Tracia Forman and Jessica Sanchez, UTRGV
Presentation given at the Texas Digital Learning Annual Association Conference 2022, Galveston, TX
Increased online enrollment has results in the use of supplementary instructional support to enhance effective course delivery. Use of an instructional team approach plays an invaluable role in student success.
UTRGV-TxDLA-Presentation-3.23.22[78]
Academic Coaches and Student Success in Higher Education.
Published in the Journal for Distance Education. May 31, 2023.
(2023) Academic Coaches and Student Success in Higher Education, American Journal of Distance Education, DOI: 10.1080/08923647.2023.2210491
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08923647.2023.2210491
Our Academic Coaching Model adds a human touch to your distance learning environment, encouraging students to learn and persist with the demands of online and distance coursework. Students view their Virtual Teaching Assistants as a peer and respect the fact that their Coach has experience in the same field they desire to join.
The first thing our virtual teaching assistant model always includes is learning about our university partners’ needs. We understand that what each college or university needs is relative to their specific instructional support level, courses, and goals. We strive to understand all missions that each school desires through initial in-depth meetings, and we continue that communication throughout our relationship.
Each faculty member of record that teaches an online course provides clear expectations to their approved and assigned Virtual TA. Every area of support from a Teaching Assistant can be decided by the faculty and may vary from course to course depending on the faculty’s expectations.
This level of flexibility allows faculty to be in complete control of online program management. Many faculty members love the support they receive from their Virtual Teaching Assistants, and most faculty continually think of new and better methods to help educate students in distance learning programs.
We recruit, screen, pre-qualify and present Academic Coach candidates to our university partners. Rest assured that each potential candidate has been vetted and is available in our pool for approval by university partners.
Each institution identifies the academic credentials or experience required for its program and courses. Based on this information, Instructional Connections employs a variety of recruitment strategies, reviewing each applicant thoroughly for a match to the qualifications for each program. We then invite every Virtual TA potential match applicant to participate in our pre-employment screening process.
During our pre-employment screening process, the Academic Coach applicant commits to a 4-6 hour online pre-employment screening session. This covers topics like the roles and expectations of a virtual teaching assistant, basic principles, and best practices of effective distance learning, and working with a variety of Learning Management Systems.
After our advanced screening process, we perform a standard criminal background check on all potential candidates. Once a candidate successfully passes these steps, they are contracted and added to our pool of Virtual TAs ready and available for an assignment at one of our partner universities.
Next, we work with programs and faculty to assign approved Virtual Teaching Assistant, or Academic Coaches to your courses and programs. We understand and listen to university, college, and even course-specific needs for distance learning. We understand the hurdles and benefits of online programs and distance learning.
Your Virtual TA is meant to aid the faculty member of record, or professor, that is teaching the online course. A Virtual Teaching Assistant can grade assignments, monitor and facilitate discussion boards, reply to emails, post announcements, and assist in additional day-to-day needs.
This gives your faculty the time to focus on student success, engagement, and course delivery. Plus, our Virtual TAs are flexible – your faculty member simply needs to provide them with instructions on their needs and expectations for the course, and our Teaching Assistants will deliver.
After the approval of a candidate and the assignment to a course, your Virtual TA will then need to meet with the faculty of record for the course prior to the course going live and throughout the course cycle in order to maintain communication and understand expectations. We independently contract, manage, and pay our Virtual TAs, handling all organization of staff matters. This eliminates the need for universities to add additional human resources and payroll overhead or hassles.
Additionally, Instructional Connections provides continual support to each distance learning course where our Virtual TAs are requested and used. We are there throughout the course term for our university partners – from start to finish.
The pandemic sparked an online learning boom out of necessity, but it addressed and highlighted the benefits of virtual teaching and distance learning. In some countries, distance learning is even touted as a solution to gain more interest in specific subjects, such as STEM.
