Online instructors’ roles and their impact in the students’ development of professional skills, their understanding, and construction of knowledge within a problem-solving and collaborative approach to learning. By Mauricio Miraglia - 2002

ORL 5521 Introduction to Research Methods in Education
Professor David Cheng
Final Research Proposal
By Mauricio Miraglia Nov 2002, New York

Introduction
During approximately 6 months -April to September 2002- 1,311 high-school Math teachers -44% of all the math teachers in the country- (Quiroz & Oteiza, 2002) participated in the first large-scale online teacher training program in Chile, Funciones, sponsored by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and implemented by a multidisciplinary team, composed of Fundacion Chile’s Department of Education, Universidad de Santiago’s Comenius and G&P Educational Consultants. One salient issue of Funciones was that of the role of online instructors referred to as “mentors” within Funciones’ collaborative web based learning environment. These mentors were to facilitate and mediate interactions amongst the course participants, the contents, content designers, administrators, and the course management platform. As important as their role was, mentors’ practices often needed to be discussed and redefined as the course progressed. Emerging technologies pose a challenge to redefine teaching and learning practices. Mentors’ roles have not yet been clearly defined in the literature and there is a need to reflect on existing online teaching standards and build a set of competencies upon which these mentors can ground their role and engender more effective learning experiences for online participants. It is crucial to investigate online instructors’ roles and the impact these roles can have in the students’ understanding, development of professional skills and their construction of knowledge within a problem-solving and collaborative approach to learning.
This paper aims at exploring on the online instructors’ competencies that can significantly impact collaboration and increased task-based communication among online students. By presenting this proposal, it is expected to contribute in the building of a theoretical framework based upon consistent scientific findings. This research-based framework could better inform today’s mentors’ practices and could also illuminate the current debate within organizations in Chile and abroad currently implementing online distance learning programs for adult learners within the field of continuing education and professional development within a constructivist - collaborative paradigm to e-learning.

Literature Review

From distance learning to virtual education

Distance learning has a long tradition from correspondence courses in the 1800s, television, and early web-based courses in the early 1980s, yet current computer, media and network technologies have given birth to a fourth generation of distance learning known as E-learning or virtual education as posed by Dr. Peter J Dirr (Farrell,1999). These current technologies allow students to work in a collaborative environment defined by the literature as “communities of learners [who] work together in projects and learning agendas, supporting and learning from one another, as well as from the environment.” (Wilson, 1996) These technologies have challenged traditional notions of knowledge shifting from a positivistic tradition focused solely on content to a constructivist perspective that focuses on the understanding and using of information in order to solve real-world problems. (Duffy and Jonassen, 1992) This shift has at the same time challenged our old models of what teachers and students are to do in a learning environment.

Issues on collaborative learning and instructors’ roles

Teachers and students’ models have been called for a change to become active and interdependent constructors of knowledge as life long learners. Vigotskian views have contributed to define web-based learning environments as situated and interdependent, that is, environments where learning is embedded in rich complex real-world environments, predominantly geared towards building communities of practice, where “people come together because they are able to identify with something -a need, common shared goal and identity” (Hung & Chen, 2001). Hung and Cheng define web based learning interdependency as an opportunity for learners to dialog with peers as well as experts on various needs, levels of expertise, perspectives and opinions. In this sense online instructors are to give up traditional roles of lecturing and serving as the ultimate source of information in order to let multiple interactions take place amongst participants, guest lecturers, and experts often far from the instructors and students own geographical locations. Many instructors could think of this notion as a threat to traditional modes of teaching where the experts equaled their own presence and the belief of “giving knowledge” sustained their practices. As stated in the report The Development of Virtual Education (1999)
“The use of technology can be threatening to the self-perception of teachers if it causes them to lose their sense of control in any way. Because the constructivist learning environment implies that the teacher is no longer the central authority, the combination of constructivism and technology requires a dramatic change in traditional teaching.” (Feyten & Joyce, 1999)

Research on collaborative environment suggests that learning is facilitated by participation, sense of ownership upon projects, increased mutual trust, group cohesion (boundaries), social and task-oriented communication, social presence, pertinent choice of anonymity, and effective monitoring (Wang et. al., 2001) It seems to be the online instructors’ role to secure that these conditions operate in the actual environment for effective learning. Technology facilitates this collaboration as it
“Connects individuals electronically via the Internet using tools such as email, or through access to sites on the World Wide Web. This Internet-based work allows collaborators to communicate anytime, from anywhere to any place. People from different parts of a building, state, country, or continent can exchange information, collaborate on shared documents and ideas, study together, or reflect on their own practices.” (Weets, 1997)

