 Online Learning Update Ray Schroeder, editor, COLRS - Online@Illinois SpringfieldOnline Learning Update - a blog published daily since 2001 by Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Springfield |
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
Should Tutoring Services be Added to our High-Enrolling Distance Education Courses? - Peter B. Williams, et al; OJDLA
Distance learning administrators are always looking for ways to balance increasing demands on instructor time, rising expectations from students and faculty for support services, mounting competition, and escalating costs with quality instruction and interaction. Increasingly, programs are responding to these competing interests by appending ancillary resources to course materials and textbooks and by using computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools, e.g., e-mail, online bulletin and discussion boards, blogs, interactive television, and computer conferencing. Yet there is inconclusive evidence that the CMC tools are successful in helping students better learn the course content (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2003). Additionally, although interaction may be increased when students are required to post on discussion boards, the quality of that interaction is often artificial, mechanical, and “noninteractive” rather than sincere and motivated (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2003; Stevens, 2003). One part of the solution to this larger problem, explored by one large distance education program, was the use of part-time tutors hired from the university's undergraduate student population, to offer additional content and motivational support to students enrolled in large enrolling courses.
Comments:
Though I almost always find the discussion-board forums adequate, I can also see how this would help. In high-quality classes with attentive, verbose professors and engaged, intelligent students, an online discussion is often all I need ...but I've had classes where the online discussion just wasn't "clicking", and extra help really understanding the subject matter would have been a godsend. How do people envision the tutors would operate? Fora and email are nice, but since students already have access to those, I'd like to see something more immediate, like a tutor-staffed chat room or tutors with IM (Instant Messaging) capability.
-Marie, UIS Philosophy Program Senior # posted by
 : 1:12 PM
Marie-
Great to hear from you! At UIS we have online tutors avaialable via the Center for Teaching and Learning; we also have peer mentors in some of the online classes - see http://online-mentor.blogspot.com/ for a blog I used at a recent conference on online student retention strategies. ray
Marie-
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Oh, I should have mentioned that the Center for Teaching and Learning has used IM and is experimenting with Elluminate for sessions in which both the student (at a distance) and the tutor can view the pages of a term paper (for example) while talking via voice over Internet protocol. ray Online Learning News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use
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