BC e-mods July 2013 resource pack

THE CONSULTANTS-E BC E-MODERATOR’S COURSE JULY 2013

E-Moderator’s Course Resources Pack Created by: Anna Byfield Cristina Banfi Erika Díaz Guillermo Contreras Lopez Ida Sessarego Mady Casco Mandy Powell Monica Gandolfo Suzuki Koda Veronica Puga

CHAPTERS

1. Starting off online – creating a good social environment on-line - Anna, Veronica and Guillermo 2. Working online – tutor skills for handling online chats, discussion & content Suzuki, Mandy and Ida 3. Going Deeper – the development of knowledge and online content - Erika and Cristina 4. Rounding up – assessment and ending a course – Mady and Monica

Thanks to Anna, Veronica and Guillermo

WORKING ONLINE - TUTOR’S SKILLS FOR HANDLING ONLINE CHATS, DISCUSSIONS, CONTENT – BY SUZUKI, MANDY AND IDA AREAS TO CONSIDER: ENCOURAGING ONLINE PARTICIPATION / MOTIVATION  To sustain students’ participation, tutors should respond to their comments and contributions all the time, and give positive reinforcement as well, always making participants feel that they care, specially shy ones.  Socialization seems very important from the very beginning as well as setting the rules and the expectations clearly in order not to disappoint participants during the process.  Group work and collaborative tasks are great for increase students’ participation. Set deadlines clearly and grade them according to each of different tasks and roles they have from the beginning.  Have students give feedback among themselves, this includes a higher cognitive process rather than just receiving feedback from their tutors all the time.

TUTOR SKILLS FOR HANDLING SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS WORK ONLINE Teachers need to have much more than just technical skills if they are to be successful online. They need an understanding of the dynamics of online communication and interactions and need to learn effective ways of facilitating and teaching online.

These skills are not easily learned sometimes they require training to develop these mentoring skills.

Kemshal-Bell (2001) identifies three main areas - technical skills, facilitation skills, and managerial skills. This classification can be used either for asynchronous and synchronous online work. Although other authors have used different categories I think this is the simplest to understand.

Facilitation skills include: ●

engaging the learner in the learning process, particularly at the beginning

●

make appropriate questions

●

be an attentive reader

●

provide appropriate feedback

●

a capacity for relationship building

●

motivational skills

●

good written communication skills and ability to summarize posts

●

listening and feedback skills

●

be an attentive listener

●

skill for managing chat discussions

●

be kind and supportive

●

respect everyone`s learning or participating pace

Managerial skills ●

the ability to provide direction and support to learners with different cultural backgrounds

●

ability to build online teams

● understanding the way communication flows online and promote interactions ● facilitate learning online and keep motivation ● be able to organize their own computer to make their work easier: keeping all documents in one file, having a calendar with all the activities you have to do during the course. Use some organizing tools such as Del.icio.us or any other ● be able to keep focused on your work ● be able to organize discussion forums in terms of time, group size, frequency and a subject line protocol ● ability to organize the grading using rubrics, peer assessment, self-assessment ● able to set up a naming protocol for mails, files and documents.

Technical skills ● be able to use the VLE using for delivering the course ● use the right tool ● be able to help students when they have any tech problem ● be able to understand the others when they have a technological problem ● be able to use the email, video conference rooms and any extra technology to set up the course, and create complete community to facilitate communication among the participants ● be able to use asynchronous tool and synchronous tools for different purposes.

Here is a video explaining the above skills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqR3teF3feU

SAMPLE RUBRIC(S) THAT GIVE RATIONALES FOR COURSE DESIGN DECISIONS (E.G. GROUP WORK, COLLABORATION, CHATS)

Rationale/ reason, what are we testing 1) What do you want to assess and why 2) Identify distinct criteria / what we are testing/criteria to come from objectives 3) How are you going to score what will the range be? Describe each level and what differs between them. (Hint: Start at the bottom (unacceptable) and top (mastery) levels and work your way “in”) http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/Rubrics.htm#RubricRubric 4) Involve learners in the development of the rubric.

5) Pre-test and retest them, adapt and change them for each group

Useful sites: http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/assesslearning/rubrics.html http://academic.pgcc.edu/~wpeirce/MCCCTR/Designingrubricsassessingthinking.html http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/Rubrics.htm#RubricRubric http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/rubrics/ http://webquest.sdsu.edu/rubrics/weblessons.htm http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/Rubrics.htm#RubricRubric

A Rubric for Group Work

Beginning

Teamwork 30 points

40

Accomplished

Exemplary

2

3

4

Score

The team rarely collaborated.

