Tutoring During Online Classrooms

The global pandemic has accelerated the use of online learning, but what are some of the best practices for the tutors? SCT’s Mario Pierobon investigates.

Tutoring for workers operating in safety critical industries has been deeply affected by the global pandemic situation. Almost overnight, the delivery of training moved from live classrooms to online platforms, and the tutoring of workers has had to adjust accordingly. Even if the world is slowly returning to a more normal mode of business operating practices, the global pandemic will leave some new online training habits, and best practices in the field of online tutoring will therefore need to be established and followed. As the popularity of online classes continues to grow, it is important for institutions to provide support in ways that are conducive to the participants’ needs, and to create professional development programmes that are tailored to the needs of online tutors so to positively influence their effectiveness [i].

Tutoring Coordinator

Best practices for effective online tutoring start from the overhead organisation. According to a position paper entitled ‘Effective Practices for Online Tutoring’ issued in 2019 by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges [ii], when investigating and developing a plan or procedures for an online tutoring programme it is important to consider the required personnel, equipment, and space. One personnel role suggested as a key component of a robust learning centre, in addition to the tutor and tutee, is that of the coordinator; therefore, thoughtful discussion and intentionality towards filling or leveraging an existing coordinator role is important.

“One of the first responsibilities of an online tutoring coordinator may be to determine the operational framework and effective practices desired to meet the outcomes for the online tutoring program,” said the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

Synchronous and Asynchronous

Online tutoring can be either synchronous or asynchronous. In making recommendations for designing the online tutoring environment, coordinators often work with other personnel to consider the utilisation of either or both synchronous and asynchronous tutoring. Both methods offer opportunities and challenges for students and staff.

Synchronous tutoring allows for video and shared whiteboard and can provide an experience most like face-to-face tutoring. However, “coordinating online synchronous tutoring time can become an added challenge for both the tutor and the tutee,” said the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. A low-tech text-based or asynchronous option may be more suitable for participants without access to high-speed internet, said Carolyn Johns and Melissa Mills in an academic paper entitled ‘Online Mathematics Tutoring During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Recommendations for Best Practices’ published in 2020 [iii], although the response time in asynchronous tutoring sessions may make it a lengthy exercise for some participants.

Tutoring should be available at various hours to meet the demands of the participants’ differing schedules together with the availability of the tutors. In addition, the coordinator’s role may also include scheduling the tutors’ working hours and the coordinator may monitor and assist tutees’ use of the service and any in-house equipment, as needed, said the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

To prevent asynchronous tutoring from becoming an experience whereby the tutor simply provides an answer to the participants, clear expectations regarding the nature of the online tutoring service must be communicated, according to Johns and Mills. “Students should be informed of the times tutors will respond to messages so that students can ask follow-up questions and engage in dialog, creating the interactivity of synchronous tutoring.”

In the case of a forum or discussion board platform, it is important to set up various boards, threads, or channels to keep it organised. “Channels can be set up specifically for students to discuss the course material with one another or to have off-topic conversations. Student-to-student interactions encourage complexity and quality of conversations on discussion boards, decrease time to response, and reduce tutor time spent responding,” they observe.

A synchronous platform allows for shared whiteboards and video conferencing that foster interaction. A single video conference room with a dedicated employee serving as a greeter to immediately creates a welcoming environment and maintains an organised and professional atmosphere to maximize tutor efficiency, say Johns and Mills. Synchronous online tutoring can also be drop-in, with the potential to serve more participants per hour and can provide flexibility, although if the number of participants increases significantly it could be challenging to queue the questions.

It should be observed that working in the online environment is still relatively new for both the tutors and the participants, and the latter may often feel isolated or lost. Because of this, the tutor should try to encourage them, according to a 2006 academic paper by Perry Turrentine and Lucy MacDonald entitled ‘Tutoring Online: Increasing Effectiveness with Best Practices’ [iv]. Students using a synchronous tutoring system may need an overview of the tool itself, before participating in the online tutoring environment. The format of communicating online – regardless of how transparent the tutor attempts to make the session – requires that everything be simple to understand.

Whether performing drop-in or appointments, synchronous or asynchronous, the platform should be easy to use so tutees do not grow overwhelmed, affirm Johns and Mills. “Ideally, choose a platform that students are already familiar with, already in use at the institution, and/or supported by the institution’s IT department.”

Cognitive Apprenticeship

The principles of cognitive apprenticeship are important to consider in the development of online tutoring programmes. According to a best practice document published online by the University of Rochester [v], cognitive apprenticeship takes the principles of traditional apprenticeship and applies them to thinking. Traditionally one would learn by watching someone else doing something, i.e., a master. As a large percentage of the brain is devoted to vision it is no surprise that people, in general, learn how to do something new by watching someone else who knows how to do it well. “Cognitive apprenticeship is no different, except it is a cognitive or mental skill that is on display.”

