Learner mentoring
One of the program’s objectives is to provide mentoring programs for learners that pursue online studies. To effectively mentor learners, the teacher should ensure that he establishes a professional personal relationship with his students. Doing that will ensure that learners and the instructor relate professionally, hence ensure that learning objectives are met on time. Instructors serve many roles, mentors, educators, change agents and so on.
Mentors are people likened to role models; they have the ability to influence their followers to changing for the better or even achieving their goals. Therefore, instructors are tasked with ensuring that their students, even if they do not know each other physically are motivated enough and feel the need to achieve objectives as set by the course (Pallof , 2011). The teachers will ensure that their students are properly mentored through the following:
Initiate the teacher-student or mentor-student relationship and ensures that the relationship is not affected by any avoidable factors.
Ensure learners have goals and objectives that they work towards achieving.
Prepare programs that are achievable and measurable for the students.
Enable learners become acquainted to the gadgets and technological equipment used for classwork, hence the teacher and his students move at a similar pace in class.
Additionally, the teacher has the mandate to monitor his learners and ensure that the tools used in learning, learning activities and teaching aids are at a level that students benefit from. That is because the use of higher or lower-levels learning materials will not stimulate learners to learn or get interested in their classwork.
The success of the project is highly dependent on the mentorship role to the facilitator.
Management and technical issues
The online class has different issues from than the ones experienced in a normal classroom. The reason for that is that there is no physical contact between the teacher and the learners; therefore, the teacher needs to exert himself at establishing an online presence that will be respected by the learner’s. The teacher’s presence should be strong enough to ensure students’ attend classes, submit assignments and achieve milestones, and create initiatives during the learning process.
Since classes will take place online, it is important that the teacher creates timetables that are working with all his students, factoring in the activities such as work and family obligations (Junk, 2011). It is for that reason that most of the classes will take place in the late afternoon, after everyone of the student’s has fulfilled his work obligations, and will end in the early evening, so that the learners have time to fulfill familial obligations have time to revise the learned concepts.
Moreover, the teacher is required to ensure that learners have assignments and deadline to beat. That move will ensure that class objectives are met on time, enabling the students and instructor to be fulfilled by their achievements.
Moreover, the instructor needs to ensure that all his learners are familiar with the technology used in dispensing lessons (Pallof, 2011). That will be done through exercises that will show the learner’s familiarity and understanding of the gadgets. From the results, the teacher will tuition each learner to ensure that he is familiar with the gadgets used and therefore, can comfortably use the gadgets and benefit from them.
Disciplinary issues are also a major component of class activities. Since there is no face-to-face meeting during learning, the teacher has to monitor his learners to ensure discipline in his class. Truancy, absenteeism, lack of respect and other voices must be discouraged from the beginning and addressed as soon as they occur, failure to do that will lead to the instructor losing control over his class.
References
Jung, V. D. (2011). Techniques to engage the online learner. Research in Higher Education Journal, 1-15.
Pallof, R. (2011). The excellent online instructor: Strategies for professional development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Productions, B. L. (2005). Class management. England: Teachers TV/UK Dept. of Education.
