The State and Use of Virtual Tutors

Virtual tutoring is the process by which students and teachers participate in the learning experience in an online, virtual, or networked environment. This process can not only separate the participants from each other in a physical space, but it can also separate them by time. Virtual tutoring can take the form of the group of students coming together synchronously in an online setting and receiving lessons from a single tutor, or by asynchronous learning in which the teacher pre-plans lessons in advance that the students consume on their own time. The advent of online learning technologies and virtual learning environments are gaining significant attention, and are likely to become a key aspect of teaching and learning at all levels of education. With the recent advancements in technology and especially artificial intelligence, the state of the art of virtual tutoring is becoming more and more advanced as well. In this literature review, I will propose the question of \u27\u27What are the current uses and state of the art of virtual tutoring?\u27\u2

The Development and Design of an Interactive Digital Training Resource for Personal Tutors

This chapter details the development and design of an interactive digital training resource for personal tutors in the Arts Faculty at the University of Warwick in 2018. The Arts Faculty Personal Tutor Training Resource aimed to enhance staff and student experiences of personal tutoring. The training was designed and delivered through the open-source learning design tool H5P within the University of Warwick's Virtual Learning Environment, Moodle. The training resource content is delivered through a mixture of text, images, videos and links to further resources which introduce learners to personal tutoring policies, structures, processes, support, and best practice. The resource also contains interactive activities that enable learners to condense their learning, reflect on their personal tutoring knowledge and practice, and see their progress as they move through the different stages of the training. The resource was designed to be interactive to make the content as engaging as possible for learners and to promote the retention of knowledge. It was also designed with different learners' levels of digital literacy and accessibility needs in mind. This chapter outlines the context of the training's development, and the pedagogic approaches, methods and principles that informed the learning design. It also provides an account of the design process and a description of the training content. This case study demonstrates the value of online training and resources for supporting personal tutors by showing the positive impact that the Arts Faculty Personal Tutoring Training Resource has on staff and student experiences of personal tutoring at the University of Warwick. It also shows that personal tutors welcome online training and resources, and that online training is often preferred to face-to-face training because it can be used and accessed according to the requirement of users at any time

A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF A CROWD WISDOM ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITY PLATFORM ON STUDENT LEARNING

The use of collective intelligence applications in educational settings has been reported in the literature for almost two decades. These collective intelligence applications aggregate individual knowledge via different synchronous and asynchronous mode of communications and Web 2.0 applications which support learning, communication and collaboration activities, and create “Wisdom of the Crowds”. Crowdsourcing further extends these collective intelligence processes in a distributed and crossorganizational way. This paper evaluates the effects and impacts of crowd wisdom applications on a peer assisted learning support service titled Peer-Assisted Learning scheme using Supplemental Instruction (PALSI) in a higher education institution in Hong Kong. Adopting the Design Science approach, an Online Learning Community (OLC) platform was developed tap on the Wisdom of Crowds and its effectiveness on student learning was evaluated. The OLC platform is not designed to replace existing face-to-face PALSI learning sessions and activities. Rather it helps to provide an additional online platform for supplementing and facilitating interaction between student mentors and mentees and among student mentees as well. The OLC platform is designed in a way that supports indexed and search functions who join the PALSI scheme, and it can also be archived as a repository for future reference by similar courses. Empirical analysis was carried out to evaluate the relationship between user participation and assessment results. Statistics show that students who made use of the OLC platform obtained better grades

The mobile learning conscious tutor: Incorporating Facebook in tutorials

The 21st-century student is said to be techno-savvy and constantly on their mobile devices. Students make excessive use of social media platforms of which the Facebook application is perceived as the most popular social media network amongst students at higher education institutions. With the rethinking and reinvention of new teaching and learning perspectives in mind, using Facebook as a discussion tool seemed to have the potential to be a very effective tool to create meaningful teaching and learning experiences in an innovative way. Through a case study research design, the researchers focused on both tutors’ and students’ perceptions and questionnaires were used to collect tutors’ and students’ perceptions. Theories of virtual professional communities of practice theory are incorporated, as a critique and a critical analysis of the progressive development of a tutoring system that incorporates mobile devices in the lecture venues are further considered. Findings imply that students respond to discussions quicker and are comfortable enough within the online space to share their information and opinions. The role of students shifted from only receiving knowledge to both searching and sharing their knowledge. The tutors were regarded as their peers and therefore shared the techno-savvy traits that could interpret content to the students on a digital platform in an easier way and in a language that the students understood. Tutors had to further strategies and plan every minute of the tutorial very well, in order to conduct disciplined, well-structured and meaningful tutorials

