Assignment 2: Simulated Activity 1: Supporting Students
As an online instructor, supporting students when they are struggling is one of your primary challenges. This is where you can have a dramatic influence on your students’ learning experience. In this activity, you experience three multimedia simulations and decide how best to respond.
To Prepare:
Click on the Online Teaching Simulation. Go to Module 4 and find the “Supporting Students” link that will take you to three scenarios: “Oliver Struggling With Kaltura,” “Lucy’s Family Emergency,” and “Nelly Asking for More Help.” Consider how you will respond to each.
By Day 3 of Week 7
For each scenario, assess the situation and choose a decision path to see the potential outcome. Go back to the beginning of each scenario and follow different paths to see how alternate responses might influence the results.
By Day 7 of Week 7
Submit a 500-word analysis of the interactions you had with simulated students in this activity. Address the following questions in your analysis:
- Which choices led to better outcomes for each student? Explain why.
- Which choices led to worse outcomes for each student? Explain why.
- What insights did you gain from this activity?
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Supporting Students: Expert Solution
The roles of an instructor can be challenging in various moments, as they have to cater to the multiple needs of the learner. Instructors have to facilitate inclusive education and have to use different methodologies, resources, and evaluation systems to ensure that the learner benefits and develops through the process (Richland & Simms, 2015).
Learners face varied challenges form psychological problems, underachievement, the disinterest of study, procrastination and time management problems, lack of attention from teachers, and much more. Such concerns are significant as they influence the poor performance of learners; they cause undue stress, and may negatively affect learners in their future life if not addressed early.
This paper aims to review three simulated scenarios and assess the best options that the Instructor needs to implement and which would lead to undesirable outcomes.
Oliver Struggling With Kaltura
In this case, Oliver has a problem with an editing application and opts to find if there are other ways he can submit his work out of despair from the technology used. Option A is the most appropriate form of response that would lead to better outcomes.
The option shows concern and willingness to help. As an instructor it is best to show interest to any learner who seeks guidance, advice, or any form of support, this will make them feel appreciated, in turn, may alter their mindset, feel motivated and feel that they are up to the challenge (Ruzek et al., 2016).
The option makes the learner feel at ease with the Instructor to present their problem, follow instructions diligently, be positive about tackling the challenge and more so produce better outcomes. Learning is multidimensional, and with the Instructor being a better role model, the same will be adopted by his/her students.
Options B and C would lead to worse outcomes on the student and the Instructor too. Option B is inconsiderate as it first denounces the mode of teaching and learning using the help guide, and the Instructor does not provide any useful support to Oliver.
The outcome is that the student may use any approach to get things done, including inappropriate ones, may despair and even have a bad relationship with the Instructor. Such an approach does not support learning and development.
Option C promotes shortcuts and falling for anything, which is not the essence of learning to gain knowledge — such an approach channels out lazy and incompetent students to the professional world. The reputation of the Instructor may also tarnish with complaints from the learners and probably may end up with worse outcomes.
Lucy’s Family Emergency
Lucy’s case presents as a common excuse for learners on different occasions, which at times can be challenging in deducing which are valid. In this case, she provides a family emergency as a reason for not handing her assignment in time.
As an instructor, I believe in as much being fair and firm at the same time that is why option A is the best response to Lucy. The response shows great concern and empathy for her mishap, but since the institution is a system with set rules known to everyone, in fact, there is a late work policy on assignments, her pledge is invalid, and it is on her case to ensure she submits the task in due time.
The outcome of such decision is that Lucy or any other learners may have no option but to ensure that they work on their assignments early as it may be a case of laziness or last-minute rush. Instructors should encourage and assure students to seek support in case they have challenges on different assignments to avoid adverse consequences of lateness.
Option B sounds rude with no concern or empathy on the learner’s unfortunate emergency case if it is true, this may widen the relationship between the learner and the Instructor and affect aspects such as communication or seeking support.
As much as option C seems to be considerate and humanistic, it is a great risk for anarchy. Learners can abuse such kindness to bypass their laziness, procrastination, failure to follow the instruction or complicated assignments. An instructor ought to be fair with all students and firm to the regulations of the institution.
Nelly Asking for More Help
Option A is the appropriate response that will lead to better outcomes. The learner feels appreciated and not as a problem while the Instructor depicts the welcoming character and willingness to support the learner. Nelly represent the different types of learners; some are slow while others are fast; hence, the Instructor needs to be flexible to accommodate such challenges without considering them a nuisance.
The response shows the need to promote self-sufficiency by only showing a willingness to clarify specific issues but not the entire work. When helping the student with enthusiasm and persistence, it is likely the learner will adopt such rigorous learning techniques which will improve on their approach to learning and outcomes.
Students such as Nelly can be supported by providing them with numerous examples to clarify issues. Supporting learners acts as a motivation for them to seek knowledge and understanding, which translates to improved performance and competence (Ruzek et al., 2016).
Options B and C sound rude, are demoralizing and may affect the student’s trust in seeking help with the Instructor. The learner may feel intimidated affecting their self-esteem, confidence, and consequently, their performance. Option B does encourage the student to continue with uncertain works which may impact negatively on their performance and knowledge acquirement since they may believe what they are doing is right while it is not.
Option C comes out as a forced request which the Instructor obliges for the sake of pleasing the student; hence, it is not genuine support. The learner may not respond positively and with limited trust on the Instructor, thus impacting on the process of learning and outcomes.
Conclusively it is evident that an instructor is expected to be accountable for the outcomes of the learners despite the different challenges within. The instructors are expected to wear different hats throughout the program depending on the type of learner and problem they encounter from a counselor, psychoeducator, social worker, and technician among many other roles (Goddard et al., 2015).
Learners need to be supported academically to fulfill the mandate of education which is imparting knowledge and skills to produce diligent and competent change agents to the society (Ruzek et al., 2016). Students encounter varied challenges, and without proper support, they are like a time bomb waiting to explode.
It is best to be firm with laid regulations as they prepare learners for a complex world in their future endeavors. Learners have better outcomes when they trust and see the commitment of their instructors in supporting them.
References
Goddard, R., Goddard, Y., Sook Kim, E., & Miller, R. (2015). A theoretical and empirical analysis of the roles of instructional leadership, teacher collaboration, and collective efficacy beliefs in support of student learning. American Journal of Education, 121(4), 501-530.
Richland, L. E., & Simms, N. (2015). Analogy, higher order thinking, and education. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 6(2), 177-192.
Ruzek, E. A., Hafen, C. A., Allen, J. P., Gregory, A., Mikami, A. Y., & Pianta, R. C. (2016). How teacher emotional support motivates students: The mediating roles of perceived peer relatedness, autonomy support, and competence. Learning and instruction, 42, 95-103.
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