Literature+Review+re+tutor+experience

Use this page to store any notes and literature review on tutor experience.
 * Literature review: Tutor Experience**

I found this section from a resource available to lecturers at ENU:

//Anne, this is the book Elaine sent me - it was sent out to the other students previously on the course i think! (Maggie)//

Keith Smyth and Christina Mainka (2010) P Pedagogy and learning technology: a practical guide. Edinburgh Napier University The perspectives of tutors are a valuable focus for evaluating technology-supported learning, particularly in contexts where team teaching is involved, or where evaluating a programme, departmental or institutional approach to educational technology is concerned. Possible issues to cover can include:  How and why tutors are using educational technology  Perceived effectiveness of blended and online teaching approaches  Tutor support and training needs relating to the use of technology  Perceptions on departmental or institutional initiatives.
 * 3.3 Tutor experiences**

Then there is this article I put on the discussion board that I can't get: Connolly, M., Jones, C. & Jones, N. (2007) New approaches, new vision: capturing teacher experiences in a brave new online world. Open learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and eLearning 22 (1), p.43-56

Abstract: The paper is an exploration of how a group of tutors involved in a major e-learning project reacted to developing and teaching in this environment for this first time. All were experienced face-to-face teachers but had different levels of experience in using technology. Our aim was to capture their individual views on working in an online environment. The import of this cannot be under-estimated, as different views on learning influence the role and potential of technology in an e-learning environment. As the research is an exploration in understanding the impact that e-learning can have on the role of the teacher, it seemed appropriate to frame the work in a grounded theory approach and to deal with themes as they emerged. The data for the paper are the product of focus groups, questionnaires and observation. The sample for data collection was the total population of tutors in seven institutions involved in the delivery of the course. The questionnaire captured tutors' profiles (experience of information technology, e-moderating, e-learning, gender, college, module taught), their personal online tutoring style, their opinions on pedagogy and the student learning experience, training and development issues and general reflections on being an online tutor. The initial findings reveal varied reasons for becoming involved with online learning and a wide variety of styles for interacting online with students. All respondents were keen to keep an element of face-to-face teaching in their modules and felt it was difficult to gauge depth of learning without 'normal face-to-face interactions at some point'. A number of staff felt that e-delivery is much more difficult than they envisaged and challenged them in ways that face-to-face teaching did not. Materials and approaches that work well in a classroom environment are not always effective online. Tutors faced challenges in both design and delivery.

// Vol. 22, No. 1, February 2007, pp. 43–56 // e-Learning clearly creates new roles for teachers such as e-authoring and e-moderating (for example, Berge & Collins, 1995; Mason, 1998; Salmon, 2000; Anderson //et al//., 2001; Laurillard, 2002; Bonk, 2003; Garrison & Anderson, 2003), posing challenging educational questions for pedagogy and the curriculum. This is in part because e-learning is not simply a matter of taking traditional teaching materials and making them available electronically; instead, it invites critical pedagogical, technological and organizational reflection and change (Bonk & Cunningham, 1998; Bonk, 2003; Jochems //et al.//, 2003; Westera, 2004).
 * Few notes from reading (Helen) New approaches, new vision: capturing teacher experiences in a brave new **
 * online world ** Michael Connolly, Cath Jones and Norah Jones // Open Learning //

Online learning requires a strong pedagogical strategy. However most tutors tend to rely on what they know about F2F teaching Hodgson and Watland (2004, p. 115) highlight this concern, arguing that research ‘… needs t take greater account of the core issues of epistemology and pedagogy as these remain largely under-investigated’. Conrad (2004, p. 31) reveals a similar pattern in teachers at a Canadian university: ‘… instructors had very little knowledge of the new medium … and relied heavily on their f2f experiences … they revealed very little awareness of issues of collaborative learning’.

Most tutors found the online modules more time-consuming than traditional f2f teaching, specifically because of the additional pastoral care and encouragement that some e-learning students require.

