Recurso Humano: a) Personal Profesional:

Recurring themes in terms of the pedagogical needs of lecturers for online moderation/facilitation included e-moderating skills, pedagogical rationale and digital literacies.

E-moderating skills

As the question was about the required knowledge for online moderation and

facilitation, e-moderating skills were the most popular recurring theme. These skills, as described by HeLs, included student induction and support, guiding, prompting, summarising, community building and engaging students online, starting a

discussion, knowing when to intervene, prompting non-participating students, dealing with disruptive students, communicating with students and understanding their expectations, monitoring their progress, enabling students’ collaboration, usability and knowing how to structure online activities.

127 Robert’s response, for instance, focused on students’ induction to the environment

and the learning activity and facilitating a discussion around it:

They should know how to induct students into the environment and into the learning activity itself; they should know how to start off a discussion around it, intervene when necessary and know when to step back and they should also be aware of the tone of the remarks they make, how to prompt students who don’t participate (Robert).

Carl mentioned a few aspects of online moderation/facilitation including student induction and student support, the use of assessment as a learning activity but also the need to enable students’ collaboration as well as to monitor students’

performance:

So we want to get them thinking everything from student induction, student support, thinking through how assessment can be used as a learning activity; to think through how will students collaborate, how is that going to take place; how you are going to monitor student performance and how are you going to monitor student engagement and therefore how you are going to support those students if they are having difficulties with the materials (Carl).

These e-moderating skills mentioned by HeLs are covered by Salmon’s five stage model on e-moderation which is discussed in the literature review chapter. Salmon’s model was mentioned as an example of good moderation by Christina:

I think Gilly Salmon’s e-moderating is probably the best, simple way of

expressing it; that sort of pyramid building having a baseline of technical skills and then be able to build and understand how to use the facilities available in the online learning system at more sophisticated levels and be able to move into make an intervention, when to prompt, when to summarise (Christina).

Furthermore, Derek mentioned that they are using an adapted version of Salmon’s model at their institution for staff development:

128 College Wales’ project, to provide us with guidance and to license us to use

her model of e-moderating as a fundamental principle. Now we’ve adapted it and used it and changed it, using the 5-stage model as a principle (Derek).

Some HeLs emphasised the fact that e-facilitation skills are better modelled than taught and that as part of the training in online moderation and facilitation, lecturers should experience online learning as students:

Well, we offer an online course for staff about online facilitation where they get experience of the challenges of online facilitation, how you gain

engagement, how you build a community and those things aren’t necessarily that different than face to face but you have to do it more consciously I think. We talked about things like language that might be used, how to deal with a difficult student who might be quite disruptive, or how to deal with students who aren’t participating, how to ensure that you set things up in a way that will help people find the discussion in a logical or easy way and how you as a facilitator make sure it doesn’t become ‘they ask a question you answer it’, and how to get them to talk to each other (Ben).

To do it effectively, I strongly believe they need to have experienced it as a student, because they come in with a set of expectations, and most of them, I think the vast majority of them, have never been part of a structured online activity and simulation (Alan).

I think that they need training in that because in my experience staff are not very familiar with it if they have never experienced it themselves or gone through it. It’s not what staff necessarily understand without any training, you know, the ways to keep an online forum, an online discussion going, would be quite different to the way members of staff has been taught in the past. What we are trying to do is to model in some of our training courses, some of our accredited teaching courses, staff to get experience from the other side, as staff are students in those courses (Diane).

It became apparent that e-moderating skills include a wide range of skills that need to be mastered in order for the students to engage with their learning in an online

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environment. It is worth noting that these skills need to be gained experientially according to HeLs but also according to Salmon’s e-moderating model which has been discussed extensively in the literature review chapter.

On top of these e-moderating skills, effective online facilitation requires a sound pedagogical rationale according to HeLs.

Pedagogical rationale

The need for a pedagogical rationale and knowledge of constructivist pedagogical theories was emphasised by Karina who added that most academics are still holding onto an instructional pedagogy of content delivery and tend to replicate that online. The need to get academics away from thinking that online teaching is purely about content and their need to focus on student induction, support and student

collaboration was reported by Carl too:

I think the things that lecturers need to know is the pedagogical theory that they are employing to achieve the learning they want to achieve in the students. I think most academics are still holding onto an instructional pedagogy of content delivery and when they move to an online learning environment they tend to replicate that (Karina).

