( learning about learning on-line)

LOLA (learning about learning on-line) was part of a European funded project (PHARE) to promote open and distance learning in central Europe. LOLA was developed by Heriot-Watt University for delivery to professional staff in higher education in Central Europe. The course was a part-time continuous professional development course delivered by distance. The course was developed, delivered and supported in English.  The students received printed materials which were supported by a customised, web-based on-line learning environment, email, a tutor based in the UK (the EU tutor) and a local tutor (called a national facilitator).

The course had 400 participants in 11 Central European Countries who were supported by 10 EU tutors and 13 national facilitators. Each tutor was allocated a maximum of 40 students distributed over one or two countries, and had the support of a local facilitator. Participants could study from home, their place of work (normally a University) or a PHARE funded study centre.  Nine EU Tutors were based in Scotland, one EU tutor was based in the Netherlands and national facilitators were based in each country, normally at a PHARE study centre.

This case study is about the experience of one EU tutor and 35 students in Romania.

The PHARE programme had funded ODL study centres which were equipped with computers and access to the internet. It was anticipated that the majority of the target audience would have access to a study centre or be based in a higher education institution.

Communications technologies, eg electronic mail, on-line conferencing and a virtual learning environment were selected in an attempt to create a learning community to ensure that students were not isolated and had the opportunity to work with other students from the same country and throughout Europe.  Many of the countries and participants involved in the course were at similar stages of development and faced similar issues and challenges. 

The course was designed around learning by doing and task-based learning. Active learning was encouraged through the use of self-assessment tasks, activities, reflection and discussion points at appropriate points throughout the material which drew heavily on the students’ own experience and work environment. These tasks were designed to build towards and integrate with the tutor marked assignment which was set at the end of each module.

The course comprised 5 modules which were delivered as paper based materials and in an on-line environment which provided additional resources and facilities. Tutor-student communication was via email and student-student and cross group communication was via a web-based learning environment.  Questions and issues for discussion on-line with peers, tutors and facilitators were integrated into the course materials.  The course started with a traditional face-to-face workshop.  This was extremely valuable in establishing the participants competency in English, getting to know participants from a different culture, forming tentative impressions of their personalities and interests, and seeing the conditions under which they would be studying.  This made electronic communication with the local facilitator and the students easier, less intimidating and more natural.  In Romania the majority of students had very limited access to electronic mail and their access to the internet was even more restricted.  Only 5 out of 35 students had regular, reliable web access.  This restricted the majority of communications between the tutor and students to email and they were mainly centred around the submission and marking of the tutor marked assignments which provided a regular schedule of contact.  A minority of students who tried to access the collaborative discussion area found the poor access, low reliability and slow response times very frustrating and gave up very quickly, especially since there were very few fellow students for them to ‘talk to’ once they were on-line.. The EU tutor used email and web based conferencing and the national facilitators additionally used face-to-face, telephone and fax communication.

Access to internet, and to a lesser extent email, was a particular problem in Romania and shifted the focus of the interaction between tutor and students to email. The tutor had to create and ensure a supportive dialogue which balanced encouragement, feedback and chasing up.  Email messages had to be carefully composed because the student’s first language was not English and they had to motivate and encourage as well as direct and correct.

It was essential to keep a track of communication – who you contacted, when, and for what purpose – especially as the course progressed and the students progress through the course varied enormously.  It was important to make each student feel that you knew who they were, where they were in the course, what their current problems and concerns were and where they were doing well.  Managing communication and administration ie receiving, storing, marking and feeding back on assignments is crucial and time consuming.

The course co-ordinator designed, developed and supported the on-line environment and the production and distribution of the paper based materials.  She also provided extensive on-line support to tutors, national facilitators and students throughout the course. She proactively addressed, and solved, queries relating to technical and content issues.

The tutors took part in two separate one day workshops to get to know each other, discuss the programme, materials, strategies and approaches, trial the on-line environment, and to plan the ‘kick-off’ workshops to be delivered in each country.  Tutors were provided with a ‘Tutor Guide’ and a summary of their role and responsibilities.  A principal tutor was appointed to co-ordinate and provide advice and direction. Mailing lists were set-up to support communication amongst tutors. The project co-ordinator and principal tutor provided an outline design and materials for the ‘kick-off’ workshops. It was useful to meet the other tutors, some of whom were very experienced in on-line learning or distance learning. About 1/3 of the tutors formed an informal support group and kept in touch with each other electronically, and this was a useful source of moral and practical support.  The tutors did not have an opportunity to meet their own national facilitator prior to the course starting and did not meet the other national facilitators.

The National Facilitators attended a weekend workshop where they had an opportunity to meet each other, the course team, the project co-ordinator and principal tutor as well as discuss the course and try-out the on-line environment.

