Making online tutorials effective

Editor's Notes

• #4: http://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=8322Moves on after 2 minutes.
• #5: This session is not specifically about OU Live, it could just as well be centred around other web conferencing applications. Another name for these is synchronous audiographic web conferencing – SAC for short. But my intention is to get us to think about synchronous teaching, to go beyond only considering the tools we use. At the moment we are using OU Live, we were using Elluminate. But these are only our tools, I hope that this session will be about tutoring.I’ve been using Elluminate regularly since launch of tu100. Chose to focus on online tutoring for H809 research module – masters in online distance education and now again for OpenPad HEA Practitioner InquiryI am not an OU Live expert but I did start practicing on OU Live early and used it to edit sets of resources for TU100, so I do feel confident using the interface and if I can’t find something I improvise – 4th session in and I pretty much know where everything is. In my humble opinion OU Live is basically Elluminate under the hood with a better user interface.Which brings me back to why are we here: I like trying to solve problems and I identified my own performance conducting online tutorials as being a problem area I wanted to fix. I’m guessing that you maybe have come here with the same feeling about your own tutorials?
• #6: I am not an expert, I have done quite a lot of reading and searching and if you were to do some research on this, you too may find that there aren’t very many experts around, but I have come armed today with ideas and information. And later I will also discuss how we can find some experts amongst ourselves.Lots of peoplestate that we need pedagogic strategies in online tutorials but there is a dearth of actual strategies.De Freitas, S. and Neumann, T. (2009) Pedagogic strategies supporting the use ofSynchronous Audiographic Conferencing: A review of the literature. British Journal ofEducational Technology, volume 40 (6): 980-998http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00887.x
• #7: A new study published this year is based on interviews with four experienced SAC users and identifies 5 themes. Cornelius particularly discusses theme 4 and how demanding it is to do this work using SACs. The good news is that she also reports that as we gather more experience and innovate with our methods … we are getting better at it.Cornelius, S., 2013. Facilitating in a demanding environment: Experiences of teaching in virtual classrooms using web conferencing. British Journal of Educational Technology, p.n/a–n/a. Available at: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/bjet.12016 [Accessed November 29, 2013].
• #8: During my own research I have been concentrating on the idea of interaction as being the main way of being able to assess engagement and therefore the effectiveness of tutorials.No doubt there are some people who like to sit back and watch and listen to a lecture, I do myself, but that isn’t the purpose of a tutorial. However, if I concentrated on talking about interaction today I thinkit would be quite easy slip into talking only about the tools, so instead I have focussed on engagement in order to broaden the concept of interaction.click to make bottom line appearIf they are interacting, I think it means they are engaged, if they are engaged then I think it is effective.
• #9: These principles are suggested by Peter Chatterton in a couple of useful “good practice” guides (they are mentioned on your take away sheet). These principles seem to me to be a gentle nudge to refer back to our teaching roots and not get so immersed in the complexities of a demanding environment.This session is also a workshop, not a lecture, so you will be doing lots of the work in this session and you will also get the chance to meet more people, certainly one reason for coming to these events, because I will be asking you to switch tables part way through.Think of your tables as breakout rooms. Explain card colours. Lets start
• #10: I see these as setting objectives and coming from a school obsessed with maintaining outstanding status, this was something that was deeply ingrained in my practice and something I was equally delighted to forget about when I was tutoring. But I have changed my mind! Agendas belong in meetings, objectives in learning environments.
• #11: at the very least I hope that we all come away with some new ideas and are inspired to try them out.but seriously this objective makes a couple of assumptions:1) that we believe that tutorials are not as effective as they could be2) assumes that we think that we can improve our pedagogy.
• #12: Please choose someone from your table to report back on the first question.
• #13: Get feedback from tables1)2)3)4)5)I believe that objectives enable students to assess their own progress against the set objective, if they do this, if they are encouraged to do this they will be engaged in active learning.Please fill out the objectives section of the survey.