Instructional Connections has always been at the front of online learning with our virtual teaching assistants for our University partners. But as virtual and online learning is changing and advancing rapidly, creating a more popular learning system that goes beyond a simple online platform, our virtual teaching assistants can assist even more in this changing climate.
Many courses span holidays, and our 24-hour expectation is applied with common sense, as some course-related correspondence may be briefly delayed on high holidays such as Christmas day or Yom Kippur, while Thanksgiving holiday (which is a traditionally high-volume day in distance learning) correspondence will still be answered promptly.
Our virtual teaching assistants may scale back some aspects of their course assistance on the day of a national holiday, but will still check their emails at least once for time-sensitive questions. If they will be unavailable for 24 hours, they will always let the professor know in advance, though this is a rare occurrence.
Additionally, in a weekly meeting between your virtual teaching assistant and the faculty of record, answers can be approved in advance or additional material provided to help the flow of information be expedited while keeping accuracy. On the same weekly calls, grading expectations for upcoming assignments can be discussed to ensure that the grading standards are met.
Your virtual teaching assistant will quickly become familiar with the LMS to be able to guide your students through common technology issues. Your virtual teaching assistant will thoroughly read online manuals and resources available for your LMS.
Further, your virtual teaching assistant will easily assist students in submitting documents, locating online readings, and other routine technology needs. They will provide the first level of technical support, saving hours and frustration for the faculty of record and the student.
Your virtual teaching assistant will report any glitches or issues seen over a course duration. All glitches are recorded and addressed, whether strictly technical or a typo in the information provided. Problems within the LMS used are rare but can be calmly responded to as the class or student waits for a repair.
Errors are also reported in order to check on the same issue in other sections or future courses. Your virtual teaching assistant contributes to the goal of continuous improvement of all courses – which means their input, the faculty of record, and student input is valued.
Additionally, if a problem emerges with a student or from a student, your virtual teaching assistant can turn to their chain of command and the faculty of record. A timely acknowledgment will be provided to the student, even while further guidance is oncoming from the supervisor or faculty of record.
Our virtual teaching assistants begin grading early submissions as soon as they arrive, which ensures grades are promptly returned. All teaching assistants also familiarize themselves with rubrics ahead of time to assure more accurate grading.
Grading is assigned by the faculty of record. This means that grading is not simply following a rubric, but also through additional directions provided by faculty. This includes completing inter-rater reliability activities with the faculty to ensure that all grading with be consistent with the faculty’s expectations.
Instructional Connections believes in bolstering the advancement of virtual learning through communication, knowledge, and teamwork. Our company provides University students with talented virtual teaching assistants who can adapt to educational needs and employ different resources to foster better distance learning results and success.
Online learning is not a new concept; in fact, educational institutions have long been offering online classes, with 17.6 percent of higher education students exclusively taking distance learning courses and a further 19.7 percent were taking some of their courses online before the pandemic in 2019.
But when educational institutions had to pivot in 2020, virtually every student, not just in the U.S. but in the world, were enrolled in online instead of face-to-face classes.
With this sudden change and the complications, one group of people has been invaluable to keeping everything flowing smoothly—teaching assistants.
Teaching assistants, teacher’s aides, or simply TAs provide support for teachers in a class. Their duties vary widely, from administrative support for professors to academic support for students.
But in recent years, the roles of teaching assistants have increased, making them pivotal in keeping schools operating. We outline the important responsibilities teaching assistants have taken up recently below.
Professors already have a challenging job. They couldn’t have possibly monitored and provided support to individual students all by themselves, given the limited interaction they get to have.
In this regard, teaching assistants have provided the support students need. Teaching assistants have provided instructional support to the faculty – such as grading assignments per the rubrics and directions of the faculty, monitoring discussion threads, and answering emails.
As mentioned above, it’s difficult for instructors to monitor all these. Teaching assistants have been responsible for monitoring interactions and answering students’ questions in these spaces.
One of teaching assistants’ core tasks even before the pandemic was to help instructors grade assignments. Within an online course, assignments are within the LMS course modules and the assignments are submitted through the LMS.
