Participating
from the Sidelines, Online:
Facilitating
Telementoring Projects
Judith B. Harris & Candace Figg
Department of Curriculum & Instruction
University of Texas at Austin
406 Sanchez Building
Austin, TX
78712-1294
judi.harris@mail.utexas.edu
Abstract
Asynchronous, text-based communication is
different from most other forms of interchange in important ways. It lacks the
full spectrum of visual and audible information that people depend upon, often
unconsciously, in face-to-face exchanges. It also requires different
interaction strategies if it is to be used to create maximal educational
benefit by and for students and teachers. These techniques can be modeled and
made explicit by someone closely following online conversations in the role of
facilitator, helping participants to construct online teaching/learning
experiences in mutually beneficial ways. The Electronic Emissary’s years of
research have shown that the people best prepared to assist in these ways have
experience in both online communication and pedagogy. The Emissary's
facilitators provide individualized, "just in time" assistance to
teachers, students, and subject matter experts during their telementoring exchanges.
Resources
available via telecommunication technologies are providing creative K-12
teachers with new ways to engage their students in authentic learning
experiences: those that reflect how knowledge is built and used in the world
outside school. Today, a teacher no longer needs to play the role of expert in
the classroom. It is possible, for example, for students to learn about weather
phenomena from meteorologists studying weather as it occurs, or to discuss
interplanetary space travel with astronauts actually in space at the time of
interaction, using simple telecomputing tools such as electronic mail and chat.
Volunteer subject matter experts ("SMEs"), such as the meteorologists
and astronauts mentioned above, can work virtually with students over an
extended period of time, developing mentor-protégé relationships and assuming a
portion of the responsibility for the learning process that occurs during their
interactions with the students. This practice has come to be known as
"telementoring" (Harris, 1998).
The Electronic Emissary
The
Electronic Emissary Project (http://www.tapr.org/emissary/), prototyped in
fall, 1992, and launched online in February 1993, is, to our knowledge, the
longest-running K-12 telementoring effort. The Emissary is a "matching
service," pairing subject matter expert volunteers with K-12 teachers and
their students who are studying in the fields of the SMEs' expertise. In doing so, it helps to establish
content-related, curriculum-based teleapprenticeships (Levin, 1987), or
electronic mentorships (Riel & Harasim, 1994), through which “use of e-mail
or computer conferencing systems to support a mentoring relationship when a
face-to-face relationship would be impractical” (O’Neill, Wagner & Gomez,
1996, p. 39) occurs. Emissary-supported
projects are requested by teachers using an interactively-accessible database
of volunteer subject matter experts with custom-designed selection software
(Jones & Harris, 1995). The
Electronic Emissary is also a research effort, examining the nature of adult-child
interaction and collaborative, asynchronous teaching and learning in primarily
text-based, computer-mediated environments.
The students in Emissary teams are encouraged to inquire about their
curriculum-related topics of interest, which are also the subject matter
experts' content specializations. The
teachers in Emissary teams work with the SMEs, the students, and
university-based online facilitators/research assistants to shape this
interaction, helping participating teachers to incorporate it into the
face-to-face K-12 classroom learning environment.
The nature of
telementoring interaction
Currently,
most telementoring occurs via electronic mail. Communication by electronic mail
is different from most other forms of interchange in significant ways. It is
asynchronous, primarily text-based, and relatively fast, with participants
often widely distributed geographically. It lacks the full spectrum of visual
and audible information that we depend upon, often unconsciously, in
face-to-face exchange. Therefore, telementoring by e-mail requires somewhat
different interaction strategies if it is to be used to create maximal
educational benefit (Harris, Rotenberg, & O'Bryan, 1997). For example, more frequent and more explicit
purpose-setting, progress-reporting, and problem-solving communications may be
necessary on-line than in face-to-face interaction (Kimball & Eunice,
1999).
Such
medium-specific strategies can be directly suggested by someone closely
following online conversations in a facilitative role, helping participants to
construct the teaching/learning experience in individualized ways. The people
best prepared to do this in telementoring situations are those who have the
requisite experience in both Internet-based communication and education to know
how to help project participants build mutually accessible bridges between
their differing workplaces' ways (Harris, Rotenberg, & O'Bryan, 1997). These communications assistants, or facilitators,
"act as 'playground monitors' or gentle guides while participants 'play in
the sandbox,' developing the norms and rules [of the telecollaboration] as they
go" (Palloff & Pratt, 1999, p. 20).
