MENTORING THE ONLINE K-12 STUDENT

BEST PRACTICES FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

TRADITIONAL STUDENT POPULATION

Education used to based on “knowledge about”; in other words, students were asked to locate and report on information. Pedagogue focused on lower-order skills– Memorization– Repetition– Basic comprehension(Gunn & Hollingsworth, 2007, p. 2).

21ST CENTURY POPULATION

• “Today’s students have vastly different interests, skills, and brain functions that are not always recognized or attended to within contemporary school systems”(Gunn & Hollingsworth, 2010, p. 2)

• Today’s students are digital natives taught by digital immigrants (teachers) (p. 1-2)

• “Knowledge of” pedagogue (knowledge, application and critical thinking) is needed to build higher order skills (p. 2)

ONLINE MENTORING• Three elements are essential for online

teaching, and can be applied to mentoring:• 1. Social Presence• 2. Cognitive Presence• 3. Teaching Presence• (Bair & Bair, 2011, p.2)

SOCIAL PRESENCE• Three definitions:• “Shin (2002). . . feeling intimacy or togetherness in

terms of sharing time and place”• “. . . the ability of learners to project themselves socially

and emotionally in a community of inquiry (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 1999, para. 3)”

• “. . . Degree to which a person is perceived as a ‘real person’ in mediated communication (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997, p. 9)”

• (Bair & Bair, 2011, p. 3)

SOCIAL PRESENCE (CONT.)

• Like adult, online students, elementary students can feel isolated.

• Instructors/mentors should avail themselves both physically and digitally to alleviate this isolation.

• Instructors should also build activities that promote community building to emphasize social presence.

COGNITIVE PRESENCE• Two Definitions:1. “Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2001): . . .

the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse in a critical community of inquiry (p. 11) . . .

2. . . . the degree of inquiry and critical thinking that learners engage in during the class”(p. 3)

TEACHING PRESENCE• To promote teaching presence, instructors

should:– Establish curriculum content, learning activities

and course timelines– Have a well-structured and organized online

course– Facilitate the dialogue and reflection– Diagnose learner needs and provide timely

assistance (Bair & Bair, 2011, p. 3)

SUMMATION• Online mentoring is primarily the

responsibility of the instructor, who must combine social, cognitive and teaching presence to ensure a successful online experience.

REFERENCESGunn, T. and Hollingsworth, M. (2010). Preparing students,

teachers and administrators for the knowledge through district and school based initiatives. The International Journal of Learning, 17(5), 1-10.

Bair, D. and Bair, M. (2011). Paradoxes of online teaching. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 5(2), 1-13.