This helped keep things running smoothly and allowed instructors to test students’ understanding of the subject, which is essential in a remote learning setting.
With all that said, it’s clear how valuable teaching assistants are, whether classes are held online, in-person, or in some hybrid environment.
Make sure you can provide quality teaching through your online education programs with the help of teaching assistants from Instructional Connections. Our team of online academic coaches offers unparalleled support for instructors and their students.
Learn more about our services today.
Just like everything else, teaching has been seriously affected over the past couple of years. Classes were mostly done online, and we’re just starting to go back to the traditional setting—but on a limited scale. Learning institutions are left with a new set of challenges to conquer.
One of the ways you can manage your online classroom better is by involving a virtual Teaching Assistant (TA). Doing so will lessen the stress of your teaching duties. Here are some tips on how you can make the most of a virtual TA for distance learning.
Before the semester or quarter starts, get on the same page with your TA. Take the time to sit down virtually and discuss everything you need to discuss. This may include the following:
It would also be wise to meet now and then throughout the semester, as well as debrief after the course ends. During these sessions, share feedback in both directions and review the goals you set at the beginning.
Handling a class pre-pandemic was already difficult, but it can become even more complicated when everything is online. Some professors, understandably, had a hard time learning video calling platforms, like Zoom and Google Meet, and many still do not fully understand how to utilize the features to their highest levels.
This is just one area in which a virtual teaching assistant can be very helpful. They can help with moderating classes by handling things like:
Focus on lesson planning and other teaching duties by having your virtual TA in charge of announcements, email communication, and discussion thread moderation. Making sure your students are up to date may seem like a small detail, but leaving the responsibility to your virtual TA will make things significantly easier for you and smoother for everyone in the class.
Instead of sending individual emails and messages yourself, have your virtual TA do a group chat or a message board, as well as take over individual questions and email submissions.
Often, there are times when the class discussion board is stagnant. Keep discussion boards active and engaging by adding your virtual TA’s trained voice into the discourse. They can add value to the conversation by:
According to the AACN (American Association of Colleges of Nursing), nursing is among the occupations experiencing the most job growth in the U.S, yet it is still predicted that there will be a shortage of registered nurses.
One of the ways this can be addressed is through online academic coaching specific to nursing programs!
An online academic coach understands the needs of colleges or universities and their students. They are highly qualified and experienced professionals. In addition, they have experience with online learning and know-how to enhance student success in distance learning and online programs.
Currently, one of the ways a nurse can gain experience and knowledge is through mentorship. A mentorship is when a more experienced nurse mentors another and acts as a teacher or supervisor to help the less experienced nurse achieve their goals.
Coaching seems similar, however, our online academic coaching model takes a more facilitative approach and promotes autonomy within students while they are in online courses for their degree.
A study was done on a coaching training course that was delivered to 148 healthcare professionals. Evaluations from the attendees suggested that coaching would create more learning opportunities and prompt students to become independent learners – two things that are greatly needed for online education and distance learning.
It is projected that there will be more registered nurse jobs available than any other job in the U.S. by 2022. Despite the rapidly growing number of registered nurses, there is a nursing shortage due to the aging population, the chronic conditions that come with age, and high turnover rates.
Advancements in medical science and quality of life have helped Americans live longer. However, this does not mean that they are healthier during old age. The baby boomer generation is entering old age, meaning they will need more health services as they age. And older persons are typically diagnosed with more than one comorbidity.
The workforce is also aging, and a third could be at retirement age in the next decade or so. This includes nurse faculty, meaning fewer nurses will train new ones, leading to enrollment limitations and fewer nurses generated by schools.
The difficulty of the profession also contributes to turnovers. Nurses work in an inherently stressful environment compounded by the threat of physical and emotional hurdles.
An inadequate number of nurses will have a negative impact on patient care. It will lead to more uneven patient-to-nurse ratios, more fatigue and stress for nurses, higher chances of medication errors, lower patient care quality, and higher patient mortality rates.