When telementoring is directly and personally facilitated, what do these
communications coaches do?
Roles
facilitators play
Various
dictionaries describe a facilitator as one who assists, makes easier, or frees
others from the difficulties of a situation. Thus, online facilitation could be
described as the art of providing the support and scaffolding to SMEs,
classroom teachers, and students as they work together in an asynchronous
environment to develop relationships that assist with achievement of
educational goals. Often, this interaction means that the facilitator must
perform many functions, always ready to shift from one role to another. From a
review of relevant literature, McGee and Boyd (1995, p. 645) identified three
types of behaviors that facilitators often display in the online interactions
that occur during an Emissary-sponsored telementoring project.
The facilitator may
serve as a moderator during initial contacts as the participants are
establishing the framework for the project. As moderator, the facilitator
models the language, discussion techniques, and netiquette protocols necessary
for quality communication in the online environment. In addition, the
facilitator models proper use of the technical framework within which
participants operate in order to assure quality communication.
The facilitator may
serve as a mediator as the project progresses. Tasks such as tracking
down resources and materials that enrich the learning experience or providing
technological assistance that supports learning goals--such as setting up a
realtime chat or videoconference among teachers/students and SMEs--may become
part of the facilitation process.
And, the facilitator
facilitates or engages the teachers/students and SMEs in collaborative learning
processes by planning with the teacher, monitoring on-line interactions, and
providing guiding comments as needed.
As
facilitators move flexibly from one of these three types of behavior to
another, their functions in the learning process shift. The ability of the
facilitator to recognize which facilitation roles are necessary for them to
play as the learning project progresses is another key component of successful
telementoring facilitation.
Facilitators
who have worked with the Electronic Emissary Project describe taking on
multiple roles simultaneously, playing them differently for each electronic
team of students, mentors, and teachers.
For example,
As a facilitator, I
found that my role would range from being a "listener" to
"technician" to "prompter," and, once, even as
"referee." (Figg, 1997)
I have played a major
role in getting teachers and SMEs to correspond promptly and in getting
projects that have sort of petered out to come up again, by contacting the
teacher and the SME to find out what was happening at each end. In a couple of
instances I volunteered to make suggestions to the teacher on how to proceed with
the project, but for the most part let them do the thinking. (Mathew, 1997)
I spent a part of every
day for fifteen weeks involved in the matches I was responsible for, first as a
source of information and instructions. I answered questions, helped to solve
problems and provided a framework for each project to function within. Then, as
an encourager, providing suggestions for starting points and positive feedback
for jobs well done. Sometimes I intervened when miscommunications seemed
eminent, offering a more objective interpretation of a situation. But mostly, I
was an observer, reading and learning along with the participants. (Wadbrook,
1999)
Our
observations of online facilitators' interactions and reflections have yielded
three additional roles that they seem to play: tour guide, tutor, and
"nag."
Just
as a tour guide directs the travel experience for clients embarking upon a
journey, the facilitator participates in coordinating the learning event that
is created among the participating SME, teacher, and students. In an
Emissary-sponsored project, the learning event progresses through a process of
initial contacts between the facilitator and participants, initial contacts
among participants (with the facilitator monitoring the exchanges), and
continued exchanges that explore the content matter and address the learning
goals of the project. The “facilitator as tour guide” assists telementoring
project participants in organizing the particulars of the project, suggests
schedules for communications and timelines for project activity, and
coordinates efforts among the SME, teacher(s), and students so that all
participants can benefit from interacting in a telementoring context.
The
“facilitator as tutor” uses initial communications to model the language and
style of communication appropriate for successful mentoring to occur. Often,
"netiquette" recommendations, as well as reminders of online
communications conventions (such as emoticons), are forwarded to participants
as a means of “breaking the ice” and establishing standards for virtual
interaction. The facilitator serves as the communications expert who
understands the types of interactions, exchanges, and instructional
collaborations that succeed in a telementoring environment, complementing the
content expertise of the telementor and the pedagogical expertise of the
participating classroom teacher. The facilitator is often called upon to
explain why a suggested collaboration technique might fail, demonstrate
alternatives that will flourish under the constraints of the medium, or model
techniques that can support the project's learning goals.
