1. Working Online
Tutor skills for handling online chats, discussions & content.
Encouraging online
participation / motivation
Tutor skills for handling
synchronous and
asynchronous work
online
Sample rubric(s) that give
rationales for course
design decisions

2. Encouraging Online Participation
& Motivation

3. Encouraging Online
Participation & Motivation
• Use pre-course questionnaire and communicate
expectations clearly.
• Well staged tasks with in detail information
including assignments, due dates and resources
set a positive attitude.
• Use a variety of media with different group
interactions.

4. Encouraging Online
Participation & Motivation
• Design meaningful high quality
tasks that seem reachable but
challenging
• Too many tasks in a module,
might make them feel
frustrated and it can
demotivate participants.
• Offer choices to learners
different students learn in
different ways

5. Encouraging Online
Participation & Motivation
• Feedback
impacts
• Inspire learners motivation.
• Give students falling behind to Include both
move on in strengths and
• Encourage the benefit of weaknesses in
learners to the doubt , don’t positive manner. easy to
evaluate jump to understand
their own conclusions comments.
progress

6. Encouraging Online
Participation & Motivation
• Use participants’ reflections to improve
your future courses and tasks.
• Create a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere
in the course.
• Develop a good relationship with the
learners. Create a Café or Common room
to encourage students to socialise.
• Create private channels to spot students’
frustration

7. Encouraging Online
Participation & Motivation
relies on having a good guide
that is actively present, offering feedback and
creating ways to make participants contribute
and socialise with each other.

8. Synchronous and
Asynchronous Work Online
• Set a code of conduct or Netiquette rules
for all participants to follow.
• Set tasks to promote collaboration and
encourage all students to participate.
• Praise the dominators participation but
point out that all should have a voice.
• If issues arise, be prepared to step in and
deal with them straight away.
• Keep students on task .

9. Synchronous and
Asynchronous Work Online
Synchronous Asynchronous
• Use it when you want an instant • Use it when learners need time to
response . prepare what you're going to say.
• When a message is not enough. • When difficult for participants to be
• It’s important for participants to see and available at the same time.
hear each other. • Use email when is important that
• Like in any meeting ,it needs to have a everyone gets the message.
purpose and a timeframe. • If you require a written record of your
• Set rules for communication. E.g. the message.
procedures to follow to make a • When delivering sensitive information,
comment. use the phone or better meet in person
• Ask questions directly to quiet when possible.
participants. • Create group tasks to encourage
• Summarise outcomes at each stage of students to start their own threads
the discussion. • Summarising and weaving at the end of
• Be aware that the technology can fail. each discussion will make it clear that it
Have a plan B for when this happens. is closed.

10. Synchronous and
Asynchronous Work Online
A tutor can play a useful role
in ensuring that synchronous
and asynchronous discussion
facilities are used effectively.

11. Rubrics for Online Learning
• Use rubrics to make grading easier
and to clarify expectations for the
student.
• Establish peer feedback activities
using rubrics or checklists to
provide an opportunity for
students to revise and improve
assignments before final
submission to the dropbox.
(Time Management Strategies for Online Instructors
–
http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/profdev/rubrics/t
ime_management.html)

12. Rubrics for Online Learning
Guidelines
• Rubrics should be easy for teachers to use, and
easy for students to understand. Along with clear
instructions of any given task, they give students
something to aim for.
• When possible, they should be adaptable with
the possibility of adding (or omitting) categories
or band scores when necessary.
• They should come with clear guidance for use
(e.g. suggests key features that may be typical of
a certain band score for each construct to be
assessed).

13. Rubrics for Online Learning
Sample Rubric for Conference Chat Activity
Participation Language Chat Punctuality*
Interventions
Excellent: Full Fully Coherent 8+ Early Bird
participation
Very Good: Minor lapses that do 5-8 On time
Demonstrates not affect message
willingness to
participate
Adequate: Keeps up Generally clear 3-5 Late-ish
with chat, despite some (1-5 minutes)
demonstrates some instances of
willingness to incoherence
participate.
Interacts only when Often difficult to Less than 3 Late (5-20
prompted sporadic understand/or not minutes)
participation sufficient language
produced
No Relevant Limited language None Better late
participation than never (20
minutes +)

14. Rubrics for Online Learning
Chat Rubric Rationale
• Part of the aim of this rubric would be
to motivate participation. Marks for
punctuality encourage participants to
log on early. Chat interventions &
participation show how they can pick
up bonus points (or gain the bare
minimum). Language explains that they
are not expected to communicate
perfectly and that clarity of message is
the key (should reduce any language
anxiety)
• For this particular task an extra element
could be Number of Questions
Prepared, especially if this were a
requirement of the chat as per the one
we participated in.

15. Rubrics for Online Learning
Chat Rubric Rationale
• A follow up activity requesting
that students edit their own
participation from the Chat
Script document and mail it to
the moderator could as a form
of self-assessed reflection.
• The rubric should also serve in
the establishing of clear
expectations.

16. REFERENCES
• Engagement and Motivation in online courses, COFA online UNSW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Dv
JuzE-g7OM
• Claudia Jordan Building Motivation into Online Education
http://www.train2do.com/moodle/pluginfile.php/38650/mod_reso
urce/content/0/jordan_motivation.pdf
• Dornyei and Csizer ‘Ten Commandments for motivating language
learners: results of an empirical study’ 1999 Language Teaching
research.
• http://www.fastrakconsulting.co.uk/tactix/Features/realtime/realti
me.htm
• Time Management Strategies for Online Instructors
http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/profdev/rubrics/time_managem
ent.html
• Contributions made by all the participants of the current e-
moderators course.
http://www.train2do.com/moodle/course/view.php?id=235