What drives active student participation in online tutorials? Diane starts Diane Butler, Lynda Cook, Vikki Haley-Mirnar Louise MacBrayne, Catherine Halliwell

Aims of workshop Gather your views on the importance of tuition Gain a fuller understanding of limitations faced by the institution in providing tuition Outline our project and seek your input Show our preliminary findings

Introduction Tuition in the Open University – what are the current challenges? Challenge of face to face tuition when the student population is more distributed Advent of online tuition Changing student demographics and expectations And Group tuition policy SOL is flexible, all inclusive, supportive and social

Supported Open Learning As a reminder – OU’s method of distance learning is referred to as ‘supported open learning’ or SOL Flexible –meet the needs of part time distance learners All inclusive - students are supplied with all the learning materials they need, these can be printed texts and/or online resources Supportive – Associate Lecturers provide academic expertise, guidance and feedback and run group tutorials Social -students come together at synchronous tutorials (face to face or online) and through online conferencing via forums OU tutorials have traditionally emphasised student centred learning and peer associated learning but student attendance is not mandatory. Reminder of what the OU teaching method is

What does ‘good’ synchronous tuition in ODL look like? Go to Answer garden to give your views https://answergarden.ch/474302 Add in your answers (spelling is important) You can give as many answers as you like But don’t repeat yourself! 40 characters maximum per answer Focused on the needs of the students Inclusive Focused on the learning outcomes Answer garden activity Plenary – Study word garden Comment on output and export Synchronous Facilitative Interactive Student centred Focuses on the learning needs of the students Adaptable Sociable

What are the limitations in delivering good synchronous tuition? Given this is what we think is ‘good’ in terms of synchronous tuition in ODL, what limits us in delivering this? Work in your table groups to list the limitations we face Make summary notes on flip chart paper Be prepared to feedback on your top three most significant issues 10 mins , in small groups, report back on flip chart paper per group Ask each group to give the three most significant limitations in delivering good tuition.

What are our limitations in delivering good synchronous tuition? Feedback Technology Student expectations Intimidated by HE Student attendance Time consuming to generate interactive content for online compared to f2f Students not speaking/reluctance to speak Staff development for online tuition and students expectations of online Connectivity/poor broadband for tutors and students Needing a significant number of attendees Recording - makes it more accessible but are there disadvantages Clear guidance to students of their behaviour required ‘dead air’ – silence. Can you use signs for thinking time and fear of ALs Tension between the AL as ‘assessor’ and then as presenter causing student tension Conflict between the module content and the content of the tutorial Tiered development of students from level 1, to level 2, level 3 and beyond (teaching students to be good participants) Plenary Non-compulsory Variable enagement Inconsistent student engagement Changing online tools – elluminate, Oulive, Adobe Group tuition Distances too great for student travel Online delivery does not equate to face to face Training needs of ALs/central and regional staff not addressed adequately for online tuition New and poorly unstanding pedogogy Accessibility issues – individual challenges for both face to face and online Recording Student expectations and behaviour (passive)

Where next? So we have a Broad understanding of what is ‘good’ tuition But we are aware of significant limitations So where next? Our project plan is to Review current tuition provision in LS at level 2 with a focus on online delivery (our usual module of tuition in science) Identify if and how we are falling down in our aim to provide excellent tuition in Life Sciences Identify ways to improve involving ALs , our students and MTs Lynda starts here

Setting the scene for our modules Academic support Skills support Encouragement Assessment support Discussion Interaction Student Module wide Cluster group Project work Tutor group Online rooms for delivery of tuition is widespread in Science and there are a variety of forms. Purposes of the tuition vary - shown in orange text Anecdotal evidence suggests students who attend tutorials do not actively participate Links to eSTEeM funded project to look at the perception of group tuition: A-M Gallen, A Walshe, A Campbell, M Jones Perceptions, Expectations and Experience of Group Tuition: towards a shared understanding amongst stakeholders

Using online rooms Associate Lecturers are encouraged to make their tutorials as interactive as possible, using the full range of tools available in OU Live For example: Emoticons True or false questions Polling Answering/asking questions in the chat box Writing content onto the whiteboard Drag and drop activities on whiteboard Answering/asking questions by a microphone Application sharing requiring student input Student group work and discussion –using break out rooms

Example OU Live room

Use of these tools can help make online tutorials more interactive , less didactic, encourage peer to peer learning, provide opportunity for individualised/personalised student support – the supposed features of SOL Tutorial visits carried out (by Staff Tutors) since tuition moved online have routinely raised concerns. So far these issues have been addressed as a staff development need –better development of AL's as online practitioners should address these issues. But does our current approach to online tuition place unrealistic burdens on our ALs to attempt to offer student centred tuition in an online environment which favours tutor-led activity Do we need to rethink the way in which we use online tuition to better address student needs?

