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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Online tutoring - computers as cognitive tools

Conclusion 

• ".... [people] should be able to meet around a problem chosen and defined by their own initiative. Creative, exploratory learning requires peers currently puzzled about the same terms or problems.... The most radical alternative to school would be a network or service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same concern" (Illich, 1970).
• "Once we free ourselves from the mental limits of viewing this technology as a weak sister to face-to-face synchronous education, the potentials to revolutionise education and learning become readily apparent" (Hiltz, 1994)

Online tutoring - the instructivist model

• "To date, most of the World Wide Web sites developed for education and training simply supplement traditional 'fixed' approaches to teaching and learning" ((Reeves & Reeves, 1997)

In such a setting learners are expected to study course material in isolation and be assessed through Tutor Marked Assignments and Examinable Components or Invigilated Examinations; online communication is merely used here to complement or replace other means of communication (mail, telephony, facsimile, f2f) between tutors and learners in presenting tutorials and responding to student queries. At its best, it is (also) used to deliver Computer Marked Assignments (CMAs) following the tradition of the Computer Assisted Learning approach (CAL) in use since the early '80s, which is brought to a state of the art for use on the Web (Pownall, 1998).

Consequently, one would not expect that online tutoring [1] - standard keeping [2] - in such a instructivist oriented setting (Gagne et al, 1992) will require different skills other than knowing the technicalities for handling the medium. Although the significance of these new technical skills should not be underestimated, teachers, faculty members and staff in this setting will not be encouraged or trained to reach beyond the first two elementary stages of CMC literacy described by Gray (1997) and the use of computers will be confined to 'productivity' and 'delivery'.

Online tutoring - computers as cognitive tools (Gray, 1997)

• [...] in the age of information and whatever lies beyond, learners must be active participants in the construction of knowledge. The world's body of knowledge is growing too fast to expect that all knowledge can be assembled, packaged and transmitted to passive recipient learners in the traditional lecture model. [...]good learning situations do not present optimal arrangements for the "learner to ingest preformed knowledge," but rather, they should present optimal arrangements that support evolutionary sense-making through an active experiential process.

(Johanson, 1996)

The basic principles underlying schooling in the Industrial Age, according to Jesse Goodman (Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 65, No.1, Spring 1995) were: social functionalism; efficiency and productivity; individualism; and expertism.
In today's Information Age, the skills required are: a) abstraction; b) system thinking; c) experimental thinking; and d) collaboration (Reich, 1992 & Martin, 1998).

Considering this and the fact that the Internet and particularly the Web could easily be considered the ultimate constructivist learning environment, tutors should be seen as knowledge builders and learners as apprentice knowledge builders going through "cognitive apprenticeships" (Means, 1994). The nature of the interaction in these environments leads to new paradigms for teaching and learning, with both unique problems of coordination and unique opportunities to support active, collaborative (group or team-based) learning.

Hence, tutoring online involves not only teaching and coaching but also producing learning resources together with students. This brings us in front of a number of issues which necessitate the acquisition and/or development of very different skills from the ones which are part of a f2f tutor's profile.

1. Considering that tutoring online involves organizing and supporting a virtual learning community, is it wrong to think that the role of the online tutor changes in its socio-political context? If power differential in a f2f class/group is de facto different from the one in an online community of learners and tutors, because of remoteness and lack of f2f contact, could it be that online tutors need to also be skillful community initiators/organisers as opposed to class/group/community leaders which is mostly, if not always, the case in f2f situations?

[http://chub.open.ac.uk/secure/bbs.jump.fcgi$msgnum=214;dbnum=80]
2. Individuals working together and mind weaving for learning in a community setting is what this medium can support best.

But our western learned culture often hinders/weakens our ability to collaborate, and this applies to both students and tutors alike. The universal learner's need, in times of constraint, for "a good teacher / tutor / motivator / mentor ..." in order to resume learning could be met by accepting that peer collaborative contributions might, as well, constitute good sources of motivation or mentoring. On the part of the tutor this means accepting and implementing the student-in-the-centre principles. [http://chub.open.ac.uk/secure/bbs.jump.fcgi$msgnum=289;dbnum=80]
3. Which brings us to an additional basic requirement in tele-tutoring which is the ability to make use of the medium for learning. I don't mean the technical skills required in order to handle the medium, but skills which are based on the acceptance of non-competitiveness. Tele-learning, i.e. distance online learning, brought us face to face with the necessity for a non-competitive environment within which learning could successfully occur. For most of us brought up in a competition oriented teaching/learning set up, this could even mean re-training. Non-competitive practices, when used in a f2f setting, have in fact been utilized to disguise competition rather than create a non-competitive environment for learning. Hence, non-competitive skills - such as the ability to collaborate - come to the fore in tele-learning/tutoring and emerge as the set of skills that need to be rediscovered, developed and refined. [http://chub.open.ac.uk/secure/bbs.jump.fcgi$msgnum=205;dbnum=80]

