Online Student Support

Extended abstract for OCL 2022 (Virtual conference 1-3 Nov 2022)

This paper seeks to show the importance and relevance of supplementing student-teacher interactions on Moodle with WhatsApp messages. Data will be used from the COTE - Certificate in Online Teaching for Educators - programne which trained 300+ participants in Eswatini in 2022. This fully online course, taken over six weeks, contains the following four modules accessible on the University of Eswatini’s Moodle platform: Designing and developing online learning courses, Creating digital learning materials, Developing online facilitation skills, and Creating authentic online assessment. Different types of discourse are used on the WhatsApp application, much more than on the Moodle platform. These include words of encouragement and motivation, clarification of instructions, technical assistance, but also humour and reminders of activities to be completed. The poster will give an overview of the main differences between the types of discourse used on both learning environment and propose possible reasons for such differences.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a new reality to the field of education, causing a digital transformation overnight in order to be able to pursue teaching and learning from a distance (Mladenova et al., 2020). Not only did the COVID19 pandemic make learning online a reality for students, OECD recognised that online learning had also become a reality for teachers as a means for professional development (Reimers et al., 2020). However, not all education systems and teachers were ready for this shift to online teaching and learning. In most countries, educators had – and continue to have - limited digital skills and experience of online teaching and learning. In the Kingdom of Eswatini too, the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the education system and its stakeholders.

The COTE – Certificate in Online Teaching for Educators – programme

During the pandemic, the rapid and mainly unplanned transition to emergency remote teaching compelled educators to adopt pedagogical activities enriched by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), regardless of whether they were prepared or not. Well into the pandemic, in 2022, we can no longer afford to undertake these activities without proper planning, design and development. The question that begs to be answered then becomes: How can a university assist when it comes to teacher CPD? Liu (2012) noted that “university-based TPD programs can stimulate and help sustain online communities by providing access to content and pedagogical knowledge, and a certain measure of technical leadership”.

The COTE programme aims at skilling, up-skilling and re-skilling of a variety of stakeholders in the education sector. As indicated previously, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed gaps in knowledge and skills regarding online teaching. The COTE programme is housed and delivered on Moodle. The COTE programme uses the Moodle Learning Management Systems (LMS) as a fully-fledged teaching and learning environment, and no longer as a mere critical tool in Emergency Response Teaching (ERT) amid an absence of instructional design principles among faculty and challenges with access on the part of students (Dlamini & Ndzinisa, 2020). In addition, quite extensive use is made of WhatsApp. It is anticipated that WhatsApp in particular will be useful when it comes to building a community of inquiry/practice (CoP) that continues to grow after the end of the 6-week course. As noted by Kaur (2021), for successful teaching and learning, educators should provide regular and timely feedback and guidance through Moodle’s chat function and other systems like group emails/chats such as WhatsApp. In a kind of train-the-trainers course such as COTE, which provides training to educators via Moodle, and is supported by communication via WhatsApp, ensures that these educators, in turn, use similar strategies with their own learners following the training.

Development of the COTE programme

The development of the COTE programme from design to implementation and evaluation went as follows. After a brainstorming session within the Institute of Distance Education and the identification of the development team members, the COTE design and development started in earnest with a design workshop, sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning and facilitated by a SAIDE (South African Institute of Distance Education) staff member. The three-day face-to-face workshop allowed the team to build on its initial design ideas of having four modules, delivered fully online, over a four-week period, focusing on skills’ development in the areas of designing and developing online courses and programmes, integrating ICT and multimedia through the development of digital teaching and learning resources, facilitating online, and assessing online. The workshop allowed the team – comprising of already experienced online facilitators for the most part – to re-examine online learning theories and principles in addition to adapting OER in the field of online teaching (e.g. COL’s C-Delta modules).

This initial phase was followed by an intense two-month writing period in small teams (two per module) with regular Zoom meetings to discuss challenges, successes and progress. The IDE quality assurance officer was on standby to assist with checklists (what should be included in an online course) and advice. All team members could look at the different modules and propose amendments. Before the COTE programme went into a one-month piloting phrase, the modules were edited for language, and submitted to external parties for vetting (COL and the face-to-face workshop facilitator). Below is Table 1 showing the different modules and their content.

Eleven pilot participants were purposely identified, five from within the University of Eswatini and six from schools in different regions of the country. The purpose of the composition of the sample was to include educators who work at different levels (primary, secondary and tertiary) of the Eswatini educational sector. They were all enrolled on Moodle, for each module, and on WhatsApp. Some had used Moodle before, many had not. Most had little experience, either as a teacher or as a student of online learning. The four modules had two facilitators each (who had also been the module developers and as such were able to step into the task easily as they already knew the content matter well). Interaction was observed and a debriefing Zoom meeting was held after each week (i.e. each module).

The modules were developed in line with research which emphasised that CPD programmes have to be evaluated so that better decisions are made about the programme (Guskey, 2000; Hansen and Rush, 2008; Joyce and Shower, 2002; Killion, 2002). Evaluation involves asking questions and gathering information about the programme, drawing conclusions and making recommendations. A comprehensive report on the COTE pilot study was produced and disseminated among the facilitators. This, in turn, then helped the module developers to revisit and further improve the four modules. Examining the attainment of the set goals and objectives (Hansen and Rush, 2008; Swanson et al., 1997) is essential and is done through evaluation tools specifically designed for a particular programme, which, in the case of the COTE programme, was done internally by the Research and Evaluation officer of IDE who was involved in the different design and development steps, from the beginning.

The overall evaluation of the COTE programme was highly positive: respondents, both internal and external, reported discovering that the course boosted their confidence in communicating and teaching in an online setting. Generally, participants were very satisfied with the COTE short course. Their feedback comments shed light on some of the aspects they appreciated and areas where adjustments were needed. One of the main suggestions they made was to allow more time for each module. The adjustment from four weeks to six weeks in total was made. The pilot participants also noted the importance of facilitators’ presence (teaching presence). The module authors met, discussed the pilot findings and incorporated additional activities and interaction opportunities to respond to the suggestions made by the pilot participants.

Limited marketing on social media and fast word of mouth in January 2022 had an impressive result. A total of 421 people applied and 402 were admitted by February 2022. This quick action by applicants indicates that the COTE programme addresses the need of the Eswatini society for skills in the field of online teaching. The course has been delivered in groups/cohorts of 50. We have deliberately kept the number of participants per cohort low, so that individual attention could be given to the participants. Of note is the diversity of applicants, from PhD-holders to inexperienced (and sometimes unemployed) newly graduated teachers with a Diploma in Education.

Student-student and student-teacher interactions on Moodle and WhatsApp

This sections will detail the interactions on Moodle and WhatsApp between students and between students and teachers (facilitators, e-tutor, technical team), in addition to briefly explaining the theoretical underpinnings of both learning environments and how these allow for different types of interactions and discourse used, be it cognitive (cognitive and teacher presence) and/or emotional/social (social presence).

Conclusion

My conclusion will show how using two different ‘learning environments’ each with its own (dis)advantages gives added value to an online training course for educators, especially when it comes to student/participant support.