Peer Tutoring and Scaffolding Principle for Inclusive Teaching

This paper aims to investigate the theoretical references that the literature offers with respect to the principle of scaffolding and to the methodology of Peer Tutoring from an inclusive perspective. The principle of scaffolding, in fact, has its roots in the first definitions by Vygotskij (1978a) who defines it as the social support provided to the student during the completion of a learning task to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Subsequently, this principle has been declined in an inclusive perspective with respect to classroom management and with respect to new transmedia learning environments. The reference literature was reviewed to highlight the learning outcomes related to the principle of cognitive, metacognitive and emotional scaffolding. In addition, from the point of view of classroom management from an inclusive perspective, a declination that is effective refers to Peer Tutoring. This methodology aims to promote mutual interactions mediated by peers in order to optimize individual functioning and promote the holistic development of the parties involved. Therefore, the Peer Tutoring methodology was highlighted with reference to both the theoretical and practical components of the studies investigated

Synchronous Online Peer Tutoring via Video Conferencing Technology: An Exploratory Case Study

The objective of this study was to analyze the lived experiences of peer tutors who provide synchronous online tutoring services, at a large, accredited, public, four-year university located in the Middle Atlantic Region of the United States. An exploratory qualitative case study approach was used to conduct this study. The case chosen for this study consisted of a single holistic case that was both descriptive and intrinsic. Participants of the study consisted of students who were hired by the chosen university to serve as peer tutors as well as students that utilize the online peer tutoring service. Data collection and analysis for this study included semi-structured individual interviews and observations. Findings from this study were used to help improve and further expand the use of synchronous online peer tutoring in higher education

An Introduction to Tutoring in the Writing Centre

This booklet is one of a series commissioned by the All Ireland Society for Higher Education (AISHE) and the Irish Network for the Enhancement of Writing (INEW). It is intended as a first step for colleagues who are new to the idea of a writing centre in a higher education institute. The booklet is organised into two sections. Part 1 provides a brief overview, which answers some broad questions about tutoring in a writing centre. Part 2 presents four approaches to tutoring in writing centres

Application of Educational Gaming and Robotics in Teaching and Learning Process

The development of technology has resulted in the development of many assistive tools employed to facilitate education. Amongst these technologically enhanced tools developed for education are games and robots. This paper examines the application of educational games and robots through review of available literature. The areas of application of games and robots in education have been presented. The paper further highlights some challenges encountered in the deployment of games and robotics in education

Integrative Learning Within Tutoring in Higher Education: Contexts for Connections

In response to a gap in the literature regarding integrative learning within higher education tutoring services and the discursive gap that limits how such tutoring is imagined, this multiple case study explored the ways integrative learning takes place within tutoring in higher education and the tools that enabled or constrained such learning. Six tutor-tutee pairs engaged in regular appointments for the topics of college algebra, psychology, finance, biology, theatre, and history, respectively. During the course of one academic semester, 12 participants took part in three interviews, and each pair was observed up to four times. Drawing from sociocultural activity theory, the transcripts were coded and analyzed to identify examples and mediational means of integrative learning in these cases. This analysis yielded a working definition in which integrative learning in tutoring in higher education takes place as learners create relevance from required coursework by articulating why the content has value, making connections, and exercising agency. Major tools affecting integrative learning in this study included dialogue, examples, and context. This study provided descriptive data and patterns that could contribute insights into integrative learning, expand the way tutoring is conceived in higher education, and offer models for tutor training and classroom instruction