A ‘Kick-off’ workshop was held in each country.  In Romania this was a two day event held over a weekend and it was delivered by the EU Tutor and the national facilitator.  Participants were provided with a ‘Student Guide’ and a key aim of the workshop was to provide the students with the opportunity to become familiar with and explore the on-line environment. About 2/3rds of the registered participants were able to attend. The national facilitator also held an additional face-to-face workshop half –way through the course to address local issues.

 

It was assumed that the students were sufficiently fluent in English to undertake the course and that they had access to the necessary technology.  This proved not to be the case. The main barriers were caused by problems accessing the on-line environment.  Dealing with the additional administrative and technical problems took up a lot of the tutor’s time, diverting energy and input from supporting the students’ learning.

Establishing a stable student base in Romania was problematic. Details of registered students kept changing, almost on a daily basis, and it proved very time consuming and frustrating to try and identify the students who were participating. This issue was not resolved until after the course had started and the ‘kick-off’ workshop held.  It caused extra administrative effort and delays since each student had to be provided with a user identification for the on-line environment and allocated to a discussion group. This was the responsibility of a co-ordiantor in each country but the  Romanian co-ordiantor became ill during this period and it had to be resolved by the tutor and national facilitator. The consequence of students starting at different times was duplication in tutors communications and a significant increase in the administrative overhead involved in keeping track of individual students.

Reliable and consistent access to the internet was a major problem in Romania.  This problem arose at the ‘kick-off’ workshop where only ½ the students were able to try the on-line environment. A minority of students (< 25%) could regularly access the on-line environment and at least ½ the students had unreliable access to email.  This meant that the on-line environment and the on-line community did not take off as anticipated.  This increased the importance of email communication and placed an extra burden on the tutor since peer support was minimal and very difficult to establish.  It was frustrating for those students who did use the discussion areas because they did not get responses to their contributions. Many students continually changed their email addresses in an attempt to establish a reliable connection.  This resulted in a significant percentage of tutor email messages to the group being returned as undelivered and created an additional overhead in maintaining the group mailing lists.  It was also difficult to deal with students who did not respond to emails.

We had originally decided to strictly enforce the deadlines for submission of tutor marked assignments.  In practice this did not work and it was left to the tutors discretion.  This provided flexibility to respond to the needs and circumstances of individual students but created extra work in supporting students at different stages, keeping track of the progress of individual students and tailoring encouragement to individual progress rather than to the group as a whole (35 individual emails instead of a single email to the whole group).

Time management and conflicting priorities and commitments was a problem for many students including work, family and ill-health.  This needed a flexible and positive approach from the tutor to maintain their motivation and encourage them to continue and complete the course.

 

Many of the students knew each other because they worked in the same institution or were attached to the same study centre.  The formed support and self-help groups. The national facilitator was enthusiastic and well organised and put in a lot of effort in contacting students and encouraging individuals and groups.

For those students who could access the on-line environment, the discussions became active and productive when the students themselves identified a real task which was of direct benefit to them.  They needed to establish local meanings for some of the specialised open learning technology used in the course, ie agreeing a glossary of ODL terms in Romanian. The need to discuss, explain and agree definitions help clarify and make explicit understandings and misunderstandings.  Collaborative group tasks which are of real and direct benefit to the participants are motivating and create a sense of community.

Regular, positive and encouraging communication with all the students individually by email on a weekly basis.  This included general comments on their progress, demonstrating an awareness of their problems, what they had achieved, and attempting to provide a sense of continuity and reduce their isolation.  The tutor marked assignments provided regular milestones for contact and communication and provided feedback and a concrete measure of their progress.

Sharing experiences and problems amongst tutors, eg those who ran the first ‘kick-off’ workshops fed back a lot of useful information and advice.  The principal tutor provided template email messages at key points in the programme.

Set up appropriate monitoring and administration mechanisms to minimise the overhead. This should be automated if possible and will enable the tutor to focus on communication with student.

Set aside regular times to ‘meet’ with colleagues and get a colleague to feedback on your ‘written style’ of email communication.  Work as a buddy with another tutor and use colleagues as a sounding board and resource.

Over half the Romanian group successfully completed the course.  The course was evaluated throughout and the report was positive overall. The countries involved are going to run the course themselves over the next three years and all EU tutors were invited to take part.

The course co-ordinator and principal tutor provide overall guidance.  Marking guidelines were provided for each tutor marked assignments and each tutor double marked a percentage of another tutors assignments to ensure consistency of approach and standard of marking. Private on-line discussion areas were available for tutors and tutors/facilitators to discuss and address common issues, problems and successes, and technical support was constantly available.

An independent evaluation team undertook constant formative and summative evaluation which was fed back to tutors, facilitators, course co-ordinator, course team and funders.  The principal tutor also undertook mid-course evaluation and reported to the funders.

Find ways to automate and minimise the tutor effort involved in the administrative and record keeping aspects of the role of on-line tutoring.  Make marking guidelines available to

students in advance of submission dates. Encourage and find ways to set up and support local self-help groups.