1. Judicious use of one's own personal qualities i.e. personality, presence, self-awareness, sensitivity, confidence, courtesy, patience, approachability.
Impact minimised online

2. The ability to establish & maintain rapport.
Severely reduced effect online

3. Understanding individual learners' motivation, needs, expectations, background, ability, learning style, culture, and responding to them.
Clues obscured online

4. Use of voice i.e. audibility, projection, modulation, speed, clarity of diction.
Becomes use of written word

5. Lesson preparation & planning showing awareness of level/ability, time of day, normal concentration curves, and anticipated learner difficulties which will influence timing, balance of activities, patterns of interaction, limitation of aims, choice of aids, materials and methods.
Online courses must prepare larger chunks at a time, therefore less easy to adapt to individual classes of learners; method and mode more restrictive

6. Classroom management i.e. organising physical resources, giving instructions, controlling changes of pace, grouping and activity.
Asynchronous online, students set own pace

7. Techniques for presenting material to make it clear, memorable, motivating and involving, checking learners' grasp of concept before moving on.
Relies wholly on written word online, hard to check understanding until after formal assessment

8. Questioning techniques that include and involve everyone.
Used sparingly online - questions hidden in debate, easier for students not to respond

9. Setting up logically sequenced and meaningful tasks, collaborative and individual, that aid learning.
Asynchronous collaboration is more time-consuming

10. Use of aids i.e. books, worksheets, board, pictures, objects, video, audio tapes, OHPs, IT.
Decidedly more technical online

11. Correction techniques - knowing when, how and what to correct.
Easier to do subtly online

12. Ability to adapt and extemporise, deal with the unexpected, have subject knowledge at your fingertips.
Online, can look things up, plan changes

13. Ability to create, evaluate, adapt and exploit course materials.
Online, poor materials cannot be compensated for by on the spot explanations or cleverly devised activities

14. Net weaving, ability to weave threads.
Often critical in an on-line environment

15. Protecting against information overload

16. Collaborative learning techniques.
The need to understand the benefits and limitations of collaborative learning techniques

17. Monitoring and directing student interaction appropriately.
The need to cope with "listening to all the conversations and maybe even different dinner parties that are going on at the same time" is one of the deepest skill levels peculiar to online tutoring.

18. Structuring peer feedback and evaluation of ideas

Conclusion

It may be the case that the role of future successful *tutors* won't be to simply facilitate or moderate, but to be the model learner able to demonstrate the ways learning is generated. This can even be read as: Generating learning through learning how to learn in a non-competitive environment [Msg #205].

REFERENCES

Bruffee, K. A. 1984 - Background and History to Collaborative Learning in American Colleges, College English, 46 (7), 635-652.

Collis, B. 1997 - Tele-learning in a Digital World, ISBN 1-85032-157-4 UK, pp.562-565

Gagne, R. M., Briggs, L., Wager, W. 1992 - Principles of Instructional Design, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.

Gray, S. 1997 - Training Teachers, Faculty Members, and Staff - in WBI, ISBN 0-87778-297-0 USA, pp. 329-331

Hiltz, Starr, R. 1994 - The Virtual Classroom: Learning Without Limits via Computer Networks, Norwood NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp., Human-computer Interaction Series.

Illich, I. 1970 - Deschooling Society, Harper & Row, 1970 (p. 19) http://www.nonoise.com/rebecca/books/illich.html & http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~s96305tk/deschool.html

Johanson, Terri L. EdD 1996, THE VIRTUAL COMMUNITY OF AN ONLINE CLASSROOM (Academic Research Study), Oregon State University - http://www.lucyonline.com/chap2.html

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1975) - Learning together and alone: Cooperation, Competition, and Individualization, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Johnson, David W. (January, 1981) - Student-student interaction: The neglected variable in education, Educational Research (pp. 5-10).

Martin, B. 1998 - THE EMERGENCE AND IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT, presentation to the Strategic Planning Society on 17 March 1998 - overhead acetates recorded by Professor D.S.Mercer of OUBS at http://oubs.open.ac.uk/future/debate

McConnell, D. 1994 - Implementing Computer Supported Cooperative Learning, ISBN 0-7494-1237-2 (Kogan Page, UK) [Up]

Means, B. 1994 - Technology and Education Reform, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco,1994

Pownall, H. 1998 - PhD. U of Leicester, UK - Authoring Assessments on the Web: The CASTLE Project in 1998 TCC ONLINE CONFERENCE "Online Instruction: Trends and Issues II" TCCOC98, http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/tcon98/paper/pownall.html & http://www.le.ac.uk/castle/

Reeves, T. & Reeves, P. 1997 - Effective Dimensions of Interactive Learning on the WEB - in Web-Based Instruction (WBI), ed. Khan, B. ISBN 0-87778-297-0 USA, p. 64 [Up]

Reich, R. 1992 - The Work of Nations, Vintage, 1992, 0-679-73615-8 

Copyright © 1998 Yannis Karaliotas