Face-to-face versus online tutoring support

How different approaches to learning are defined for the purposes of research:

“A deep approach is defined by four subscales: seeking meaning, relating ideas, use of evidence, and interest in ideas.

A strategic approach is defined by five subscales: organised studying, time management, alertness to assessment demands, achieving, and monitoring effectiveness.

A surface approach is defined by four subscales: lack of purpose, unrelated memorising, syllabus-boundness, and fear of failure. ”

The only difference found was that “good tutoring” was perceived less strongly when it was only online.  I wonder what is understood by “good tutoring”? I suppose if you have a lightbulb moment with a tutor in the room, or while interacting with a tutor, you will attribute it to good tutoring, whereas if your lightbulb moments occur when you’re on your own, that’s down to you.  Isn’t it better in the long term for a learner to feel that it’s down to them rather than to the tutor?

another thing that struck me was that a lot of the conceptions and explanations of particularly the pastoral role of the tutor was pretty familiar to me from language teacher training.  I wonder if it is because both in a second language and online learning experiences, there is a barrier to “normal” communication which has to be overcome?

“many students come to online tuition with inappropriate expectations that undermine their opportunity to exploit fully the advantages of working in an asynchronous and collaborative learning environment.”  this reminds me of Matthew’s comments about the importance of outcomes, and fits with my own observation of learners whose expectations do not match course outcomes.

Of course there is an impetus to sign up as many learners as possible (bums on seats!) on the part of course providers, and an unwillingness on the part of learners to give up their goals (eg. of attaining proficiency in a language within a year),  which may impede proper communication about this.  I think myths about the inferior nature of online tuition would be more easily dispelled in the long term if such communication were encouraged.

“our results suggest that there is much work to be done in helping students and tutors to understand the nature of online communication and how to achieve effective online interaction before online tuition can be deemed to be as effective as face-to-face tuition.”

Price, Linda , Richardson, John T. E. andJelfs, Anne(2007) ‘Face-to-face versus online tutoring support in distance education’, Studies in Higher Education, 32: 1, 1 — 20

Shepherds without a cue

If you are doing a course in a way that is completely new to you, and as far as you know, untried generally as well, with the possibility of “tech rage” hovering behind the very idea of it just to daunt you, of course you are going to need more support than if you are doing something safe and familiar.

If your experiences of traditional learning were so horrendous that you can only countenance an alternative method, of course you are going to need more support than if you are already a confident learner.

The odds are stacked against a first time online learner in affective terms.  If you think that the quality of your course is in any way shoddy or inferior to whatever you’re measuring it against, your desire to do well in it diminishes.  There are lots of negative perceptions out there about online learning – I had a few myself when I started this course and friends and colleagues have not been shy about sharing theirs with me either. So the chances are your first time online learner is going to be predisposed to look for evidence of inferiority to the traditional, and that’s going to make it easier for them to give up, perhaps not at the first hurdle, but possibly when they get to the water jump.

We’re a bit different because this course wouldn’t make sense unless it was online, and it’s in our interest as industry professionals (well, in my case a wannabe industry professional!) to explore and enjoy it from the learners’ side, but I’m guessing most other first timers would prefer f2f given the choice.  They just don’t have that choice, for whatever reason.

The odds are stacked against them if they have accessibility problems, full stop.  Something is so demanding of their time that they can’t do the course on campus, and whatever that is, it’s going to impact their online learning too.

It seems clear to me that whichever of these categories you fall into, you are in need of high calibre support – someone who is not only there when you need help, but can identify what sort of help you need when you need it and then deliver!  I simply don’t think that level of pastoral care is necessary on a f2f course where the odds are, generally speaking, less uneven.

In the classroom you can build a rapport and an atmosphere where the learners feel comfortable taking risks with making mistakes, knowing they won’t be ridiculed but helped, by their classmates as much as (hopefully more than) their teacher, and a lot of that is done by finding out about each other as people and introducing an explicitly social element to the class.

I think it’s difficult to replicate this in distributed learning, but not impossible.  People make friends without paralinguistics (using chat and messenger, for example) all the time.  It would be disingenuous to claim that it’s not more difficult, especially on a formal high-level course as opposed to a dating site, but then I think as humans we find a way – the odd joke or cultural reference here, the odd or 😉 there, the seizing on things we have in common, the letting people know about illness or family problems and the sympathetic responses, etc. etc.

I think the shepherd/pastor analogy is a good one because we all follow blindly like silly sheep. NO, of course not, quite the reverse!  But we are in a group going along together, and as I think I said less metaphorically in an early Elluminate session, a very big part of the tutor’s job is to round up stragglers (and make sure the wolf don’t get ’em) and also to stop people bounding off ahead.  Being a good shepherd (NOT a lazy one, although it might seem like it to the sheep sometimes) is about getting them to take a bit of responsibility for the general well-being of the flock, OK group, this sheep thing is wearing thin now!  But enocuraging us, as Alex has done, to support each other, especially those having difficulties, arrange our own Elluminate sessions, and so on, as well as making sure we know where to go for technical help and what to expect in the TMAs, is far more important, I would controversially submit, than offering criticism of our scholarliness or otherwise.  I think his academic contribution has been to leave us to develop our thoughts from the course content, free of anything besides some leading questions in the forums (ie. not regaling us with his opinions and publications, which is the only kind of “tuition” I remember having received at university – OK, not an entirely fair comment!)

Online tuition is two parts pastoral to one part academic!

Learning approaches

2 May 2010, 15:27

As I just remarked in Matthew’s blog, I recognise all three learning approaches – deep, surface and strategic – from the various classrooms I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in over the years. I agree absolutely that context, content, course demands, course design, teaching methods and assessment all play their part in deciding which approach is adopted by the learner.

May I gently suggest that this paper might be coming at this from the wrong side, though, when it comes to identifying the biggest approach/perception driver? Surely the learners themselves make these decisions, pretty much consciously and rationally, based on their own ideas of how much work they want to do balanced with how high a level they want to attain.   Fine if the factors listed above can persuade them to raise either or ideally both of those bars, but if they’re fairly firmly stuck… isn’t that the ultimate responsibility of the individual learner?

 

Comment by Lynn Hunt:

This struck me forcibly when you suggested it in last night’s tutorial. Once you had said it, it just sounded obvious but it had not occurred to me before!

No matter what the teacher does to encourage deep learning, critical reading etc., it will not happen unless it coincides with the learner’s own planned outcomes.

Thanks for encouraging my deeper learning!!!!