Blended Learning and Online Tutoring: A Good Practice Guide

Citation

(2007), "Blended Learning and Online Tutoring: A Good Practice Guide", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 15 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2007.04415bae.001

Blended Learning and Online Tutoring: A Good Practice Guide

A round-up of the best book reviews recently published by Emerald.

Blended Learning and Online Tutoring: A Good Practice Guide

Janet MacDonald, Gower, 2006

Keywords: Blended learning, E-learning, Training

This book is a pragmatic and useful guide for educational and training practitioners new to blended learning and online tutoring. Janet MacDonald’s experience as a student, tutor and staff developer in e-learning gives the guide authenticity and provides advice that can be directly applied in practice. Although the author has a distance and e-learning background, and many of the examples are drawn from these contexts, the book is also relevant to campus-based and mixed-delivery development contexts, which are illustrated by examples drawn from a broad range of international case studies.

The book was written for “practitioners who are contemplating blended learning and online tutoring for their course, or staff developers who wish to encourage others”. It draws on three sources of practitioner experiences of blended learning: a survey of UK Open University (UKOU) tutors, to elicit their strategies for supporting students; a set of 35 self-selected international case studies on blended learning; and the experiences of the author and her colleagues at the UKOU. These practitioner experiences are set in a framework informed by pertinent research on student learning.

Excluding the Introduction, the book is divided into three parts: Approaches to Blended Learning; Online Tutoring; and Developing Independent Learners. It is, perhaps, the last of these that sets this book apart, examining the characteristics, motivations and requirements of learners and suggesting practical strategies that a tutor can use to address these in a blended context.

Part I contains four chapters that discuss some current tutor approaches to blended learning. Chapters 2 and 3 are based on research on tutor strategies at the UKOU and one UK campus-based university. Chapter 2 examines how tutors support groups and individual students. Chapter 3 discusses quality criteria for assessing the effectiveness of tutor interventions and choices of media. Chapter 4 establishes a common framework of course types, analysing the appropriateness of different aspects of blended learning in campus-based courses, distance-learning courses and courses that are delivered simultaneously on campus and at a distance. Chapter 5 examines the different contributions that asynchronous and face-to-face support bring to blended approaches, with a focus on the changing roles and functions of face-to-face support in a blended approach.

Part II contains four chapters that describe practical ways of using online synchronous and asynchronous media to support learning. Chapter 6 provides practical models of different conference structures to support different aims. It addresses issues of tutor workload and contains useful “bright ideas” hints and tips. The shorter Chapter 7 summarizes the various roles a tutor can be expected to undertake in an online conference. A similar pair of chapters addresses these issues in relation to synchronous media, including audio, text chat, whiteboard, break-out rooms, application sharing, synchronised web browsing, polls, feedback and hand-raising and video; and techniques for moderators for online synchronous sessions.

Part III looks at online learning from the student perspective. It provides practical advice and strategies that will enable a tutor to engage with, and address the needs of, learners in what is often, to them, a new and challenging mode of study. The chapters cover the experience of blended learning, course design for blended learning, developing e-investigators, developing e-writers, developing e-communicators and collaborators, and staff development for blended learning. Each chapter provides practical approaches as to how online tutors can help students to develop these e-skills and furnishes lots of examples of relevant activities and tasks. Chapter 15, on staff development for blended learning, does not fit seamlessly in this part, but it can be argued that tutors are also learners in this emerging blended approach, and there does not seem to be anywhere else it could be more appropriately placed.

While the book does not bring any new insights into blended learning, its strength is in its synthesis of current effective practice. This is presented in a framework that makes the advice accessible to, and directly applicable for, practitioners new to this area. The 35 international case studies, plus the author’s own experiences, add authenticity to the advice, which arises out of real experience.

The tutor-survey data prove less compelling and are not drawn upon beyond Chapter 4. The data sit uneasily with the material in the remainder of the book. However, the example activities, hints and tips and checklists provided throughout the book give the practitioner tools that can be directly applied in practice.

Overall the text is easy to read, well written and structured, and an enjoyable read. This is a book that meets the needs of its target audience and represents an up-to-date practical and pragmatic introduction to blended learning for tutors and trainers.

Reviewed by Carol Higgison, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

A version of this review was originally published in Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 38 No. 7, 2006