Teresa Guasch

University teacher roles and competencies in online learning environments: a theoretical analysis of teaching and learning practices

The aim of this article is to clarify the university teacher roles and competencies in online learning environments, with a view to assisting in the design of professional development activities. This referential framework results from an extensive review of the literature and from analysing professional development designed in different European universities. It is worth mentioning that the definitions that will be produced do not refer to standards of teacher performance; on the contrary, we would like to emphasise the notion of socially situated competencies which are derived from the roles and tasks attributed to university teachers in online learning environments, without losing track of the dialectics and integrity of their exercise.

The value of feedback in improving collaborative writing assignments in an online learning environment

This exploratory study aims to analyse the nature of teacher feedback during a collaborative writing assignment, and to identify the possible effects feedback has on the revision of a text written by university students in an asynchronous online learning environment. Under analysis are three editions of a master’s course in e-learning, during which, over a period of two weeks, the students (n = 83) divided into 16 work groups to carry out a co-evaluation assignment with the support of a technology tool. The results obtained indicate that, when teacher feedback includes suggestions and questions, instead of direct corrections, the students respond more constructively, they discuss the content they are working with, and, as a result, they effect significant changes in the arguments of the text they are revising.

Effects of Feedback on Collaborative Writing in an Online Learning Environment.

The need for supporting student writing has received much attention in writing research. One specific type of support is feedback—including peer feedback—on the writing process. Despite the wealth of literature on both feedback and academic writing, there is little empirical evidence on what type of feedback best promotes writing in online environments. This article reports on research that tries to determine what type of feedback best improves the quality of collaborative writing and what the effects of feedback are on student learning in an environment based on asynchronous written communication. The results reveal that concerning the type of feedback, epistemic feedback or epistemic and suggestive feedback best improve the quality of collaborative writing performance. The nature of the feedback-giver (whether teacher feedback or teacher and peer) makes a difference to the final text only when the feedback is epistemic, or epistemic and suggestive.

Collaborative Writing Online: Unravelling the Feedback Process

There is a large number of meta-studies at all levels of education highlighting the importance of feedback on learning and its status as one of the major quality aspects in teaching and learning. What is the best type of feedback to give in an online learning environment in order for the students to benefit from it and improve their essay? What do students actually do with the feedback they receive? How can we ensure that students implement the feedback given and are then able to extrapolate it to other written task? These questions have been studied in various educational contexts, but there are still some specific issues requiring further examination in online learning environments based on asynchronous communication; that is, in those contexts where teachers and students do not coincide in time or space. Such is the aim of our research, which specifically looks at how technology-enhanced environments can solve the challenges that may arise in collaborative writing tasks. This chapter presents the principal contributions to these questions based on a dialogic conception of feedback that integrates the process of giving/receiving-processing-implementing it in an enhanced text. Main findings show that feedback provided should be designed to promote discussion among students about the feedback received to enable them to introduce changes in their texts. In this regard, feedback should be epistemic and suggestive; i.e., based on questions and proposals on how they can improve their assignments, in order to contribute to higher quality student learning.

A Dialogic Feedback Index Measuring Key Aspects of Feedback Processes in Online Learning Environments.

ABSTRACT Research on feedback shows the dialogic perspective as one that potentially promotes learning improvement. This article presents the Dialogic Feedback Index (DFI), a measure that contributes to establishing to what extent feedback design is potentially dialogic. Performing the study in an online context enabled us to evaluate the potential of the index to measure the institutional situation in relation to dialogic feedback. The applied case allowed us to identify four teaching and learning contexts whose designs range from low to high dialogic context. We were also able to establish three components which had a great impact in differentiating one context from another. Specifically, it was found that designing teaching and learning contexts with high levels of dialogic potential of feedback involves: (1) providing feedback before the task is completed, (2) incorporating peer feedback into the process and (3) allowing resubmission once the feedback has been received. The DFI is intended as an applied tool for teaching staff and institutions. With it they can determine the level of dialogic potential of feedback and plan how to improve it.

The art of questioning in online learning environments: the potentialities of feedback in writing

Abstract Research on feedback has focused more on generating feedback rather than on how students use it and implement it; that is, what type of cognitive, metacognitive or affective activity students engage in once they have received feedback. In order to visualize feedback use and implementation, a quasi-experimental study was carried out. Students were randomly assigned to four conditions, in respect of the type of feedback (corrective, epistemic-questioning, suggestive and epistemic + suggestive). This research provides evidence of how students use and implement feedback in online collaborative writing. Findings show that when students received epistemic + suggestive feedback, they engaged in more cognitive and metacognitive activities. With regard to implementation, students who received epistemic + suggestive feedback obtained better final marks. This study highlights the importance of metacognitive activities in online learning, as they play a key role in the implementation of feedback.

Roles and Domains to Teach in Online Learning Environments: Educational ICT Competency Framework for University Teachers

This chapter is aimed at presenting an integrated framework of the educational information and communications technology (ICT) competencies that university teachers should have to teach in an online learning environment. Teaching through ICT in higher education involves performing three main roles – pedagogical, socialist, and design/planning – and also two cross-cutting domains that arise from the online environment: technological and managerial. This framework as well as the competencies for university teachers associated with it were validated at a European level by a dual process of net-based focus groups of teachers and teacher trainers in each of the participating countries in a European Project (Elene-TLC) and an online Delphi method involving 78 experts from 14 universities of ten European countries. The competency framework and the examples provided in the chapter are the basis for designing innovative professional development activities in online university environments.