The
contexts in which most telementors work are quite different from K-12
teaching/learning environments. Of particular note are differences in Internet
accessibility, and the expectations that these contrasts can create. Most
telementors have easy and frequent access to telecomputing tools throughout
their workday, and are accustomed to having brief, multi-turn, text-based
conversations with colleagues using quick turnaround times. K-12 students and
teachers have much less frequent and much more inconvenient access to
telecommunications facilities. Whereas a mentor might expect a reply to an
e-mail message within 24 hours, many K-12 students are able to use Internet
facilities only once weekly. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary for
telementoring facilitators to function as "contextual translators"
among people working both inside and outside the K-12 classroom, so that
adjustments to expectations for amount, frequency, and types of communication
can be made to fit the realities of both working environments (Harris,
Rotenberg, & O'Bryan, 1997).
For
the occasionally reluctant participant who experiences difficulty with
asynchronous interchanges as educational endeavors, the “facilitator as nag”
jovially reminds everyone of interim project deadlines, becoming the persistent
voice that prods participants into communicating in a timely and consistent
manner. In telementoring projects,
collaboration is essential and expected, and the job of ensuring collaborative
participation from all parties falls to the facilitator.
By
its very nature, facilitation of telecollaborative work is individualized and
participant-centered. As Kimball &
Eunice (1999, p. 5) explain, "Facilitation is paying attention to what is
happening in your group, as distinct from what you wanted or expected would
happen…you want to detect where members are now and work with that energy to
move in the direction [they] need to go."
What
actions do telementoring facilitators take when playing the roles of technical
tutor, design consultant, prompter, listener, encourager, problem-solver, and
referee? How might an individual who can effectively function as a tour
guide/event organizer, tutor/content specialist, and jovial nag endeavor to
facilitate a telementoring project?
Though the nature of these responsibilities is dependent largely upon
the ways in which particular telementoring projects are structured,
facilitators help members of telementoring teams to:
·
Set up and test communications facilities
(accounts, filters, etc.).
·
Introduce themselves, getting to know each other
personally and professionally.
·
Set realistic project goals and expectations.
·
Get answers to procedural questions.
·
Adjust goals and expectations according to project
developments.
·
Keep communication flowing throughout the project
period.
·
Identify, address and resolve miscommunications.
·
Structure and participate in different kinds of
on-line activities.
·
Evaluate individual and group contributions to
learning/teaching.
Telementoring
facilitators must be careful to assist and suggest, rather than direct. This is more easily said than done,
especially in the case of an electronic team that is not communicating
regularly or effectively. It is
essential that team members assume responsibility for the success of the
exchange. As one Electronic Emissary
facilitator said,
You have now set the
stage for the exchanges to begin and, at this point, it is up to the
participants to "take charge." Let them know that you are available
to answer any questions that they have and will be happy to assist them in any
way you can, then take a step back and see what happens. (Wadbrook, 1999)
Telementoring project
phases
The
Emissary’s facilitators suggest that their roles and functions change as
projects evolve through three phases: introductory, operational, and closure.
For Electronic
Emissary facilitators, telementoring project support involves serving
approximately 20 different electronic teams simultaneously whose participant
interests and requirements are individual and unique. The facilitator's first
job is to make an initial contact with the teachers requesting SMEs'
telementoring services, then with the SMEs who were requested, to see if they
are available for the telementoring project described by the teacher and
student(s). Using information provided in e-mail message headers from teachers
and SMEs, the facilitator requests that the Emissary's system administrator
establish a uniquely named, private, and customized e-mail distribution list
for the curriculum-based project that the teacher proposed.
The goals of the
facilitator during these initial contacts are twofold and simultaneous. First, the facilitator is working with the
teacher to determine that the scope and nature of the learning goals envisioned
are feasible and appropriate for the medium.