• #14: Planning…. more than writing a ppt.
• #15: studentinteraction needs to be a core and frequent element of the structurea few ways to do this are:chunk the session into a series of components which each include an interactive element – try to mix it up.Link and align session with wider contextual and linked activities (before and after the Elluminate session) Consider allowing for alternative pathways dependent upon participant feedback, choice and polls/quizzes (this is an awful lot of work, but can be something developed over time)Consider using “Elluminate Plan” to support the design process (hands up)Adapted from Staffordshire Universityhttp://bestpracticemodels.wiki.staffs.ac.uk/Best_Practice_Models_for_e-Learning:_Principles
• #16: I am using this grid to assess recordings of my own tutorials. I am kind of running my own “observations” at the moment.I elaborate a bit more than simple checkmarks, I also try to assess what types of interactions these were, i.e. academic, social, questioning etc.BTW I have also created online questionnaires developed from the “how do I know I’m doing a good job” ones (and from Val Hancock’s) to send out to students after f2f tutorials and I link at the end of online ones. http://www2.open.ac.uk/tutors/development/how-do-i-know-im-doing-a-good-job-booklet/
• #17: Ask audience to continue to fill out survey to the ranking grid.They can then discuss their rankings with their table/neighbour.
• #18: I was horrified when I read this, because I rely heavily on polls, emoticons etc to get a sense of how students are engaging. This does put speaking at the pinnacle of interactivity.Kear, K. et al., (2012). ‘Web conferencing for synchronous online tutorials: Perspectives of tutors using a new medium’.  Computers & Education, [online] vol. 58, no. 3, pp.953–963. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0360131511002594 (Accessed March 5, 2013).
• #19: Things to think about as you move tables:What about all those students who won’t use a mic? (to audience)What do you think of video? (to audience)
• #20: Encourage discussionGet feedback1)2)3)4)5)
• #21: Get feedback.I think sometimes I am encouraging students to interact just to make me feel better! This is especially true when I am polling them.
• #23: Roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined and communicated to all participantsThis probably largely depends on the level we are tutoring butResponsibilities could include: leading a groupfacilitating a discussiontechnical supportpresentations/demonstrationsfeedback from breakout rooms etcCould the danger here be that we think the students are being interactive because one or two are communicating with us? What about all the others.Defining our own roles and responsibilities: egOU module-wide online tutorials. One “expert” tutor, other tutors as assistant moderators? I think this is quite an exciting idea, critical mass would be much more easily achieved.Student moderators? Students using OU Live as study spaces with other students? Certainly happens in PG modules where there are likely to be existing ALs with online tutoring experience. It just arose last week as a possibility in tt284 when some students asked their tutor for access to OU Live without her presence.If time: talk about identifying “expert” tutorstalk about asking to observe others tutorialsencourage sharing of resources
• #25: The guidelines say:Adopt a creative and innovative approach to the design and delivery of sessionsAim for continuous improvement in the practice of using OU LiveI think it is ok to experiment, to engage the students with what you are trying out and to ask their opinion afterwards so that we can modify and improve resources.We are at the frontier of using this technology in this type of environment, we should boldly go forth 
• #26: My attempt to recreate the table shuffle classroom idea to a tutorial.I am going to try this next time.Students 1, 5, 9 and 13 are the “leaders”, they could assign themselves or I could assign them to those positions. So for example, in my next TT284 “intro to javascript “ session I would find out who were already programmers and would write their names above those numbers. Then students could just pick other numbers for themselves.
• #27: I would call these plenaries, though others might like to set homework.
• #28: The problem is thatI am as guilty as the next person of putting up a simple “Got any questions” slide.But I believe I shouldbe returning to the objective and assessing progress, either as the tutor assessing progress or by encouraging self and peer assessment.And so in order to return to our original objectivePlease consider “What goal will you set for yourself to improve your pedagogy?” – a space exists for it in the survey.
• #29: How do I know I am doing a good job? questionnaires