Why does this matter to us? Despite the interactive tools available in online rooms, we are not clear that online rooms as we currently use them provide an effective online learning environment . Concerns that current provision does not enable a student centred, constructivist approach to learning provides no or little additional benefit for students to attend tutorials in real time, the same benefit can be derived from simply viewing a recording is not perceived as valuable by the many students – synchronous engagement is low (25- 30%) Student e

Initial observations: AL focus After viewing/evaluating a large number of recorded Life Sciences tutorials of all types it has become clear that many Associate Lecturers: deliver a PowerPoint presentation based largely on the OU materials the student already has rely on only the simplest of the interactive tools available in OU Live – namely T/F questions, MC questions, polling and chat box traffic have little or no expectation that students will speak using the microphone are reluctant to run activities which draw explicitly on student’s understanding do not offer opportunities for extended group activities within the tutorial are unsure how to establish the learning needs of the students present make little attempt to assess students’ understanding are unsure whether to cater for the needs of the students present or the potential audience who will listen to the recording Diane As part of our ST roles we provide feedback to Als on their tutorials and enable their CPD –over the years since OU Live adopted we have noticed Flipped lecture

Initial observations: student focus After viewing/evaluating a large number of recorded OU Live tutorials of all types it has become apparent that in all contexts, for many students: there is little or no opportunity to contribute to the agenda there is little opportunity to speak communication is only via the chat box there is limited or no peer interaction during a tutorial there is limited opportunity to test their understanding there is little opportunity for individual support with threshold concepts in tutorials Lynda last one

Aims of our project To achieve a fuller understanding of student-tutor and student-student interactions in synchronous online tutorials To achieve a better understanding of student perceptions of online tuition To identify areas where further practitioner professional development is required To inform future tutorial policy in Life Sciences and in the wider STEM faculty Vikki starts here

Methods Phase-1 - completed Reviewing a range of online tutorials in Life Sciences (via recorded tutorials) Development of an evaluation tool Trial evaluation tool with small number of recorded tutorials Phase-2- partially completed Recruitment and briefing of Associate Lecturers to evaluate a series of online tutorials per module Collect quantitative and qualitative data from the evaluation tool Data analysis Phase-3 Student and tutor survey Focus group activity Level 1 would be unsuitable as new students Needs of level 2 learners are distinct Student recruitment – across the module (per module) Focus groups –group of students and offer a generic tutorial, which they participate and offer in 2 different styles Recruit ALs Feb – Mar 2017 Collect data from tutorial evaluation Apr – Jun 2017 Analyse tutorial evaluation Jul – Sep 2017 Design student and tutor questionnaires Sep – Dec 2017 Completion of student & tutor survey Jan – Mar 2018 Student focus groups Apr – Jun 2018

Evaluation Tool Simple web form Allows relatively rapid and consistent assessment of key features of an online tutorials -particularly AL and student behaviour (not content!) Allows recording of qualitative and quantitative information Allows output of quantitative data to Excel https://learn3.open.ac.uk/mod/questionnaire/complete.php?id=114845&resume=

Summary preliminary quantitative findings 14 tutorials involving 249 students for 16J presentations Quantitative data – examples 86% of tutorials were largely or wholly didactic 36% of tutorials were clearly adjusted to meet the needs of attending students 7% of tutorials made use of breakout rooms 7% of tutorials where students spoke in the main room (when invited to) 29% of tutorials students were not given opportunity to speak

Summary preliminary qualitative findings 14 tutorials involving 249 students for 16J presentations ‘No opportunity for speaking. Asks students to respond using the chat box’.(TG) ‘Tutorial very much in the style of a lecture but questions were asked verbally to which students responded in the chat box’ (MW) ‘Very interactive with lots of opportunities for questions. Students contributed by chat box and microphone’ (TG) ‘Only asked 3 questions throughout session, and told students to respond via chat box’ (cluster)

Presentation

OU live tool

Key words from qualitative feedback statements : AnswerGarden

Does this matter if students are satisfied? So far data supports our anecdotal observations: our default model of tuition is didactic Does this matter if students are satisfied? Bear in mind the rest of sector is busy ‘flipping the lecture’ Next step is to review many more tutorials, survey students and ALs and conduct in depth interviews. Prerecorded lectures Support forums for specific events Compulsion TG tutorials Cluster tutorials Module team led events Students expectations Active participation Replaces module materials Fundamental to students learning Vital for students learning -threshold concepts Relationship building Named support Skills focussed Students centred Needs of individuals Freedom -cut loose Trust Als to use their judgement

Ways forward? What way for the future? What are we striving to achieve via online tuition ? In a ‘digital by default’ world what might good tuition look like? How will this affect Module teams, ALs and students? Give some terms/phrases/words which describe your vision for tuition in the future with respect to ALs, students and module teams. Go to Answer garden to give your views https://answergarden.ch/474483

Questions