kwl table - online facilitation models
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ONLINE FACILITATION MODELS
What I Know What I Want to Know What I Learned
Five popular online facilitation models are
Gilly Salmon, Zane Berge, Andrew Feenberg& Cindy Xin, and Ed Hootstein
Facilitation is the act of managing the
communication of others online.
Online facilitation is the act of managing the
learners and learning through an online
medium
This managing is done by a tutor teacher
although this online moderation can be a
student task as well.
Facilitation is a pedagogical tool as it applies
to student centered approaches to teaching asopposed to teacher-driven approaches with
the teacher moving from one of expert to
facilitator.
Online teaching has special challenges.
Teacher and student usually have not met one
another, the nature of the communication is
limited and void of social cues, and there are
challenges on keeping track of student
learning when studying remotely.
Are there any special talents required in
online facilitation?
The ultimate goals of effective design of
online teaching programs from a teaching
perspective should be to facilitate learning,
and "meaning making" and to meet the
academic, social and pragmatic needs of learners. Effective online facilitation should
engage, guide and motivate learners, andprovide a safe and conducive environment for
learning and communication exchange for all
learners regardless of their prior experienceand predisposition or otherwise towards
online learning technologies.
What is the role of the facilitator?
There is reasonable consensus within the
literature about the changing and challenging
role of the teacher in online learning. The
articles give good coverage on the collective
views, categorising skills and attributes into
three main areas - technical skills, facilitationskills, and managerial skills.
What are some of the facilitation skillsmentioned in the literature?
Facilitation skills include:engaging the learnerin the learning process, particularly at the
beginning; appropriate questioning, listening
and feedback skills; the ability to providedirection and support to learners; skills in
managing online discussionability to build
online teams; a capacity for relationshipbuilding; motivational skills.
What are the differences in skills needed inonline facilitation as opposed to conventional
teaching?
Whilst many of the facilitation tasks appearvery similar to those required in face-to-face
teaching, in an online setting some are quite
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unique. For example it requires special skills
by the facilitator to progress conversationsfrom trivial surface level discussion and
social exchange to deeper level engagement.
These are skills that can be learnt.
What are some of the challenges of onlinefacilitation?
Challenges: Designing the right mix of online
and off-line activities (referred to by some as'blended learning'); Keeping tabs on
individual students' progress; Catering fordifferent learning preferences and learner
needs; Adopting student-centred approaches,
and learning to become a 'guide' or'facilitator'; Dealing with the pragmatics of
teaching online - e.g. administrative and
support requirements, and issues of time;Dealing with technical issues.
What are some of the challenges of online
communication?
Avoiding the dangers of misinterpretation of text (and assisting students to do the same),
Dealing with silences (the dread of all online
moderators) and getting students to activelyparticipate; Finding the right voice (i.e.
techniques for communicating and respondingto achieve particular outcomes); Finding the
optimal balance between private email and
public discussion. Standing back, and
allowing students to discover the power andpotential of the medium for self and group
learning and not purposely or inadvertently
dominating or stifling discussion.
What are some techniques for assisting
student learning?
Students need to be encouraged to take
responsibility for themselves - and they don't
all take to this readily, or without anguish.Articulation of reasoning, knowledge, or
problem solving processes - assist participants
to become more aware of their own thinkingand reasoning and assists them to inquire into
others' thinking and reasoning. Successful
facilitation requires attendance to the 'social'aspect of learning as well as to the 'learning
task'.
What are some ways to promoter effective
dialogue identified in the articles?
A mix of probes and supportive comments
helps to extend conversations. Deeper level
engagement can be encouraged by use of carefully considered moderating techniques.
Likewise, degeneration of meaningful
dialogue into less purposeful discussion canbe controlled through moderator/mentor
interventions. Online engagement to a degree
has to be engineered. That is, it needs to be
part of an intended design. For example you
cannot expect students to engage in
meaningful discussion on a particular topic if each are at different stages in the learning
program. Also, group work and ongoing
dialogue are best maintained if there is a
common goal or purpose. Critiques work best
when interspersed with supportive comments.
The focus needs to be very much on thepositives. Critiques that address specific
features of a participant's request for feedback are taken seriously. The importance of
providing a safe environment for participation
in online communications and activities.
Students will not engage fully unless the
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environment is non-threatening and they feel
it is safe to do so.
What are some of the pragmatics for teachingonline?
Teacher workload in responding to individual
students online is an often quoted concern.
"Co-construction of meaning" both in face-to-face classes and online is one way of dealing
with this and breaking away from the student-
teacher dependency model i.e. encouragingcollaborative work and student-student or
group discussion. Students often report being
overwhelmed by messages. Again,collaborative work and smaller group
discussions can be a way of breaking
communication down to more manageable
dialogue. Summarising and weaving
conversations (facilitation techniques that can
be learnt by facilitators) also keeps studentsfocussed and assists in making the
communications more manageable. Group
work and group discussions can alleviate
some of the problems of access when students
are not able to connect regularly as a smaller
group and collaborative engagements can bemore accommodating and self-supporting.