Initially the participants might need a significant amount of experimentation before they are able to do something on their own. There is therefore the need for the tutor to offer significant support at the beginning by giving the participants many hints and significant feedback. As the participants gain confidence and mastery, the tutor must pull back on the direct support and must allow the participants to work more independently. At the same time the thinking is being done out loud, according to the University of Rochester. “Gradually the thinking will become internalized but not until the student gains the necessary experience and mastery of the concepts or problem-solving procedures. We call this in the educational literature, scaffolding.”

Online Tutoring Climate

The climate that develops during online tutoring is very important. According to Turrentine and MacDonald, when designing the online tutoring environment, one needs to create specific strategies to deal with the lack of body language and eye contact. The climate should be linked to a sense of transparency. The computer screens should not be used as masks, rather as windows where trainers should interact with the students also by smiling to improve communication. “One of the differences in the online environment versus the face-to face environment is the effect of tone and word usage. In the online environment, without the assistance of body language or eye contact, the tone comes across much stronger.”

Tutors need to recognise this and either strive to soften the tone of written responses or add emoticons (text smiley faces) or phrases, such as ‘smiling helpfully’, ‘hold on’, etc, according to Turrentine and MacDonald. “Feedback becomes even more important in this environment. If essays are returned in editing mode, then students will think that online tutoring is an editing service.”

How to Direct the Tutoring Experience

Tutees come to tutoring with certain expectations and often one of the major ones is that the tutor will teach and do most of the talking as well. The tutee will likely come to the tutoring session with multiple questions. The tutors may be naturally inclined to want to answer those questions, but it is best to resist; instead, the tutors should ask questions back to the tutees. By breaking the concept or problem up into small parts and presenting them in question form, while also supplying hints and positive feedback, will truly help tutees become independent learners, recommends the University of Rochester.

According to the University of Rochester to ensure online tutoring effectiveness, it is important to consider Bloom’s Taxonomy. Although the taxonomy has been around for a long time it is still relevant today, presenting a hierarchy of thinking, complete with question descriptors, to help generate appropriate questions to ask to the tutees. The types of questions a tutor will want to ask to the tutees will depend on where they sit in the hierarchy, i.e., knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. However, the goal should be to try to move the tutees along in the process.

The principles of ‘metacognition’ should also be considered as part of online tutoring. According to the University of Rochester, metacognition is ‘thinking about thinking’. It is knowing what one knows and knowing what one does not know. Metacognition includes the ability to make decisions about or to act on what one knows or does not know. “The consequences of poor metacognition are clear. If we overestimate our knowledge we risk performing poorly because we think we are ready and will not continue to study.”

If indeed the tutee is ready but does not know it there is lack confidence and, due to anxiety, s/he will perform poorly. “Quite commonly we think we know something because it is familiar to us. We call this the illusion of knowing. The illusion of knowing is poor metacognition. Promoting metacognition in tutoring sessions, then, is paramount to helping students become successful learners,” said the University of Rochester.

Monitoring Effectiveness

An effective online tutoring programme is one that monitors the effectiveness of tutoring from a continuous improvement perspective. “… the coordinator may keep records and data to regularly assess and monitor the performance and needs of the program, the students, and the staff or tutors,” said the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. Effective programmes develop and regularly measure outcomes and ensure alignment with student equity metrics and institutional outcomes, which could be another responsibility of the coordinator, according to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. “Overall, all types of online tutoring, whether synchronous or asynchronous, should involve a set of established guidelines for structure, expectations, roles, responsibilities, and available training and ongoing professional development for the use of the continually adapting technology for all.”

References

[i]

Sandra Coswatte Mohr and Kaye Shelton, Best Practices Framework for Online Faculty Professional Development: A Delphi Study.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1163625.pdf

[ii]

The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, Effective Practices for Online Tutoring,

https://asccc.org/sites/default/files/Online%20Tutoring.pdf

[iii]

Carolyn Johns and Melissa Mills, Online Mathematics Tutoring During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Recommendations for Best Practices,

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10511970.2020.1818336?needAccess=true

[iv]

Penny Turrentine and Lucy MacDonald, Tutoring Online: Increasing Effectiveness With Best Practices,

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.466.8714&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[v]

University of Rochester, Best Practices - The Role of Lecturer as Tutor,

https://www.rochester.edu/college/cetl/assets/pdf/BestPracticesLearningStrategies.pdf