One study looks into how the shortage of nursing faculty and the increase of students is being addressed by using academic coaches in online programs.
Online academic coaches would be able to help nursing schools by providing the needed manpower for assisting students. They work to be assets for both the faculty and the students by managing discussion threads, assisting with grading, and various other tasks. This frees up nurse faculty to focus on engagement and teaching.
More and more people are finally taking notice of online learning’s many benefits, with some finally accepting that many students perform better in this learning environment. However, there’s no denying how hard the shift to online learning is for some students and teachers.
This is an excellent opportunity for virtual teaching assistants to showcase how much their profession can contribute to this new way of learning in university and college courses.
But what exactly is a virtual teaching assistant’s role in online learning? This article discusses some of the essential roles virtual teaching assistants play in the online learning environment.
Online documentations have become a crucial part of online teaching. Whether that’s reports, assessments, records, and learning materials, all of these have moved into the digital space. Despite the shift to digital copies, these documents are still just as important as ever.
For virtual teaching assistants, one of their roles is to familiarize themselves with all the different types of digital files needed for their online learning course. These could be documents, spreadsheets, presentations, or PDF files.
One of the first possible casualties of online learning is student-to-student interaction. During an online course, most students are limited to interacting with the teacher only. Meanwhile, the teacher may be preoccupied with creating and delivering lessons.
Virtual teaching assistants are in the perfect position to lessen the teacher’s tasks and foster student discussion and interaction. Teaching assistants may help the teacher conduct student-to-student dialogue during the course.
Teaching assistants may help the teacher provide instructions for when, where, and how students can participate in virtual discussions.
It could be done by dedicating time from lesson delivery to activities like group discussions or turning a classroom session into an open forum. These activities may prove too much for teachers; teaching assistants can help in these activities.
Communication is an integral part of classroom education, even more so in the digital space. Students may have questions, clarifications, and feedback, but these can often be neglected due to a teacher’s hectic schedule.
Virtual teaching assistants can help maintain student-teacher communication by acting as the person in the middle. Teaching assistants can answer students’ questions, take note of feedback, report at-risk students or other issues for the teacher to address.
Teaching assistants can also monitor online class forums and message boards for any messages or posts. They can be the go-to person for students requiring clarification regarding projects and activities, which frees the teacher from extra tasks while providing students with someone they can reach out to.
Virtual teaching assistants are essential in modern education, especially since the world is quickly becoming digital. It’s more important than ever for teachers and educational institutions to invest in the many benefits teaching assistants can provide
Education technology has experienced steady growth and adoption even before the pandemic, with edtech investments reaching $18.66 billion in 2019. However, the COVID-19 crisis has affected around 1.6 billion students, most of whom migrated to online platforms to continue their education.
More than a year into the pandemic, online learning has seen enormous changes. And despite the crisis slowly receding, experts believe online education will continue to grow.
Here are five major online education trends that will shape the learning landscape globally.
Nano-learning is a learning modality where the student receives condensed, bite-sized information across a shorter time frame. It provides learners with quick and entertaining content that holds on to their notoriously shortening attention span.
Examples of nano-learning include short soundbites or one-minute videos seen on platforms like TikTok and Twitter.
Researchers argue that nano-learning is effective because it follows the Pareto principle: 80% of learning outcomes result from applying 20% of effort learning. In addition, nano-learning supports different learning styles, including visual and auditory learning.
Massive open online classes or MOOCs saw exponential growth during the pandemic. Coursera, for instance, recorded 640% more enrollments from mid-March to mid-April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, Udemy also recorded a 400% enrollment surge between February and March.
MOOCs continue to gain traction among employees, who use online learning platforms to earn micro-credentials and nano-degrees — both qualifications that demonstrate mastery in specialized skills.
MOOCs are a powerful tool for professional advancement that brand giants like Amazon and Google partner with Udacity, a popular MOOC provider, to give their employees an avenue to earn marketable skills.
