Some guidelines for on-line mentoring

Advanced planning

Effective instructors, web or otherwise, carefully plan their lessons. The following list provides some areas in which pre-work pays off for the instructor.

One important but often overlooked aspect of delivering an online learning message is that you should plan the delivery ahead of time. When you deliver a message online, a little practice goes a long way. If you are comfortable and prepared, your message will be more effective.

Create a plan for your lesson. Think ahead and ask some basic questions:

• What am I going to teach?
• In what order will I teach these topics?
• What type of examples am I going to use?
• Where should I insert visuals?
• What types of visuals should I use?
• What word on this screen are you going to highlight?
• How long am I going to pause on this screen?

Plan your lesson step by step so that it makes sense to the learner and conveys all the necessary information. The planning process will make the lesson more effective, dynamic and engaging. In a classroom, you can react to learner questions or adapt the content based on feedback from the learners. For online learning you will need to anticipate rather than adapt; this requires a keen understanding of your audience and content.

You need to decide when to have interactions and how many to have for each section. Decide when to summarize key points and when to present new content. Determine what types of interaction will give you the feedback you need, and help reinforce learner understanding. The planning process involves many different facets of the lesson from delivery to proper design of the instruction.

When conducting a webinar, you should estimate learner reaction, confusion, and misunderstandings. You can use this knowledge to insert strategic explanations, clarifications, and activities into the lesson. The first step is to plan the content you are going to present and how you are going to present it.

Orient your learner to your lesson

Since online learners might be multitasking (eating lunch, checking e-mail) while logged onto your session, you need to continually orient your learner to the lesson in the following ways:

Provide the learner with an overview of a lesson
Online learners might need only a portion of the instruction you created. Provide them with an overview of the topics covered in the lesson and the order in which they will be presented. Doing this allows learners to choose applicable instruction for the topics they want to learn.

 

Provide an advanced organizer
An advanced organizer is a cognitive learning technique that helps learners orient to a lesson. It encourages the learner to think about the content prior to its presentation and provides a context for the instruction.

 

Plan interactions with the learners
Interactions don’t just happen online; they need to be planned in advance. Decide when you are going to ask questions, when you are going to have the learners break into virtual groups to complete an assignment, and when they are going to answer surveys or take a quiz. Plan to keep the learner engaged and active.

 

Provide a summary
After you have presented all the information contained within your overview, and provided dynamic visuals and interactive material, provide a summary of the key points before ending the lesson. Summaries reinforce information and aid with learner retention. A summary also provides closure to the online session so that learners are comfortable that the session is over.

 

Provide resources and additional information
As part of your summary, don’t forget to tell the learners how to access additional information on the topic if they are interested. Provide a Resources or Links page so the learner can gain more information if desired. If appropriate, provide your e-mail and other contact information.