Sanchez & Harris (1996) suggest that projects with a definite
statement of the content to be covered and educational goals to be achieved by
the exchange are perceived more often by participants as successful. Questions involving e-mail access, project
schedules, and sufficient time for student participation must be addressed in
this instructional design phase of the telementoring project. Second, the facilitator is working with both
teacher and SME to ensure that the technical foundations, such as the list used
for sending and receiving messages, are established and running smoothly.
Once
the project's "virtual space" has been established, the teacher and
SME are invited to begin communication related to project planning. During this phase, the facilitator is making
suggestions and offering clarifications as needed, using this time to model
appropriate interaction patterns while encouraging the SME and teacher to establish
the goals and framework which will launch their student-centered online
relationship.
After initial
contacts are made, an Emissary project moves into an operational phase during
which the participants are in charge of the learning journey. During this phase, the job of the
facilitator is to monitor their participation, while encouraging participants
to control the direction of the project so that it addresses their
instructional needs, goals, and preferences.
The facilitator actively observes and analyzes patterns of interaction
in order to take "just in time" action that helps participants avoid
the misunderstandings, frustration, or project failure that can result from
communicating in a primarily text-based, asynchronous environment.
The
facilitator also helps bring closure to the learning journey. First, the facilitator secures two different
types of feedback information from each of the participants (teachers,
students, and SMEs):
Upon
receipt of these documents, the facilitator arranges with the participants in
each team to withdraw from the project. The facilitator then requests that the
system administrator close the project's e-mail list. Often there are requests that project lists be left open so that
the teacher, SME, and students can continue communicating. These requests are generally granted. However, without facilitation, very few of
the communications remain active for more than a few weeks.
What
does it take to be a successful on-line facilitator--to play the roles
described above in service to students' and teachers' learning in telementoring
exchanges? Interviews with facilitators, SMEs, and teachers participating in
Electronic Emissary projects reveal that the successful facilitator utilizes
certain skills. These are listed and
described below.
Key to any
successful telementoring facilitation is the ability of the facilitator to use
the technical skills needed to accomplish the goals of the project. For
Emissary projects, the main telecommunication tool is an e-mail management
program. A firm grasp of the features of the program--e.g., accessing the
program, receiving/sending messages, responding using reply functions,
attaching files, establishing filters to sort messages--and the use of it to
receive, record, and archive messages is necessary so that the facilitator can
demonstrate and model effective use of the team's e-mail list. Many of the
participants in Emissary-supported endeavors are online novices, so each
telementoring project is structured so that participation procedures can be
experienced by telementoring teammates through a series of initial test
messages among the teacher, SME, and facilitator. At this time, the
facilitator’s technical skills may be utilized in “troubleshooting” possible
glitches in the distribution list or simply as support for teachers and SMEs to
practice their skills before bringing the students online.
These
initial test messages serve an additional purpose. Building an online
relationship between the SME and teacher that will support successful
interaction begins with the first few messages among facilitator, SME, and
teacher. In these messages, the facilitator models forms of interaction for the
participants that will encourage online community-building. Regular use of
these techniques, such as dialogue that invites participation, enthusiastic
responses, the sharing of ideas, elaboration upon previous comments or ideas,
provision of feedback, and clear acknowledgement of comments from specific
participants, are critical to the success of telementoring projects. In some
ways, this success is directly influenced by the online modeling skills of the
facilitator.
Establishing an
environment in which the SME and teacher feel comfortable using the technology
not only ensures that participants are able to concentrate primarily on the
learning goals of the project, but also allows them to explore other project
options. For example, Emissary facilitators have been called upon to locate
supplemental Web resources, prepare graphics for project use, advise
participants in the use of desktop video conferencing tools, and assist in the
construction of Web pages.
Facilitators
assisting Emissary electronic teams work with at least twelve-- often up to
twenty--projects at a time, and are faced with a deluge of messages from
project participants on a daily basis. Organization is a must. The day-to-day
demands of project facilitation include checking e-mail on a daily basis and
responding when appropriate, locating resources for various projects, checking
status reports for account activity, and posting reflections/reminders for team
members as needed. The successful facilitator develops organizational
strategies that allows him/her to efficiently manage the morass of messages
while effectively monitoring project participation.