Maggie: Also found a book called Blended e-learning by Litteljohn and Pegler -

chapters in this book about pedagogies for (online) learning which I think gets to the crux of what 'tutor experience' might mean? For example one chapter looks at adopting an experiential learning approach, another on constructivist pedagogies and another on 'learner managed' spaces. we could try to assess what pedagogical approach or approaches Christina is adopting and then critically examine how this affected the interaction between herself and the students online. The paper finds that from a student perspective the quality of feedback, student support and module management were key attributes of an effective e-moderator. In contrast tutors argued that motivating students, including the provision of constructive feedback and developing an engaging on-line persona were critical to successful e-moderation. Comparison revealed that students and tutors have a broadly similar view to what constitutes effective on-line moderation and any disparities related to how these groups tended to interact with the learning environment. Students were concerned primarily with how moderation enabled them to engage with the learning environment whereas tutors tended to discuss effective moderation in terms of factors that facilitated the learning process.
 * In Stephenson, J. (2001) Teaching & learning online: pedagogies for new technologies**
 * From Helen**
 * Gary Packham, Paul Jones, Brychan Thomas, Christopher Miller, (2006) "Student and tutor perspectives of on-line moderation", Education + Training, Vol. 48 Iss: 4, pp.241 – 251**

Also Panos Vlachopoulos and John Cowan Collison et al (2000) moderators as ‘guide on the side’ Garrison and Anderson (2003) discuss ‘teaching presence’ which they say means being a tutor, a facilitator and a subject expert. “teaching presence’ significant in promoting engagement and interaction. Facilitation - an activity in which some­one (usually a tutor) makes interventions to encourage students to engage with, and achieve, their overall learning outcomes.
 * Choices of approaches in e-moderation: Conclusions from a grounded theory study ** 2010 11: 213 //Active Learning in Higher Education//

interaction does not just happen, but must be intentionally designed into the task and its facilitation. P214

In order to be specific in choosing strategies for online discussion, and to able to set, manage and meet learning outcomes in the VLE, one needs to understand and exploit the strengths of the nature of the asynchronous online interactions.
 * In discussion board work, and even in chat rooms, contributor and respondent can both profit from thinking time before making a further posting.
 * The engagement of an e-moderator with the ongoing student activity is generally distributed throughout that activity (however sparsely), and does not occur in concentrated periods of contact as in face-to-face tutorials and seminars.
 * All participants have ready and complete access to a record of what has been ‘said’ so far.
 * The words used in direct communication per unit of interactive time together are far fewer.
 * Postings do not benefit from the advantages of perceived body language, and differences in pace and tone, which are significant in face-to-face contact.

ANNE- a point I would add around the confusion of priorities and roles and the very different (and iterative) roles taken by the moderators who were studied in this research- I wonder if, as Christina was fairly new to this approach- she said she had done an 8 week course herself- whether she was still finding her feet as a moderator- I would say she came over more as a subject expert, brimming with enthusiasm for the subject which may have, along with relative online inexperience, made it more difficult to establish her role as moderator. Mason (1991) was among the first to characterise online tutors’ roles, in which she distinguished three major categories. These were the organisational role, the social role, and the intellectual role. Berge (1995) added a fourth and transient role of the e-moderator, namely, the technical role. This has led to the proliferation of conceptual frameworks and models for online tutoring (e.g., Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001)
 * Panos and Cowan other article – Distance education 2010 **

e-moderation Salmon 2000, 2003 - Her model describes an online scaffolding process progressively engaging the students in the online discussion, by following a fivestage approach. Criticised by Moule for instance (2007) for focuses only on the social learning approach while ignoring other possibilities.

Garrison and Anderson 2003 Garrison and Anderson (2003) introduced the community of inquiry as a conceptual framework for online learning. It consists of three linked elements: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Anderson et al. (2001) had previously defined teaching presence as ‘the design, facilitation and direction of the cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realising personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes’ (p. 5). According to Anderson et al. (2001), the tutor has three main roles to fulfil within this teaching presence, that is, as: ● the designer of the educational experience, including planning and administration duties as well as evaluating the programme and certifying the students’ competence; ● the facilitator and co-creator of a social environment; ● the subject matter expert, who knows more than most learners and therefore is in a position to scaffold learning experiences through proactive prompting.

Vlachopoulos and Cowan e-moderation in the ring fenced approach (1) Identifying a posting (or lack of one) (a //significant posting//), which merits a facilitative response in accordance with the programme aims and task. (2) Constructing and //posting// an intervention which resonates both with the moderator’s style and purpose, and with the current and desired learning positions. (3) //Influencing//, but not directing, the students’ progress towards self-directed completion of their task, and achievement of the learning outcomes