Issues on self-directed learning and instructors’ roles

From an adult education perspective, and as suggested by Knowles and other adult educators perhaps the most salient characteristic in adult learners is that of a growing self-directedness in the learning process (Merriam, 1999). Adults become responsible of their own learning, generating their own questions and making answers that trigger collaboration and change in the community where they belong. Self-direction also seems to have a significant impact in the ultimate transfer of problem solving skills as suggested by Mayer (Reigeluth, 1999) who identifies skill, meta-skill and will as prerequisites for such a transfer. Adult learners’ self-direction associates with their will and motivation in order to accomplish their goals. Hence the complexity of the online instructors in order to give guidance and facilitation promoting social construction of knowledge and interaction yet at the same time allowing students to solidify their own sense of self-direction for what they are learning.

Issues of assessment in collaborative e-learning environments

Funciones, the Chilean online learning experience this proposal is based upon, builds its formative assessment standards around the students’ construction of portfolios and implements a summative assessment approach by having students submit projects at the end of each unit along with assessing the online students’ participation. Assessment in collaborative environments is conceived as dynamic in the sense that it allows feedback from all participants involved in the learning process. In addition, according to Schwartz, (Lajoie, 2000) “dynamic assessments can elicit information about learning preparedness or learning potential and also about instructional resources particularly effective for an individual.” From this perspective assessment tools and practices allow learners and the learning environment to better interact with each other according to the learners’ goals, needs and interests. Dynamic assessment provides guidance for initial and further implementation of resources in the system and feedback for improved performance for learners as well as online instructors.

Competencies and online tools

The International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction -an international authority in online training development- has put forward a set of competencies believed to be applied to the case of online instructors in order to seek not only high quality virtual education programs but also -in a more pragmatic view- a trend towards the certification of those involved as online instructors. Competencies as defined by the IBSTPI are “knowledge, skills, or attitudes that enable one to effectively perform the activities of a given occupation or function to the standards expected in employment.” (http://www.ibstpi.org/competencies.htm) Although these competencies are in a revision process and a new outline will be published later this year, they shape part of the operational definitions in conjunction with emergent technology applications and the tools available at Funciones through its course management platform.

Research Questions / Hypotheses
Although the first version of Funciones is over at the time of this proposal, the question of clarifying the online instructors’ role and studying their impact in the application of collaborative learning principles remains. Also the debate within instructional designers and administrators as well as instructors themselves continues. Therefore this study aims at clarifying the extent to which instructors’ competencies can significantly impact collaboration and increased task-based communication among online students. It is hoped to implement this research project in the next version of Funciones, in the year 2003. The assumption relates to whether a more defined set of online instructors’ competencies will be favor collaboration and task-based communication for students to engage in their actual practices. Indicators of those competencies as well as clear examples of collaboration and task-based communication need to be measured and correlated in order to complete this proposal. The competencies measured in this study are operationalized as follows:
1. Analyzing course materials and learner information.
2. Assuring preparation of the instructional site.
3. Managing the learning environment.
4. Demonstrating effective communication skills.
5. Demonstrating effective presentation skills.
6. Demonstrating effective questioning skills and techniques.
7. Responding appropriately to learners’ needs for clarification or feedback.
8. Providing positive reinforcement and motivational incentives.
9. Using technology effectively.
10. Evaluating learner performance.
11. Evaluating delivery of instruction.
12. Reporting evaluation information.
(IBSTPI website)

 

For each of these competencies, the following environment constraints, considered as manifestations of electronic collaboration tools will be correlated:
1-Asynchronous communication tools: threaded discussion forums and emails
2-Synchronous communication tools: chats and video conferencing
3-Document sharing tools: files uploads, files downloads, files exchange.

A categorization of the online instructors’ communicative actions to measure in each instance of exchange reads as follows:
Instructor is setting a positive tone
Instructor is nurturing conversation
Instructor is allowing time for reflection
Instructor is encouraging replies amongst students
Instructor is giving “seed messages”, triggering discussions
Instructor is reflecting sensitivity to individual or group contingencies
Instructor is avoiding sidetracked arguments
Instructor is dealing with technical glitches
Instructor is evaluating students’ progress based on performance
Instructor is giving sense of closure / completion of tasks and subtasks.
(Adams, 1999)
Methodology