Telementoring
requires use of online interaction strategies that ensure that
telecollaborative instruction will meet the educational needs of students while
effectively utilizing the capabilities of networked technologies. Online
interaction challenges our development and use of interpersonal skills. Facilitators
are very conscious that readers of the written word may attach meanings not
intended. Without the use of visual and auditory information that can provide
nonverbal information to participants sharing an exchange, the art of
communication takes on unique nuances. Successful facilitators learn to muster
all the tact, diplomacy, negotiation, and peacekeeping skills developed in
face-to-face interactions and apply these skills to online communication.
Often, facilitators are responsible for modeling the use of e-mail messages to
convey ideas, suggestions, and feedback in ways that encourage reflection or
clarification without the sting of criticism.
A
component common to many successful Emissary projects is the preliminary
statement of clear educational goals/purposes for the exchange. Thus, the
planning and design of the project must not only meet curricular goals, but
also teacher expectations of what will occur in the project. A facilitator who
has spent time in the classroom designing instruction for students and who is
familiar with classroom practices that develop as teachers manage students'
in-classroom learning can assist teachers in ways that those without this
experience cannot. Facilitators can help to ensure that the design of
telementoring projects meet educational goals and teacher expectations while
suiting the specific capabilities of the telecomputing tools used--a skill that
many teacher participants who are novices with telecommunication technologies
have yet to develop.
Aid for facilitators
Technical,
organizational, “people,” and pedagogical skills assist the online facilitator
with making the collaborative process successful and productive. The Emissary’s facilitators, through sharing experiences,
materials, suggestions, and reflections with each other, have formed an
extended and virtual community of sorts, supporting inexperienced facilitators
in the acquisition of necessary skills and awarenesses. Reflections documents,
e-mail exchanges, and informal interview data have been interpreted to produce
an online facilitator’s manual, located on the Web at http://www.tapr.org/emissary/facmanual.shtml,
that shares these practical suggestions. We have chosen to compare the
facilitator's role in the learning process to that of a tour guide or event
organizer, comparable to the escorts who accompanied guests as they traveled on
elegant Orient Express tour trains near the turn of the 20th
century. Many of the tasks a tour guide performs ensure that customers are
provided with special opportunities and an interesting and worthwhile
itinerary. The tasks a facilitator performs during the learning journey help
participants to attain the same outcome--a memorable and educational learning
experience.
The uniqueness of
telementoring teams
Though
facilitators have developed logically generalized suggestions for assisting
telementoring efforts, each of these electronically scaffolded relationships is
as unique as the collection of personalities and past experiences which combine
to bring it to life. As Bennett, Hupert, Tsikalas, Meade, & Honey (1998)
observe, "In speaking with students about their telementoring
relationships, it was clear that there was no set path to success. Instead, there were many moments in which
students and mentors could connect on a deep level." (p. 25) Direct
facilitation of telementoring, though it is time- and effort-intensive, can
provide each electronic team with individualized, sensitized, and spontaneous
assistance, thereby increasing probabilities that students will be well-served
and planned projects will be completed.
It may be necessary to provide direct facilitation in the networked
learning environment at this early time in the history of K-12
telecollaborative learning experiences, since without active facilitation, only
about 30% of all projects currently attempted reach fruition (Kerns, 2000).
Electronic
Emissary facilitators consistently remark upon the variety of projects,
personalities, and perceptions among and between the members of the
telementoring teams with which they work (e.g., Figg, 1997; Gould, 1997;
Wadbrook, 1999). While giving advice to
future on-line facilitators, one explained this multi-layered uniqueness by
saying:
Remember that each
project is unique and is serving different needs for different teams. In the
spring of 1999, I had conventional classroom students, a pair of homeschooled
brothers and their teacher/mom, an independent study student, and a group of
gifted and talented math students from different schools in the same district.
All participants come to the [project] with their own expectations and goals,
so…you need to pay especially close attention to how the exchanges are
progressing. (Wadbrook, 1999)
If
each telecollaborative exchange is unique, it serves to reason that the nature
of its thumbprint emerges primarily from the on-line interaction of particular
personalities that come together to form a virtually-connected group. Understanding the nature of electronic
personality, then, is one key to successful telementoring facilitation.
Electronic personalities
The
electronic personality is "the person we become when we are online."