The team collaborated The team collaborated The team occasionally with meeting most of its collaborated to occurrences of objectives. achieve all its Some members would communication Communication rarely objectives. work independently, breakdown. broke down. but without regard to Each member objectives or Members were mostly Members were mostly contributed in a priorities. respectful of each other. respectful of each valuable way to the other. project.

A lack of respect and A lack of respect and regard was frequently regard was occasionally All contributions noted. noted. showed a high level of mutual . respect and collaboration

Contribution There was almost no 30 collaboration

Content

Developed

There was some collaboration which informed and developed the content in a minor way

Collaboration was Collaboration was noted and informed evident and clearly the research showed in the research

There was little Some of the research Research was Research was evidence of research, was collaborative, but it collaborative and was collaborative and which was incoherent was presented in a mostly presented in a always presented when presented confused manner. clear and coherent in a clear and manner. coherent manner.

Adapted from: http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/examples/courselevel-bycollege/hss/tools/jeria.pdf

TOPIC 3: Going deeper - the development of knowledge; content online GROUP 3: Erika and Cristina

Areas to consider: course structure and design: online course content online task types other related areas Optional extra reading: Nuts and Bolts: The 10-minute instructional design degree Online Course Design

• • • • •

Course Design Principles – Course Content

•

•

Visual design is not about “making it pretty” but communicating content using means other than text.

Here form is content, content is form. – Beckett on Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

Alternatives Allow for different paths to cover the content. Students will make choices and their choices will be part of their learning.

Borges’ Garden of Forking Paths

Julio Cortazar’s Hopstoch

TOPIC 3: Going deeper - the development of knowledge; content online • • • • •

• • • •

Readings, including the textbook, articles, websites, books, essays, notes PowerPoint slides the students view and read (optional narrated voiceover) Questions that lead to directed reading and writing, such as well-framed discussion questions or essay questions within written assignments Video lectures Real-time question and answer sessions held as synchronous review sessions using instant chat feature Narrated animations, such as the water table Humorous yet educational videos like Ring of Fire Posts added to discussion forums - particularly useful place to correct misconceptions or add information when relevant Visualizations, interactive media and simulations, such as PhET's radioactive dating game, that the students use with direction from you

Course Structure – Ideas and recommendations

• • • •

• •

Options and Tutorials Paper on organizational approaches to online courses Slide presentation (Slides 11 to 14) Best practices (with examples) Coures Designer Blog Gagné's 9 Events of Instruction

Online task types

Types of task Considering that tasks are tools that allows students to understand the course content; it is possible to say that online environment offers a wide variety of tasks, like: forums quizzes chats e-mails e-portfolios wikis

• • • • • • •

and other interactive activities.

Types of task/classification Based on constructivist and socio-constructivist theories there are two types of online tasks: 1. Synchronous tasks: those ones in which participants meet in real time. Some of them are: chat rooms, video conferences, webinars, etc.

2. Asynchronous tasks: also considered as self-paced learning, in which students develop the tasks individually on their own pace. Some examples of them are: pdf readings, quizzes, online questionnaires, hot potatoes exercises.

It is important to include both kind of tasks in any online course because they are considered communication tools, that provide opportunities to develop individual as well as collaborative activities

Types of task/design When thinking of what type of task is the most appropriate for the course content, course designers as well as tutors have to consider learners' learning styles, needs, interests and context.

Another important issue is the group size. According to experts, it is better to form small groups for online task performance. Because most of the time the purpose of group work is to encourage collaborative dialogue for new knowledge construction.

Tutor's role Because tasks are tools that allow learners to understand the course content. Then, they have to be

• • • • • •

simply explained scaffolded when it is necessary monitored clearly stipulated its expectations and learning outcomes exemplified and provided feedback

It means that the tutor is a facilitator and a guider

Task's purpose • •

Tasks should focus on active learning and promoting communication among participants.

They have to provide opportunities to develop individual and collaborative learning

Relevant Issues • Avoid replicating f2f settings.

• Ensure task navigability is available

• •

at any time to all the participants.

Tasks must provide opportunities to reflect on content.

Provide students authentic tasks with real world relevance.

Sadly I am not able to embed this wonderful Glog but you can access it easily from this link.

Thanks to Mady and Monica

THANKS AND GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR COURSES.

THE CONSULTANTS-E BC E-MODERATOR’S COURSE JULY 2013

THE END