What are some of the best ways for teachersto prepare to teach online?
The best way for teachers to learn how to bean effective online facilitator is for them to
experience the process first-hand - undertake
an online course themselves and experiencewhat it's like from a student perspective.
Whilst teacher knowledge and skills are
important, positive attitudes are even more
critical for successful online teaching. This
may require convincing teachers of the
benefits and need for online teaching in thefirst instance, and providing a supportive
framework. Professional development
activities, when preparing staff for online
facilitation, need to incorporate activities that
support the social and collaborative learning
elements of learning, as identified in asubstantial body of the literature.
What has each model achieved? What the
similarities?
Each model presents a different way of conceptualising the learning and facilitation
interactions and provides useful techniques,
and each has made a significant contributionto the research fields of online learning and
computer-mediated communication.
In a nutshell, what is Salmon's model?
Salmon's fives stages are Stage 1: Access andmotivation. Stage 2: Socialization. Stage 3:
Information Exchange. Stage 4: Knowledge
Construction. Stage 5: Development. Each
stage calls for different e-moderating skills
requiring participants to master certaintechnical skills and steps learners through a
logical process of induction before deeperlevel interactions occur. Students learn
through participation and engagement.
Motivation is the key, and so is the provision
of a conducive structure and environment.
In a nutshell, what is Hootstein's model?
Hootstein proposes a model in which the e-
learning facilitator or moderator "wears 'four
pairs of shoes' - acting as instructor, socialdirector, program manager, and technical
assistant". In the instructor role the instructor
guides the learning in a problem-centred
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learning environment, offering insights and
assisting learners. As a social director theycreate and foster a collaborative environment.
A program manager directs the agenda. And
as a technical director they "assist students tobecome comfortable with systems and
software and prepare learners to resolve ...
technical difficulties that may occur".
In a nutshell, what is Zane Berge's model?
Zane Berge discusses the instructor’s role in
computer-mediated communication with a
particular focus on computer conferencingand providing a rich environment for
interpersonal interaction. Berge makes
recommendations for online facilitators in
four distinct aspects of online communication:
Pedagogical-Social-Managerial-Technical. He
emphasizes that each online learningexperience is different, and the instructor, as
facilitator, needs to be able to adapt to work
effectively and to ensure that everyone is
learning through the process. There will be
challenges for both instructor and students,
but a skilled facilitator will help students learnby clearly articulating the goals and
objectives of the online communications andby promoting two-way communication
between all participants in a congenial,
trusting environment.
In a nutshell, what is Feenberg and Xin's
model?
Feenberg and Xin indicate that the first step in
effective online facilitation is agreeing on a
communication model, and then ensuring all
participants work within that model by actingas a “chairperson,” reassuring participants and
generally modelling good practice. Keepingparticipants motivated is another challenge
once the online communications model is
established, but a skilled facilitator can keep
the online community viral, with participants
looking forward to coming back to the
discussions day-after-day. Feenberg and Xindescribe a list of 10 online communicative
functions and divide those functions into three
groups: contextualizing functions, monitoringfunctions, and meta functions. Within this set
of functions, they mention the process of
“weaving,” which involves the facilitator
finding areas of agreement within the
discussions and gluing those together for the
participants. Feenberg offers acommunication-theoretic approach to
facilitation emphasizing the differencesbetween online and face-to-face activities.
This approach highlights the specific
communicative activities belonging to theonline facilitating role. These can be
distinguished for analytic purposes from other
activities of facilitators such as the socialmanagement of personal relationships in the
group, technical support for participants with
difficulties, and pedagogical practices such asasking questions and explaining concepts.
Focusing on these communicative differences
is helpful in gaining a fuller understanding of the online setting and the special demands it
makes on facilitators.
In researching other models, are there others
that also have achieved success in onlinefacilitation? Yes
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If so, what are they?
Collison, Elbaum, Haavind and Tinker'smodel is based on techniques used by the
moderator to guide and facilitate the learning.
It is premised on the view that appropriatecommunication interventions by the
moderator can move students forward and
facilitate (but should not lead) their
understandings. Paulsen maintains thatmoderators should identify their preferred
pedagogical style, based on their
philosophical orientation, their chosen
moderator roles, and their preferred
facilitation techniques. Moderator roles can attimes vary. Facilitation functions are
classified under headings of organizational,
social and intellectual facilitation.
Has one model shown to have better resultsthan the other models?
The research is silent about this. It appears
that all models work and the best model
depends on the curriculum, the organization
structure, the strengths and interests of the
instructor. So while Salmon's model make
work in one teaching environment, it may notbe so effective in another.