(Palloff & Pratt, 1999, p. 22)
Telecommunicating persons actively create electronic personalities that
may or may not resemble others' impressions garnered from face-to-face
interaction. Many who are experienced
with online exchange actually create a range of electronic personalities that
function differently in different virtual situations (Palloff & Pratt,
1999). Facilitators must be adept in recognizing and helping team members
understand and adapt to the electronic personalities presented as telementoring
occurs. The range of electronic personalities experienced by one facilitator
during just one academic semester of online assistance can be illustrated in
these three descriptions:
For example, we have one
teacher…who writes all of his e-mail in lower case and limits the length of his
comments to one or two lines! His project is often very slow to get off the
ground, and even though his students are working independently with the
[telementor], they tend to need much prompting.
Another teacher…clearly
describes how she is using the information in her classroom and almost
"paints" the [mentor] a picture of her classroom! Needless to say,
this is a very successful match with a constant and enjoyable flow.
The "on-line
personality" of one of the [telementors] is brief, to the point, and
concise. And, although [she] is brief, she always ends her messages in a
personal manner with comments like "Take care" or "Let me know
how it works out." (Figg, 1997)
Differences
in electronic personalities lead to differences in on-line communication
styles, rhythms, and purposes.
Facilitators need to be aware of communicative subtleties on multiple
levels at once to best recognize needs and offer appropriate assistance. As
Kimball & Eunice (1999) explain, "In a face-to-face setting,
facilitators watch body language and facial expression and lots of other
signals to develop a sense of what's going on.
Participants in virtual learning communities convey this same information
in different ways." (p. 5) In many cases, this means that the facilitator,
using only her sense of electronic personalities built from accumulated
experience communicating on-line, and her knowledge of the operational and
cultural differences between K-12 and other contexts, built from past professional
experience, must "translate" for and advise telementoring team
participants.
For
example, Figg (1997) analyzed a series of misunderstandings between a
telementor and the teacher and students with whom she agreed to work as
follows:
As she communicates with
the students regarding health issues, [the mentor] constantly points out that
many issues in health require a medical doctor. The teachers and lab teachers
have "interpreted" this personality as not making an effort to
communicate with the students and are disgruntled with the progress of the
project, which is not how I interpret her on-line personality at all. …I have
spent much time communicating with [the mentor] to get her to personalize her
responses more and open up more with the students. At the same time, neither
the lab teacher nor the classroom teacher have made efforts to communicate with
[the mentor] and often the students ask the same questions of [the mentor] over
and over, so there doesn’t seem to be any "teacher facilitation" at [the
classroom level]. And, I have spent much time talking with the classroom
teacher regarding how she could help the students form better questions for
[the mentor]. In addition, I have spent time with the students suggesting ways
to improve their questioning techniques.
This
facilitator's description of a telementoring "match" fraught with
communicative difficulties, and her concomitant attempts to help each
participant understand the others' communicative styles exemplifies the
sensitive and important work that only direct facilitation can accomplish.
The goal: No
facilitation needed
Realistically
and idealistically, direct facilitation for telementoring teams can and should
only be available on a limited basis.
Facilitation should be provided only long enough to help team members
learn to use the medium effectively for a particular educational endeavor, and
always with an eye toward participants being able to communicate effectively
and independently. In a sense, the
facilitator's ultimate goal is to eliminate the necessity for her
functions. As one Emissary project
facilitator said,
I suspect that my
greatest reward as a facilitator will be to see how successful a project team
can be without me. In my role as facilitator, as with my role as teacher: when
they don't need me anymore, I know I have done my job!! (Wadbrook, 1999)
Our
seven+ years of experience assisting and studying telementoring has borne out
what Bennett, Hupert, Tsikalas, Meade, and Honey concluded from their work with
young women in 1-to-1 career-oriented telementorships. "…Merely getting
people online is not enough; to fully utilize the strengths of online
communication, attention and care must be paid to building and maintaining a
sense of community among participants." (1998, p. 4) It is in this
action-oriented notion of community-- how it is built, what encourages its
depth, and what discourages its development-- that the keys to successful
telementoring are kept. Online
facilitators, through direct involvement, can help students, teachers, and
interested others learn to use these keys to unlock doors to unique and
mutually beneficial telecollaborative learning partnerships.
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