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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. What does ‘good’ synchronous tuition in ODL look like?
Go to Answer garden to give your views
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

8. 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.

9. 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)

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. Example OU Live room

17. 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?

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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)

26. Presentation

27. OU live tool

30. Key words from qualitative feedback statements : AnswerGarden

31. 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

32. 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

33. Questions