“Is anybody out there?”. Professional development for distance tutors in online communities

Janet Macdonald

Open University of Scotland, United Kingdom

Summary

The Open University (UK) employs 8,000 part-time tutors, who act as the human interface between the university and its students. Tutors work from home, and rarely have the opportunity to meet fellow tutors on the course that they tutor. Traditionally professional development is delivered through texts or websites, supplemented by face to face workshops. However the challenge is to ensure that tutors engage with the materials, and carry away something which is of value to their practice. We have been exploring the options for encouraging tutors to make use of online communities which can provide opportunities for professional development and discussion with their peers, while at the same time offering some flexibility in participation.This paper describes two initiatives at the Open University (UK) which set out to provide professional development within online communities of distance tutors. It discusses factors influencing the successes and challenges of this type of provision.

Introduction

Traditionally the professional development of distance tutors is delivered through texts or websites, supplemented by face to face workshops. However the challenge is to ensure that tutors engage with the materials, and carry away something which is of value to their practice. We have been exploring the options for encouraging tutors to make use of online communities which can provide opportunities for professional development and discussion with their peers, while at the same time offering some flexibility in participation. According to Wenger (1998), communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better. Although used originally in the context of professional and social practice in ‘real-world’ settings, the concept of the community of practice is now increasingly used in relation to virtual environments.

Preece (2000) has developed a sociability and usability framework which describes a community in terms of the characteristics of the people involved, the purpose of the community and the policies which govern the community, together with the usability of the computer software. Jones and Preece (2006) used this framework as a way of identifying key characteristics in online communities.

This paper describes two initiatives at the Open University (UK) which set out to provide professional development using online communities of distance tutors. It discusses the success and challenges of this type of provision.

The Open University

The Open University (UK) employs 8,000 part-time tutors, who act as the human interface between the university and its students. Tutors work from home, and rarely have the opportunity to meet fellow tutors on the course that they tutor. All tutors must have access to the internet for administrative purposes and for supporting learners. They are increasingly required to make use of the new VLE, for both student support and tuition and the electronic assignment submission system.

Online communities are already enthusiastically embraced by tutors on some courses, where a staff forum caters for ongoing discussion as the course proceeds, and they can be particularly significant during assignment marking, when tutors may use the online group to discuss their understanding of the question, or of marking criteria. Not surprisingly, core duties associated with tutoring students drive the habitual use of these groups, and make a discussion of other aspects of teaching more likely to occur (Macdonald & Hewling, 2008).

We present here two examples of short term online communities and describe some of the practical issues surrounded their success, or lack of it.

Tutor Moderators

Our most successful innovation in online peer communities for professional development has to be the course Tutor Moderators, which provides a three week introduction to the moderation and support of online groups. Developed at the OU in Scotland in 2004, it has become standard provision for tutors on level one courses and is delivered at scale to staff throughout the University. The course has proved to be a model of online professional development which works, and which promotes engagement through activities and reflection with a peer community.

The course runs with cohorts of up to 25 participants, and relies heavily on experiential and collaborative learning within a community. In a choice of three out of five activities per week, participants are required to undertake a task and reflect on their actions in the course forum. The course has an automated self certification system where participants check off a record of activities as they are completed; then on finishing the course the checklist generates an automated certificate of completion.

We know that participants find the course attractive and relevant to their needs, and the course has an average completion rate of 75%. The exit questionnaire completed by 373 participants (72% response) in the period Jun 08 – Feb 09 has given us a graphic illustration of their perceptions with respect to their growing confidence and competence.

Figure 1: Perceptions of confidence before and after the course

Figure 2: Perceptions of competence before and after the course

When asked in what ways the course had helped them, qualitative data from the same exit questionnaire has illustrated the value which many participants attach to the experience of learning in an online community. They describe the sharing of ideas and best practice with their peers, not only in learning from those who are experienced, but also in sharing the realisation that not all problems have easy answers.

I felt part of a community and have been able to benefit enormously from the comments of all colleagues, many of whom speak from experience

Good discussion about problems I was having. Lots of advice from people with more experience than me. Lots of very good ideas and discussion from tutors facing the same problems and issues that I am facing

I've also learned a lot from other colleagues about what doesn't work

Many also refer to the confidence building which comes from being part of a safe environment, and discovering that by joining an online community they are no longer alone in their concerns and anxieties.

