Paving the way to Online Teaching

The Introduction to eTutoring course was designed as a joint collaboration between the International Centre for Innovation and Workplace Learning (ICIWL) at DCU,  PDST Technology in Education (PDST TiE) and the Inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills (DES). The course was initially designed in 2010 for PDST eTutors and was redesigned and updated in 2016 to cater for a range of education providers. The online course is divided into 5 modules:

Module 1: Introduction to online learning
Module 2: Introduction to eTutoring
Module 3: eTutoring skills
Module 4: Managing online learners
Module 5: An effective eTutor

Each module provides participants with the skills and knowledge to become an effective e-Tutor, as well as providing opportunities to participate in e-tivities, which have been designed to facilitate active learning and collaboration in an online environment.

One hundred and sixty eights participants took part in the first iteration of the course. The key themes that emerged in relation to the most important aspects of the course included:
(i). practical content (ii). interactivity (iii). course structure. The areas for improvement with regard to the course content included: a reading list at the end of each module, further use of multimedia.

Comments from course participants
"Excellent course, as a refresher for experienced eTutors as well as new to the role."
"An excellent course, professional in design and delivery".
"I really enjoyed the interactive aspects of the course, I felt I really had to engage with the course content because of this, and I benefited enormously from it."
"I really enjoyed the interaction from other participants - sharing, debating, and discussing ideas. I also thought the course tasks were very well designed and dispersed nicely throughout the course."

The e-Tutoring course and evaluation study was presented on Tuesday 5th November at the World Conference on Online Learning which took place at the Conference Centre in Dublin (3rd-7th November). The full paper is available in the Conference Proceedings.

Photo (L to R). Chair of conference session: Mark Nicholls, Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. Dr. Margaret Farren, Dr. Yvonne Crotty, ICIWL, DCU. Madeleine Murray, PDST TiE. Ryan McInnes, eLearning Director, SHRC