Capturing and Sharing Professional Practice on Mediating Live Online Tutorial Sessions: a Case Study from Hibernia College

This case-study is set within the context of a new online Masters Programme for teachers within Hibernia College, the Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning (MATL). It explores how tutors and students interact using synchronous computer mediated conferencing (SCMC) technologies during live tutorial sessions. The study found that students and tutors did not have an agreed set of ground rules for these online events and thus there was a need for a signature pedagogy to clarify this. It was observed, using the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) and tutor interviews, that the level of interaction during these tutorials was predominantly teacher led with little evidence of student voice. The study developed a toolkit to allow tutors engage in professional practice discussions. The toolkit is designed to enable tutors to reflect on their tutorial practice. Using a cyclical process tutors can capture, codify and analyse their existing knowledge with a view to developing more student-centred tutorials. This paper focuses on the use of FIAC to code and analyse an online live tutorial and how this information can then be used to inform a tutor’s professional development practice. Introduction There is a growing belief that technology can transform higher education (HE) by reducing costs and catering for larger student numbers (Bowen, 2013). The rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has helped fuel this discussion and many universities are now considering the role of technology in teaching, learning and assessment. The internet plays a key role in helping to redefine teaching, learning and assessment in HE and in providing new ways for teachers to interact with their learners. One technology that is beginning to attract quite a lot of attention is synchronous computer mediated conferencing (SCMC). The range of SCMC technologies has grown in recent years and they have their origins in computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies that facilitate “communication that takes place between human beings via the instrumentality of computers” (Herring, 1996, p. 1 in Rosell-Aguillar, 2007, p. 81). Such communication can be asynchronous (e.g. via email, message boards etc.) or synchronous. When used initially, synchronous CMC was limited primarily to text chat but it now includes both audio and video conferencing. Today there is a growing list of SCMC technologies, such as Adobe Connect, Blackboard Collaborate, Elluminate and Lync, which allow teachers and learners to interact in ‘virtual’ classrooms. Typically these interactions are scheduled in advance so that students and teachers can attend at the same time (Hyder et al., 2007). In the context of transforming or reinventing higher education there is now a growing hype around the use of technology (Kirkwood and Price, 2014 and Bayne, 2015) and in particular SCMC. Some researchers believe that SCMC technologies contain the “natural conditions for interaction, especially between the student and teacher and often among students” (Bernard, 2009, p. 1247) while others claim that “while certainly being a great deal of fun, [the SCMC HIGHER EDUCATION IN TRANSFORMATION – DUBLIN 2015 PAGE | 330 technology] does not lend itself to a deep, complex discussion because it is too hectic" (Bender, 2012, p. 177). Though there has been significant research on the use of asynchronous or CMC technologies (Gunawardena et al., 1997; Vrasidas, and McIsaac, 1999; Heejung et al., 2009; Abrami et al., 2011; Bain, 2011; Blanchette, 2011 and Zheng and Spires, 2011) there has been limited research on the use of SCMC technologies in higher education settings (Buckingham Shum et al., 2001; Price, Richardson and Jelfs, 2007; and Bender, 2012). It is worth remembering that “as with many digital technologies this type of “remote meeting” environment was developed for business, not education” (Laurillard, 2012; p. 156) and there is a need to explore what is going on in these spaces and to better understand the quality of interaction that is taking place. Using such technologies should support learning through discussion not learning through acquisition where tutors and learners interacted and constructed knowledge together (Ibid). This study explores the level of interaction that took place between tutors and students during a series of live online tutorial events. The study is focused on capturing and analyzing tutor practice in a new online Masters programme for teachers, the Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning (MATL), which began in late 2009. Study Setting The MATL was a modular programme with each module consisting of 10 prerecorded lessons. It was entirely offered online and the students were all practicing teachers who accessed the programme from home. Over the course of a module, a lesson was released weekly and students had access to it via the Hibernia College virtual learning environment (VLE). Each lesson consisted of three core components: the tutor created lesson content; an asynchronous forum; and a live tutorial, as depicted in Figure 1 below. The tutors worked with a team of instructional designers to create the prerecorded lesson content and it was the central component of each lesson. Secondly, each lesson was associated with an online forum where students posted their thoughts and views on questions and issues the tutor had initiated and thirdly students were encouraged to attend a weekly online synchronous tutorial. The tutorial was scheduled in the student’s calendar. These ‘live’ events brought the tutor and his/her students together online for approximately 60 minutes each week. Attendance at such events was not mandatory and they were described as events where students and tutors would have an opportunity to ‘unpack’ the pre-recorded lesson content. The purpose of these events was to provide students with an opportunity to interrogate the pre-recorded lesson content and engage in discussion with the tutor and with each other. HIGHER EDUCATION IN TRANSFORMATION – DUBLIN 2015 PAGE | 331 Figure 1, Components of MATL Lesson When I was appointed MATL Course Director in 2010, I surveyed approximately 30 students on their perceived expectations and experiences of the live online tutorial component of the programme. I noted a lack of student interaction in the tutorials and that the tutor role was often too dominant in such events. The survey revealed that students appeared to have mixed views on the purpose of the events, as captured in Table 1. Table 1. Purpose of the MATL Online Tutorial Tutorial Purpose Percentage Opportunity for the tutor to present new content 57% Opportunity for the tutor to revise content presented in the recorded session 93% Opportunity for students to raise questions and discuss the lesson content 100% Opportunity for students to work in small groups 20% Opportunity for students to present their work to