It was also a great way of feeling connected with other tutors, who were experiencing the same anxious moments as myself

It has been great to feel less isolated. I no longer feel my students are weird

I also realise I'm part of a large group of moderators many of whom share my excited apprehension about the task in hand

Finally, many commented on the opportunity to reflect on their actions and feelings associated with being a newcomer in an online community, and of recognising how their students might feel in the same circumstances. There were implications for ways in which they might help their own students more effectively.

You gain from the collective experience of colleagues and you learn new skills. You know how it feels when your tutor replies with enthusiasm to your posting and when a forum member responds to your ideas positively

Also, having experienced the forum as a student has been really helpful : I should be able to empathise with the participants and I am aware of how difficult it is to take the initial plunge and join in.

I've really learned a lot about the role of the forum moderator as someone who encourages, actively participates (Bert, your involvement has been a fantastic example of what I should be doing!)

Increased confidence, skills, knowing where to go for information. its been a helpful supportive resourceful on line community.

We believe a number of factors have contributed to the success of this online community. Perhaps the first issue is the motivation of participants, who are eager to learn about the support of online groups because of the new duties associated with the increasing use of online media for supporting students, and the steady adoption of VLE tools for teaching, as new courses come on stream. The design of this course also contributes: participants are required to contribute at specific points as part of the activity based approach and this is underpinned by the activity checklist and self certification system. In fact, although there is a choice of activities, most participants complete all of them. Because we recruit a cohort of participants to work together, the group can develop an identity and sense of community over the three weeks. The near synchronous approach gives participants limited flexibility over a restricted period, and this has undoubtably influenced participation levels. The focus which is lent to participation within a limited timeframe gives participants the motivation to concentrate on professional development which otherwise can be overtaken by more pressing tasks.

Finally, the student as “identifiable individual” is a central premise of tuition and support at the OU, and we use this principle on Tutor Moderators: it means that if participants have signed up for the course and do not join within a couple of days, then we get in touch with them. If at the end of the course a participant has not completed, then we allow an extra two week’s grace to complete, with a reminder to complete the activity checklist.

Troublesome Knowledge and a wiki community

We are aware that staff development which is discipline specific is often more likely to appeal to time pressured staff, who view subject related events as an attractive proposition. The Troublesome Knowledge project piloted a blended approach to developing and sharing ideas on teaching amongst two groups of distance tutors in Mathematics and History (Macdonald & Black, under review). It focused on raising awareness of significant or difficult parts of a course, and promoting the exchange of good practice in tutoring, supported in each case by a wiki community.

In an initial workshop we introduced current thinking on Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (Meyer & Land, 2006; Perkins,1999) to help tutors to talk about significant or difficult areas of their subject and the challenges they encountered in teaching it. Tutors then sharedactivities which could help students with these parts of the course. Following this, a wiki “book of course teaching” was set up for the project, in which the workshop output was included. The wiki is one of many new tools which have recently become available for use, with the introduction of a VLE. Tutors were asked to visit the wiki at monthly intervals during the course in order to reflect on current experiences and to share relevant handouts or tutorial plans with fellow tutors. A wiki moderator reminded participants once a month that their contributions were due, and organised the wiki as it grew.

After four months, the project concluded with a reflective exercise in which participants were asked to visit the wiki and assess the extent to which they agreed with the significant or problem areas identified, and to consider whether the material deposited there could be relevant to their tutoring practice. A questionnaire was circulated by email. We report here on the outcomes of the Maths pilot, in which 10 Maths tutors and a Course Team Chair took part.

Most participants were positive about the benefits of sharing experience and resources, particularly those who were less experienced. When asked to identify an entry which was of particular relevance to them, some were able to do so :

“Sharing difficulties, teaching practice and resources is very helpful, especially to new and perhaps inexperienced [tutors]. I fit into this category..”

“Good to get reassurance that other tutors encounter the same kind of problems that I experience and how these are tackled by them.”

“I found this very useful as it gave a different approach to those I have used – it was a very full, detailed and cohesive explanation of the teaching technique used.”

