A summary of skills needed by online tutors, concentrating on encouraging student motivation, moderating synchronous and asynchronous discussions and course format considerations.

1. Working Online
Tutor skills for handling online
chats, discussions, & content
Mary, Jacqui & Andrina

2. Encouraging Online Participation
& Motivation

3. Definitions of Motivation
Motivation is the willingness to spend time or
energy towards goals, and can be looked in a
variety of ways. Some key elements which
impact on online learning:
 intrinsic motivation
 extrinsic motivation

4. Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation
 intrinsic motivation - motivation from the individual, often
leading to deeper learning behaviour - this can be
further broken down (Kim, 2004) to:
 motivation to initiate
 motivation to persist
 motivation to continue
 extrinsic motivation - can be very strong still but
motivation comes externally and may lead to more
superficial learning.
 other important characteristics of motivation:
 value - relevance to learner
 expectancy - likelihood learner can complete task

5. Motivation Issues for Online Courses
 high drop out rates - (30 - 50 %)
 more likely to be adults who are more likely to
be motivated
 assumptions about online courses -
participants may assume it’s self study and
may prefer it to be self study.
 some participants may be less familiar with
tools

6. Suggestions for Initiating, Increasing,
and Sustaining Motivation
 make assumptions and conventions clear before or very early in the
course
 raise awareness of the value of online courses and online tasks
 include a variety of tasks and types of tasks. Include, shorter and
longer, more in depth more fun, some sociable, some group building
 give clear rubrics and information on assessment - what’s due and when
 model the behaviour you expect
 praise - privately and in open forums
 match individuals - one less motivated with someone more motivated
 start simply with the technology. Building up to more difficult, complex
tools/online activities
 clarify the value of participation
 make your presence felt, so participants know they are involved and
what is expected of them.

7. Tutor Skills for Handling Synchronous
and Asynchronous Work Online

8. Online Tutors Need…
 a range of skills to create and maintain a
positive successful online learning
environment
 they also need to be committed to the idea of
collaborative learning.

9. Online Tutor Skills: 5 Categories
 technical
 structural
 social
 conceptual
 time management

10. Online Tutor Technical Skills
 be familiar with technical features and tools of
the online platform
 be able to anticipate student difficulties and
respond with clear and supportive (not
dismissive) instructions when things don’t
work
 you need to be able, students enabled

11. Online Tutor Structural Skills
 able to design tasks and assessments in
which goals, processes and expectations are
clear
 able to using student-friendly layout, e.g.
simple navigation, bullet points, headings,
visuals
 can see how things look and feel from “the
other side”

12. Online Tutor Social Skills
Online learning is a social and educational milieu. Tutors
need the skills of a social host and a meeting chairperson. In
synchronous and asynchronous work this means:
 being warm and encouraging, with group and 1-1 strategies to invite
and reward participation
 “listening” or “reading between the lines” to draw out questions or
concerns
 being able to see the online environment from a student’s perspective
 being able to set the tone in etiquette and mutual respect; prepared
and able to deal constructively with inappropriate behaviour
 being perceptive of subtle and not so subtle interactive issues, such
as cliques, and non-participation. Diplomacy to deal constructively
with dominance.
 being able to “mix” people in collaborative work with sensitivity to
personality and learning issues
 being able to give constructive feedback and even criticism

13. Online Tutor Conceptual Skills
Online tutors need to be able to read, understand and respond
to enormous amounts of student output. Specific skills are:
 weaving: regular posts, for example in a forum, which help the
students understand the flow of the discussion, with sensitive
handling of different viewpoints, quantity and quality of contribution
 feeding back their own ideas to help students reach a conclusion
 synthesis and analysis: being able to summarise in a clear and
succinct style without losing or distorting the central meaning
 a questioning style which prompts discovery and learning by
students
 negotiating to find ways to accommodate the different needs and
interests of students
 reformulating and rephrasing incorrect or inappropriate contributions
 re-directing and controlling to steer discussions back on track, or to
move on to the next point

14. Online Tutor Time-Management
Skills
 need to be able to read and respond quickly and
at the right time – opportunistic teaching and
learning
 the ability to multitask and work under pressure
without sacrificing sensitivity to students’ needs
and the quality of their own posts is a must

15. Sample Rubrics that give Rationales
for Course Design Decisions

16. Course Design Guiding Principle
 The design of online courses should be to
facilitate learning, so design decisions
about the types of tasks involved are crucial to
facilitating the learning of each particular
group

17. Know your Students
Know your audience and their motivations for doing
the course. Then you can decide how much
 collaboration
 socialisation
 groupwork
 chat
would be appropriate. This could also depend on
whether it is a full time or part time course and
how much spare time participants have for
various activities

18. Tailoring the Course
 tailor the course design around the needs of the
group as one size doesn’t fit all
 do the participants have enough free time to organise
regular synchronous activities or would a greater
number of asynchronous tasks be more important?
 could this be adapted if the balance seems
inappropriate as the course is ongoing? If the balance
is inappropriate participants are more likely to drop
out if they don’t have enough time for synchronous
activities

19. Take Account of Learner Styles
 the design decisions need to take into account
different learning styles and needs
 if only one or two learner styles are taken into
account then participants with other learner
styles will probably be alienated

20. Collaboration Issues
 match participants carefully for collaboration
 if some participants seem to be much more adept at
using technology match them with participants who
are less adept. This could help the less adept
students start to feel more confident with the
technology
 at the design stage you could also have some way of
designing different collaboration matches that stop the
partnerships from becoming stale.

21. Marking
 The design of the course should use
marking rubrics to make grading easier
and to clarify expectations for students

22. Reflect Real World Skills
 it would be realistic and eminently useful for decisions
about course design to reflect the real world skills that
the course is aiming to develop
 for example, a language course for business people
who have to give regular presentations, take part in
telephone conferences and video conferences, be
part of a virtual team which uses collaborative
documents on the web for project work---should
engage in learning using these very tools, including a
collaborative document on the language of project
management, a slideshare presentation on the
language of presentations

23. Thank you for your Time
The online tutor is a facilitator who uses the
special qualities of the online environment to
create and sustain a supportive and effective
place to explore, discover and learn -
collaboratively