit of strong and trusting relationships with students when trying to serve as a pedagogical resource in the classroom. Good relationships with students not only were beneficial when they needed to address disturbing behaviours but also were seen as an overall needed quality in being a facilitator. Remote teachers also acknowledged the need for good relationships, especially with the facilitator, as it created a good teaching climate and made it easier for both in their roles. ‘You must work on a good relationship, teacher–facilitator. Because if you have that, I think it rubs off on the work with the students as well’ (T3).

5.2.3 A social resource

In the third theme, the facilitator is understood as a social resource. Especially in the large classroom but also to some degree in the small classroom context when students are younger. Both teachers and facilitators described a greater need to address social issues when the number of students increase. This includes both classroom-related situations and those happening before the lesson. This was expressed as:

This relationship-building thing is more difficult for the remote teacher. However, I can more easily notice when a student is tired. I might have heard something before the lesson – the remote teacher will never find out about those things. (F3)

Once again, the facilitator’s relationship with students is beneficial not only for solving possible conflicts occurring before or during class but also for comforting individual students in the classroom. The facilitator also appears to be an important social resource when it comes to serving the remote teacher with formal and informal information, thereby creating a greater sense of belonging to the school unit. In the small classroom context, this social resource was mainly about supporting and encouraging younger students and their study motivation.

However, building these relationships appears to take time. Both teachers and facilitators express, for example, that time is an important frame factor for building strong and sustainable relationships between teachers and facilitators, especially is the large classroom context. This includes time to meet before and after the lesson to discuss lesson plans, evaluations, and collaboration to better support students’ learning and interaction in class. This was expressed as:

There are facilitators who always manage to stay a few minutes after class, and we can add up together. ‘What did you see? What did I see? Then we’ll think about this for next time’. So not, then I think as a teacher, but then we think about this for next time. While others barely have the time to wrap up things, as they need to be somewhere else and do some other job. (T2)

5.3 Summing up

The first part of the analysis shows how remote teaching is conditioned by different frame factors. Constitutional frames form a joint base, and organizational and physical frame factors give rise to two different remote teaching classrooms in which the facilitator has different responsibilities and roles regarding students’ learning and interaction. Group size is the most influential organizational frame factor, followed by age. regarding physical frame factors the most profound thing is the digital nature of them. The second part of the analysis reviewed three major themes in the two classroom contexts. The facilitator as a practical and a social resource was central in both contexts to varying degrees, whereas the facilitator as a pedagogical resource was more central in the large classroom context.

6 Discussion

In recent decades, new digital tools have resulted in various educational innovations, with remote teaching as one example (Costa et al., 2021; Fischer et al., 2020). Compared to traditional teaching remote teaching means new educational conditions affecting how to facilitate students’ learning and interaction (Pettersson et al., 2022). When teachers and students are physically separated, the teaching becomes dependent on sufficient digital infrastructures (cf. From et al., 2020; Kristensen & Bratteng, 2021) but also sound and reliable relations in both the digital and the physical classroom. This often means that teachers, located at a distance, must collaborate with other actors, such as facilitators, when it comes to teaching and interacting in the classroom (cf. Borup, 2018; Borup & Stimson, 2019, Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). However, little is known regarding the role and meaning of facilitators in these contexts and how this might influence learning and interaction (Barbour, 2019; Borup & Kennedy, 2017; Borup & Stimson, 2019).

This study focuses on a localized problem with a rather small sample size (cf. Siko & Barbour, 2022). Therefore, the representativeness of results and the ability to generalize to other contexts can be accurate. As such, the purpose of the discussion is not only to “share findings but to provide information for readers to determine whether specific findings are applicable in their situations” (Siko & Barbour, 2022). Nevertheless, the facilitator holds an important role for both the teacher and students. In many ways the facilitator’s function bridges the gap of distance between a remote teacher and students. For example, the facilitator has a mediating function when it comes to teaching instructions, which means repeating and clarifying them to the students and giving feedback to the teacher. Also, the facilitator is a ‘receiver’ concerning the students’ social issues and concerning the atmosphere of the group and a ‘transmitter’ to the teacher in that regard. The facilitator is not only the teacher’s ‘eyes and ears’ in the classroom but also a representative of the students to the teacher. As in previous research, the facilitator in this study is involved in motivating students and encouraging them to communicate and monitoring their learning (cf. Borup, 2018; Borup et al., 2014; Borup et al., 2019; Freidhoff et al., 2015). However, the range of tasks and responsibilities in some ways exceeds those in previous research due to the real time presence in the teaching situation that results in the intermediate function (cf. Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021; Siljebo & Pettersson, 2022). Therefore, a high level of interactive engagement is required of the facilitator in this study to fulfil the tasks and responsibilities.

Moreover, it seems that the facilitator has different roles in the classroom depending on frame factors. The organizational (for example, group size and students’ age) and physical frame factors (for example, premises and digital technology) vary between remote teaching contexts. These differences result in different conditions for facilitating learning and interaction. As the result shows, in the large classroom the facilitator needs to engage in an ongoing collaboration with the teacher as a threefold resource – practical, social, and pedagogical. It means that some responsibilities that formally lie with the teacher are delegated to the facilitator, which grants additional importance to the facilitator, raising questions as to what kind of preparation and formal education a facilitator may need in this context. In the small classroom, frame factors influence the role of the facilitator differently; the role is more of a practical resource when needed, which means less interactions and responsibilities.

Nonetheless, for the facilitator to fulfil these tasks and responsibilities irrespective of the classroom context, the results emphasize two important points: good relationships and time. The facilitator as mediator needs a good relationship with both teacher and students regardless of how frame factors affect the contexts to create a good teaching climate and beneficial conditions for teaching and learning. Developing a strong teacher–facilitator collaboration can take time.

In summary, it is not productive to conceptualize remote teaching as a uniform teaching practice; rather, it is an umbrella concept for different type of practices. Facilitating learning and interaction seems to be more complex in remote teaching compared to traditional teaching. The addition of the facilitator has increased the number of relationships in the teaching situation (cf. Skog, 2022), which, in turn, has altered how frame factors affect facilitating learning and interactions.

6.1 Some concluding theoretical reflections

Given the results of this study, there appears to be a need for theoretical development regarding frame factor theory. The fact that remote teaching, in a Swedish context, appears as a partly new form of teaching, with a teacher at a distance and one (or several) facilitator/s on site (or several sites) gives both existing frames a new meaning and actualizes a need to include new frames in the theory. One example is time, both before and after a lesson, for teachers and facilitators to communicate with each other. Above all, there is a need to rethink frame factor theory when it comes to physical frames, which, in this study, largely have turned out not to be physical but digital. Given the new generation of technology (e.g., AI, VR, and AR) starting to make its way into all educational contexts, not just remote teaching, one could argue that there is a need for a frame factor theory 2.0.

6.2 Limitations and future research

First, this study focuses primarily on the role of the facilitator and teacher in remote teaching. This means it does not adequately consider the perspectives and experiences of students. Due to the extensive call for students’ experiences of distance and remote teaching (Borup et al., 2019; Borup & Stevens, 2017; Lindfors & Pettersson, 2021), additional research should incorporate students’ voices through in-depth interviews to explore how they perceive and engage with distance education. Additionally, this study does not consider aspects such as cultural differences, socioeconomical inequalities or digital poverty, which might influence students’ and facilitators’ engagement in these environments (cf. Basham et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2023). Other examples of additional research needed are power dynamics in the context of remote teaching, which may be relevant to understanding students’ experiences in the learning environment.