Gamification is a strong contender in the future of online education. It’s the use of game-based elements like point scoring and competition to improve learning outcomes. And it has been enjoying steady growth. In 2015, the gamification industry was valued at $2 billion, but experts predict that that figure will increase to $11.42 billion by the end of 2021.
The factor that makes gamification effective is that it increases engagement. In a 2018 survey, 89% of participants said that if their task is gamified, they feel motivated to complete it. In fact, it gets them into a competitive mood!
Students also perform better when learning is gamified. A 2020 study showed that challenge-based gamification enhanced student performance by up to 89.45% compared to only attending lectures.
Open Educational Resources or OERs are learning and research materials stored in the public domain or released under an open license. These can be used and distributed by learners at no cost and with no or limited restrictions.
More and more higher education instructors are aware of OERs. And faculty awareness of OER increased by 5 percentage points from 2019 to 2020. These faculty also expressed a stronger belief in the quality of OERs.
With students paying an average of $1240 on books and supplies every year, OERs are expected to be an enduring online learning trend in higher education distance learning courses. And because OERs are free, students don’t have to deal with the effects of high textbook costs, like taking fewer courses or getting lower grades due to working more hours.
eLearning Industries predict that over 47% of learning management tools will be enriched with AI capabilities within the next three years. AI, after all, delivers a significant impact on online education.
Teaching during a pandemic presents many challenges, not the least of which is the sudden and mostly unprepared-for shift to online learning. However, not only teachers were affected by this change. Teacher’s aides, or teaching assistants, used to working face-to-face with students were left wondering what their role now was in the virtual classroom.
TAs are having to find new ways to help students achieve their academic goals and provide support to course instructors virtually. Taking the challenge of distance learning head-on requires TAs to take on new responsibilities that take into account the online classroom environment.
Our TAs take an active supportive role in your virtual classes. They assist with forum discussions and instructions, communicating class criteria to the students, even organizing activities and projects for the class.
Virtual teaching assistants can monitor discussion threads and emails for questions from students, and address minor technical concerns to minimize interruptions. They are also able to answer student questions themselves or bring student concerns to the attention of the instructor if needed.
Virtual TAs collect unanswered questions from all avenues, such as threads, message boards, forums, emails, and calls, and respond to them via email or messaging boards. Additionally, they can moderate chat boards and forums on the virtual learning platforms they use too.
For example, many TAs at Vanderbilt University assist with monitoring and responding to student posts on discussion boards and external tools like Perusall and virtual learning platforms like Brightspace.
In a face-to-face classroom setting, a teacher or a TA can find many clues on how students are progressing with their learning and whether or not they’re engaged. Taking notes, confused looks, and affirmatory nods are just a few examples. In virtual classrooms, however, it’s more difficult to get a sense of where students are at learning-wise.
Together with the instructor, a virtual TA can design and implement short, informal assessments such as quizzes, online polls, and virtual activities that provide more insight on students’ progress, challenges, comprehension, and areas for improvement. Instructors can use information gleaned from these assessments to make changes to the course for better outcomes.
Educational videos and interactive online learning materials can help keep students engaged outside of the virtual classroom. TAs can support instructors by creating content that is engaging, challenging, and aligned with the objectives of the course.
This responsibility requires knowledge of video editing software and other tools. TAs who have familiarity with these and other content creation software can develop videos, presentations, slideshows, and other visual aids for students. They can also assist instructors with editing content and converting it into different formats if needed.
In addition, TAs can curate existing educational content and modify them as needed, depending on the needs of the instructor and the students.
TAs provide much-needed instructional support to teachers of online learning programs and distance learning courses. Virtual TAs perform day-to-day and supplemental tasks so that faculties can focus on education delivery and student outcomes. At the same time, they help students with their educational and social development.
Even as the world transitions back to in-person classes, virtual TAs remain a key source of support for universities and other institutes of learning that want to provide better instruction. Plus, virtual TAs can help schools save on instructional delivery costs.
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