However, the contributions were irregular and somewhat reluctant. There may be several reasons for this, providing useful lessons for future good practice in sustaining an online wiki community.

Since the wiki was an unfamiliar tool, the tutors struggled to remember how to use it each time they joined. They were not just coping with new functionality, but also with navigating and deciding where to post contributions, or whether they should be posted as comments or main text, or indeed posted at all.

“is this a useful place to share resources? I have a worksheet on mathematical communication, but if I copy it in, the wiki could become unmanageable..”

In order to distinguish their input from earlier contributions, some participants wanted to use coloured text, while others wanted to identify themselves as the author.

Figure 3 Deciding how to use the wiki

This may be related to more familiar practice with forums and email. There are also particular difficulties in communicating mathematics using print media.

“Explaining in print can be time consuming, especially if mathematical formulae etc need to be inserted. The wiki also appears to get messy as comments are added, making it difficult to follow just one entry...I hadn’t used a wiki before and sometimes felt hesitant that I may ‘spoil’ the page. Although this worry has lessened somewhat during the year, perhaps the different skill levels throughout the group have hindered participation.”

There were usability issues, for example no facility to attach files and no notification of changes appeared in participants’ email boxes, so the wiki was effectively out of sight and mind until participants were reminded of its existence every month. The wiki was not in a place which tutors would “pass” on their way to core duties; they required to follow a separate link, so serendipitous visits were unlikely. These comments are reminiscent of the lessons we have observed from participation in other online groups for professional development (Macdonald & Hewling, 2008).

The wiki was chosen because of its potential to organise contributions and make them available for easy searching and retrieval. However these objectives were not realised in this pilot. A lack of consistency in the places where new entries were posted and a proliferation of new pages required moderator input to link them to the home page. There was no obvious distinction between entries posted as comments and those posted on the main part of the page. Future wiki communities need better guidance on good wiki practice, and a protocol for identifying new material.

Finally, the small group size (10) combined with the fact that activity was expected only monthly meant that the wiki did not have much “buzz”. This was coupled with tutors’ lack of time, demands from other online groups and a certain lack of motivation to contribute.

The Course Chair commented that it is in fact difficult to write material for teaching maths at this level which is truly innovative and useful and it was perhaps optimistic to have expected everyone to do this.

Conclusions

Jones and Preece’s (2006) use of sociability (purpose, people and policies) and usability provide a useful way of comparing the two communities described here; we comment on their relative significance. Both communities have or had a clear purpose, although arguably the purpose is clearer in Tutor Moderators which is relatively formally constituted, with a clear link to a self certification scheme, in comparison to the less formal Troublesome Knowledge community. In terms of people, the Tutor Moderators community is driven by a much stronger motivation, because as a matter of survival participants are concerned to learn about supporting online groups. Policies have played a clear and identifiable role in Tutor Moderators, the impetus which is lent to participation by the near synchronous approach, together with activities; in the Troublesome Knowledge project they could have been more overt. Finally, usability appears to have been a serious issue in the Troublesome Knowledge project, in terms of the notional proximity of the wiki to other core duties, although we did not identify this as an issue in Tutor Moderators, possibly because of the over-riding importance of purpose and people.

References

  • Jones, A. & Preece, J. (2006) Online communities for teachers and lifelong learners: a framework for comparing similarities and identifying differences in communities of practice and communities of interest. Int J Learning Technology2 (2/3) pp 112-137.
  • Macdonald, J. (2008) Blended learning & online tutoring. Planning learner support and activity design. (London, Gower, 2nd ed)
  • Macdonald, J. & Black, A (under review)Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge in distance education. Testing a new methodology for teaching enhancementArts and Humanities in Higher Education
  • Macdonald, J & Hewling A (2008) Exploring the potential of online communities of practice for distance tutors. In: Communities of Practice: creating learning environments for educators, ed by Chris Kimble and Paul Hildreth, (Information Age Publ)
  • Meyer, J.H.F. & Land, R. (2005) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: an introduction. In: J.H.F Meyer, & R. Land Overcoming barriers to student understanding: threshold concepts and troublesome knowledgeLondon: Routledge
  • Perkins, D (1999) The many faces of constructivism Educational Leadership 57 (3)
  • Preece, J. (2000) Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. CambridgeUniversity Press.