working online

Working online

A collaborative venture!

Liana Agnes

Jill

This presentation will consider:

!   Encouraging online participation

!   Tutor skills for handling synchronous and asynchronous work online

!   Course design

Online participation

Decisions....decisions….

There must be a way to encourage the kinds of participation that facilitates learning

Facilitate online participation

Introductions Share personal information (demographic data, interests, background)

–  build community, raise interests, create friendly environment

Ways to communicate

Use a variety of channels: –  email messages, forums, chats, (video)

conferencing, wikis

Active facilitation

Ask effective questions, create engaging tasks, model good communication Challenge participants Consider alternative concepts Match content to format

Feedback Affirm contribution Provide constructive feedback

Support -  with technology -  with tasks

Sustaining motivation online

Tutor support

Show interest in participants’ contribution Chart participant progress Conduct

•  regular one-to-one tutorials (video/chat) •  “Care and share” guided reflection

Schedule breaks for longer courses

Peer support Study (language) buddies Support forums

Tutor skills for handling synchronous and asynchronous work online

Knowing how to do something begins with knowing why you do it.

Being an online tutor means assuming various

roles

!   Pedagogic :be a facilitator; use questions, probes, and tasks to elicit responses from students and to refocus discussions on relevant topics

!   Social: create a warm and friendly learning environment - promote human relationships, develop group cooperation, help members to work together

!   Managerial : organise, set agendas, objectives , procedures, and rules for discussions; use time management strategies, resolve conflicts etc.

!   Technical: make participants comfortable with the VLE and the software. “Make technology transparent”

(from Zane L Berge)

Synchronous or asynchronous? When and why? -The decision is yours!

Use synchronous media

!   When your audience needs to get your message

!   When you need immediate feedback on an issue

!   To get tutors and students interact by speaking and listening in real time

Use asynchronous media

!   When the students need time to compose their answers to tasks

!   To encourage more elaborate discussions on a topic

!   When students have busy schedules and live in different time zones

!   When you require a recording of the discussions

!   to create a variety of tasks

Tutor skills for synchronous discussions

!   Planning

!   Select appropriate topics, set routines and arrange chat groups

!   Establish meeting protocols for turn taking, holding the floor, etc

!   Take down notes while listening


!   Listening

!   Hearing student’s questions or concerns and responding appropriately

!   Using names to keep the multiple threads of conversation

!   Responding to reassure student

!   Noticing student’s concern and responding by asking for more details

Tutor Skills for synchronous discussions

!   Questioning

!   Giving Feedback

!   A student or the group to develop knowledge of subject matter, elicit personal opinion

!   Use sentence starter prompts to give variety to Q/A

!   To redirect the discussion or introduce a new topic

!   Use words expressions to reaffirm students contributions


!   Giving feedback

!   Negotiating

!   Giving students clues on how to deal with a problem, subject matter; provide helpful information on a topic

!   Using encouraging words to motivate learners

!   Offering alternative answers to problems

!   Finding a way to accommodate learners’ needs and concerns

Tutor Skills for synchronous discussions

!   Reformulating

!   A good mastery of the language

!   Other interpersonal skills

!   Expressing a point made by a student more clearly

!   Helping student to say something in correct language

!   Ability to speak clearly, write clearly, be concise

!   Patience, tolerance , flexibility, …

Tutor Skills for asynchronous forum discussions

! Organisational skills

!   Plan the course in such a way that it evolves - a beginning, a middle and an end. Have a variety and design appropriate activities for each stage. Make appropriate use of VLE tools for each task.

!   Provide support to students on how to use specific tools

!   Set deadline for tasks.

!   Place current discussion forums at the top of the page .

Tutor skills for asynchronous forum discussions

!   Time management skills

!   Use a calendar to keep track of assignments and a daily work schedule

!   Set a specific time each day/or each week for checking and responding to emails and posts

!   Respond promptly and effectively to student queries


•  Be sociable and encourage socialising among course members. Create forums for socialising like ‘the cafe’ and emails

•  Be tolerant, flexible and supportive:

•  Provide support in the form of links for further reading

•  Give students the chance to discuss delicate issues like plagiarism and netiquette

•  Be sensitive and empathetic - allow students to express their points of view, and see things from the cultural and learning perspective of the learners

!   Interpersonal

skills


!   Pedagogic skills •  Be enthusiastic -“ an inspired teacher

produces inspired learners” •  Be creative : select topics and tasks that are

interesting, challenging, and varied •  Be present but do not dominate. Lay

emphasis on exchange of ideas, and on doing rather than transmitting knowledge

•  Weaving – the ability to encourage learners to explore ideas, promote valuable threads, and redirect straying arguments in response to students postings

•  Summarising •  –the ability to use concise language to pull

together the different threads of a discussion, and draw conclusions on a topic

•  -The ability to present the summaries in an appropriate a variety of formats

Tutor skills for handling synchronous and asynchronous work online

The final word:

“The role of the online tutor is to model effective teaching, accept the role of keeping discussions on track, contributing special knowledge and insights, weaving together various discussion threads and course components and maintaining group harmony”

[Rophel and Hientra 1995,p.91]

Does this statement say it all? What’s your opinion?

Course design

Decisions....decisions….

It’s a very good idea to have a check box of all the item there are to consider and make some informed decisions using our course planner

decision maker tool.

Decision maker tool

The staff Identify the work load required? Who will take which roles in the course? Who will co-ordinate roles and monitor the project?

The students What are their learning needs? What knowledge, skills and experience will they bring to the course?

Subject Description

What topic is the course going to cover? To what level is the subject being covered? How much prior learning of the subject is necessary?

Learning outcomes

What will the student’s achieve by completing the course? Are the outcomes measurable, realistic and achievable?

Content outline What is the time scale? How many modules will there be? Which sub topics within modules?

Decision maker tool The learning environment

Which learning methods will be used? (case study approach/ problem solving/reflection) How much study time will be spent on each learning method?

Interaction and activities

How will students interact with each other and with the staff? What groupings will be feasible? What range of interaction will there be?

Assessment

Will there be an initial assessment, formative assessment and summative assessment? Will there be self-assessment and/or peer assessment? Is there a clear transparent link between learning outcomes and assessment criteria

Learning materials

Which learning materials are required for the course? Are these materials easily available to students? Is there plenty of variation in the types of materials (video/audio/written)

Decision maker tool Student requirements

What technological specifications are required? Are these IT tools easily available? Student availability? Ease of access to internet and large file download?

Learner support What support will be available? What is the timeframe expected to reply online to student enquiries/assignments?

Development schedule

Is the time frame realistic for completion of tasks to prepare the course?

Evaluation How will you find out what works on the course and what doesn’t work? How will you collate information to edit materials?

Working online

Thank you for watching!

working online

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