A paper written by Darryl Meekins of the North-West University (South Africa) and Erica Vail of Purdue University describes an online student support model based on experiential learning involving the creation of a mentor role, a large emphasis on supporting the “whole person", and the strategic use of virtual office hours.
In 2014, a Gallup-Purdue index report showed that “If graduates recalled having a professor who cared about them as a person, a professor who made them excited about learning, and a mentor who encouraged them to pursue their dreams, their odds of being engaged at work more than doubled, as did their odds of thriving in all aspects of their well-being” (2014). In the same study, only 22% of students reported having a college mentor. The students in this study were on the university’s campus. It is widely known that the percentage of online students who have a mentor is even lower.
Many educators agree that mentoring is important, and many institutions of higher education strongly allude to mentoring in their value statements, but delivering mentoring virtually often presents challenges. For starters, nearly 45% of chief academic officers report that it takes more time and effort for faculty to teach an online course than it does a face-to-face one (Allen & Seaman, 2013). There is often a challenge of mentoring not being scaleable. A large body of educational research suggests that large class sizes produce lower student outcomes, yet many online classes are high enrollment. This makes it very difficult for mentoring to occur. In this session, based on a paper written in conjunction with Dr. Darryl Meekins of North-West University (South Africa), I offer potential solutions for overcoming such challenges. The paper utilizes the heuristic offered by Osmer (2008) which is centered around answering four key diagnostic questions when investigating a problem or concern, namely: “1) What is going on?” (the descriptive question), 2) “Why is it going on? “(the interpretive question) , 3) “What ought to be going on?” (the normative question) and “How might we respond?” (the strategic question). This approach has thus been applied to the overarching theme of online student mentoring.
The paper suggests that learning is a relationship and, without significant relationships in the online classroom, the quality of the learning experience suffers. The paper proposes an idea of an identifiable role, separate from the instructor or teaching assistant, in online courses. The goal of this role is to build a holistic relationship with students and create a space whereby this would afford students the opportunity to discuss matters related to their career and academic success as well as other aspects of their lives. The paper presupposes that there is value in students having a mentor that is concerned with the “whole person” including cognitive, social, physical, and spiritual health. The mentor role will be defined and thoughts for how the role differs from an academic advisor or an instructor will be discussed. Frequency of mentoring sessions and andrological strategies for holding mentoring sessions, such as the use of Socratic questioning, will be covered.
While student retention is one reason to be intentional about expanding mentoring services to the online student population, the idea of transformative education is, arguably, just as important. Providing a context for learning is what makes learning authentic. By encouraging experiential learning, mentors help bring to life the idea of teaching and learning for life change. Experiential learning helps students make connections between course material and real-world scenarios. Further, we suggest that critical reflection enhances student learning. Strategic mentoring assists students in the metacognitive skills needed in order to reflect, critique and improve on their learning, which is perhaps a lost art in the digital age. We also suggest that by re-humanizing the disembodied context of digital learning, we offer students a new and improved “best of both worlds” scenario to bridge the gap between the brick and mortar institution and the online learning space.
In a more practical sense, this paper will also suggest ideas about mentoring in online courses, good practices for virtual office hours, and other student support resources that can be embedded into courses. Technology that makes this possible will also be discussed. In addition to covering the strategies detailed in the paper, an example of how virtual office hours are being used in online course at Purdue University will be showcased. If time permits, the Q&A portion of the session will prompt attendees to share their thoughts and expand on the ideas within this in-progress work.