Conferencing skills
03 - 14 December 2012
Underlying themes/principles
The challenge for online tutors is to create supportive learning environments without the rich verbal and visual cues we usually use. We will look at some examples of common communications and activities and the strategies tutors can use at key moments such as opening a new discussion topics or when answering student questions which encourage student participation and the development of student peer networks.
The tasks in this unit should give you the opportunity to unpick the complex role of the online tutor. You can also take this opportunity to practise some of the skills you will need when you tutor online. You might find it easier to try out your ideas here, rather than on your students!
By the end of the unit you should be able to
- write a welcoming opening message for your discussion area
- use a variety of strategies for answering student queries appropriately
- recommend principles of good practice for communicating online.
Tasks
Task 1: Openers and introductions
The Otis Online Tutoring e-book notes that "It is the activities involving students that take place early in a course that have a particularly important impact on the development of a supportive and motivating learning community. "
In this task, we ask you to make plans for how you will set up the conditions within WebBoard that will allow students to communicate easily with you and each other. Think about what you can do to reduce some of the common worries that DL students have (from Unit 1) and ensure that this facility is used to the best of its potential.
Gilly Salmon argues that learners need to go through a structured sequence of progressively more complex online activities if they are to perform well in online groups. She particularly focusses on the role of the tutor or e-moderator in supporting learners through these stages. You might like to review Salmon's model before looking at the examples below.
Examples of opening strategies might include:
- Writing a welcome message for a web-board conference that you are, or expect to be, looking after. We offer some suggestions on composing a welcome message here.
- Taking care in responses to students' first postings or introductions. After a welcome message it is important to respond appropriately to the students first introductory messages. Very often it is at this stage that online courses become more difficult. How do you maintain momentum after the first flush of introductions? We have provided some examples of student introductions and some examples of responses to student introductions for you to compare. The examples show the student's first message, the tutor's response and the tutor's rationale for their message. It is clear that the tutors have been carefully considering the importance of their early messages.
- Running an icebreaking activity to help set expectations for online work. Here are some examples of online icebreakers from the University of South Alabama.
When you are ready, post your plan for starting off discussion in an area of WebBoard into the Unit 3: Openers discussion topic. Include an actual example such as a welcome message, a response to a student introduction or an icebreaking e-tivity. As usual, read and respond to at least two postings from your colleagues.
Task 2: Answering student queries
When students want to ask a question relating to the course material, they are encouraged to post their question to the relevant conference. This allows DL students to have their questions answered promptly and doing this publicly allows all students to benefit from the answers given. However, the disadvantage may be that students have to admit their difficulties in front of their peers or that other students give incorrect answers.
In this task, we'd like you to compose a response to the following message:
Finally I’ve managed to send this message – it’s taken me ages to work out what is what in this system – I thought this was supposed to be a support!
Anyway, here’s my query… I've got as far as twin studies and I'm not understanding the difference between quantitative and qualitative traits - can anyone shed light on this?
Post your response into the Unit 3: Queries discussion topic. As usual, read and respond to at least two postings from your colleagues.
Final Reflections
Well we’ve reached the final week of the course. Congratulations for getting to this stage. In the Unit 3: Final Reflections discussion topic, we'll prompt you to reflect on your learning experience over the last six weeks. Here are some questions to consider:
- Do you think your approach to teaching and learning will need to change for online work?
- Can you see yourself making any changes to your practice, after the course is over?
- Have you any ideas about what actions you will take to implement ideas from this course?
By sharing your thoughts on this you should have plenty of information and ideas to take away with you at the end of the course.
Readings and resources
Key readings
- Gilly Salmon's five step model. This key reading is offered as a PDF (483KB) to allow you to print or read offline.
- Participation issues (Section 3.5) from the Online Tutoring e-book.
- Using questions in teaching from First Words at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/firstwords/fw17.html
- Advice for online tutors produced by previous groups of LSHTM tutors.
Further resources
- Hootstein E (2002) Wearing Four Pairs of Shoes: The Roles of E-Learning Facilitators. Learning Circuits Website. http://www.astd.org/LC/2002/1002_hootstein.htm