I think the first thing is that you have to get them away from thinking that online teaching is purely about content, ‘get the content right and everything else will be fine’ (Carl).

In-depth understanding of constructivism and social constructivism was also the key to effective online facilitation according to Ken. Pedagogical understandings were important according to Lisa too:

There are the pedagogical understandings which are required for all kinds of teaching and they are still the same whether you’re teaching with technology or not (Lisa).

130 They need to know how to structure an online activity and be able to articulate to students in clear terms what the targeted learning should look like, what the outcomes are (Robert).

The academics have to be really clear about setting out what you are setting out to achieve (Sam).

According to Malcolm, one needed to know the basics of the VLE and have the ability to use the Internet in an interactive way, having conversations with the students. Alan pointed out that the alignment of learning activities with assessment and feedback was crucial in terms of online facilitation.

The need of a pedagogical rationale includes knowledge of learning theories, which have been briefly described in the literature review chapter, and also familiarity with learning design which enables teachers to make more informed decisions when designing activities, courses or curricula making effective use of appropriate

resources and technologies. In order to use technology appropriately, staff need to be digitally literate which is a theme discussed next.

Digital literacies

The digital literacies of academic staff was another recurring theme in terms of HeLs’ perceptions about staff needs for effective online moderation and facilitation. These needs, according to the HeLs, included competent use of technology to support specific learning goals, the use of social media and understanding online identities:

We try to ensure that they would know the basics of using the VLE, using information for students and ensuring that our curriculum has an online presence (Malcolm).

So I do think they need training in understanding what that environment requires, what the perspectives are (Diane).

Also I think digital literacy; having really high levels of competency with technology. It’s a different set of skills to being in the classroom. I think one of

131 the things that we suffer with quite often, is an assumption that you can just

transfer classroom skills into an online environment. You’ve mentioned the most important one which is about communications; I think these types of skills. You can never assume anything with an online environment, because you don’t know when people have joined or leave, or which materials they may have read and understood (Sam).

As part of that it’s also about building online identities. I think this is

something that I know that many of our colleagues have issues with, in terms of where does your professional identity and your personal identity begin and end I suppose, when you’re online with students. So we’re working with staff to help them understand the differences in how they present themselves, in an online environment, particularly now through social media (Lisa).

It is worth noting that ‘digital literacy’ intersects with the pedagogy and e-

moderating skills mentioned above; Alan, for instance, mentioned that finding the right tool based on learning outcomes and model is important. This was also evident in Malcolm’s and Lisa’s responses:

We try then to make them (academic staff) use the internet in an interactive way, so actually having conversations using social media, developing digital literacy with their students (Malcolm).

They need to have the digital literacy skills, to understand how they can most effectively use various environments to support learning and teaching. It might be through the core university VLE, but increasingly they have to know a bit more about what they can do with the VLE, and how they can engage students, so being able to tutor online, to be able to interact effectively with students in an online environment (Lisa).

Christina mentioned that baseline technical skills were the foundation of effective online moderation:

Having a baseline of technical skills and then be able to build and understand how to use the facilities available in the online learning system at more

132 sophisticated levels and be able to move into make an intervention, when to

prompt, when to summarise.

The importance of being ‘digitally literate’ has been recognised by JISC as they invested 1.5 million on their ‘Developing Digital Literacies’ programme which involved 12 FE and HE UK institutions and was supported by 11 sector bodies and professional associations (JISC Developing Digital Literacies Programme 2013). Digital literacies are wider than skills and include those capabilities necessary for living, learning and working in a digital society:

By digital literacy we mean those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society: for example, the skills to use digital tools to undertake academic research, writing and critical thinking; as part of personal development planning; and as a way of showcasing achievements (JISC Developing Digital Literacies, 2013).

This evidence shows that, according to HeLs, online moderating skills and pedagogical rationale coupled with digital literacy skills in general is of crucial importance for effective online moderation and facilitation. Furthermore, it shows that some of the participating HeLs are strongly in favour of developing practices based on constructivism and social constructivism.