Advice for online tutors
What have you learnt? – A summary of responses from LSHTM tutors on previous courses
Help to set expectations about appropriate behaviour and use of the conference,
- Be explicit e.g. make it very clear at the outset what a conference is for and who it is available to e.g. if complicated messages are posted, students may feel that simple queries are not wanted.
- The course has made me aware of the number of other people who will be reading posted messages in addition to the person to whom I am writing. So there is an opportunity to encourage lots of people to join in, and I need to be aware of this when writing replies.
- use personal replies to one student to illustrate a point to all
- It is probably important at the outset to decide how much interaction between students is needed, and whether a genuine group feeling is necessary, and if so, how to foster that.
- try to focus on the needs of the whole conference when answering the specific student.
Help build relationships that lead to easy communications and dialogue, and motivate and encourage students to post new messages.
- Take care in composing your messages
- Actively encourage responses
- Stimulate communication by ending with an open question.
- Be informal
- Overcompensate by sharing trivial details about yourself
- This is not an exercise in grammar and spelling, although i think you have to be careful shortening/slanging words when dealing with students whose first language isn't English
- Encourage dialogue by ending with a question
- I will try to emulate a more "natural" style (ignoring spellign mistakes etc!) and
It’s easy to misinterpret a written message, so
- Be clear and concise
- Be welcoming and polite
- Be encouraging and positive
- Handle negative information sensitively
- Compensate for the loss of non-verbal communication.
- Try to stay friendly and encouraging all the time - unless there is a very good reason not to do so
- Be polite, friendly and welcoming
- Address each communication with student differently and individualy
- A clear concise response that is friendly and informative, with the correct tone and end off (end with trying to be supportive and encouraging students to post new queries).
And finally,
- Read lots of conferences to learn a good style of communicating .
- We all need to communicate with each other and work together to improve how we as tutors deal with student messages.
