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Mentoring Students in Online Graduate Programs. Melissa Engleman, Mary Schmidt, & Jessica Wetherington East Carolina University. What Do You Remember About Your Favorite Mentor?. Would your university experience as a student have been less satisfactory without your mentor?.
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Mentoring Students in Online Graduate Programs Melissa Engleman, Mary Schmidt, & Jessica Wetherington East Carolina University
What Do You Remember About Your Favorite Mentor? Would your university experience as a student have been less satisfactory without your mentor?
A Mentor’s Influence Can Be Powerful… Consider these mentors from a galaxy far, far away
What Style of Mentoring and Advising Did you Receive? Encouraging and helpful to the point of self sacrifice?
What Style of Mentoring Did you Receive? Demanding and arrogant, and possibly even harmful? Direction through intimidation Inability to get along with other professors and advisors…
What Style of Mentoring do Students Want? Balance between optimistic encouragement and confidence in abilities. Unassuming, but comes through when needed as a strong advocate.
What Style of Mentoring do Students Want? High expectations Willing to support and assist students through the hard times and lessons Stays connected and available to student
Which has the best chance for leading to student success? • When students leave you, will they be confident of their ability to address their professional goals? • Whatever the style, students need guidance. They need to have individual attention.
Which has the best chance for leading to student success? • How can we meet student needs in a 100% online program? • How do we maintain the reputation of a “large university with a small college atmosphere”?
Brief History of Our Program • Students worked through at their own rate - piecemeal • Graduated a handful each year • Distance Education meant DRIVING.
Program Growth and Change Over 250% increase in total number of students Gradual decrease of face-to-face graduate students to zero
Students Need Assistance • Academic Year 2004-5, we began to see more instances where students weren’t receiving the type of guidance through the program that we intended. • Sometimes students needed types of assistance that we didn’t anticipate • How could we better address these needs?
Growth of ECU Special Education Graduate Program Advising Personnel, Students Served 2001-Present Curriculum and Instruction Graduate Studies Director (> 300) 1998-2000 Special Education Graduate Studies Coordinator (30 - 40) Prior to 1998 Special Education Department Chair (10-15)
Growth of ECU Special Education Graduate Program Other Changes Prior to 1998 1998-2000 2001-Present • Most courses • face-to-face • Online courses still experimental More Students Higher Expectations Program Requirements Electronic Competency • All courses online • All courses on Blackboard • All contacts electronic • Shared advisor - 200-300 • students • Equity issues off-campus Face-to-FaceTime Direct, Individual Advising
Growth and Change of the Program: 1999-2000 Change in the program, and the population • Advanced licensure MA Ed • Could no longer accept students without teaching license • Initial decrease in number of students was followed by intensive recruiting • External funding support became available • Some courses were offered online
Growth of ECU Special Education Graduate Program Advising Personnel, Expectations 2001-Present Curriculum and Instruction Graduate Studies Director (> 300) 1998-2000 Special Education Graduate Studies Coordinator (30 - 40) Prior to 1998 Special Education Department Chair (10-15) • MAEd • New Program, Require Teaching License • Tougher Entrance and Graduation Requirements • All Courses at Advanced Level • MS Ed • Undergraduate • Degree in Some Area: • Could add on License • Some Introductory Courses Expectations & Requirements
The New Method and Population: 2000-2005 • 100% online MAEd in Special Education: first cohort began • Mostly experienced teachers returning for more training • Students from all over the country, and a few outside of the US
Evaluation and Revision of MA Ed, 2004-5 • Some 100% online students are on campus, and seek out faculty to help them.
Evaluation and Revision of MA Ed, 2004-5 • This creates an apparent inequity in the advising and mentoring received, according to where students live
How Could We Address This Apparent Inequity? • An advising and mentoring site would be created and maintained for our graduate students.
What Should Our Mentoring Site Include? • We would determine the site contents according to the needs of our students. • A simple survey was developed to assess student mentoring/advising needs.
Rationale for Study: Our Hypotheses • Students needed more detailed advising and mentoring • Students needed consistency in information • We wanted to individualize the advising process and make it equivalent to face-to-face programs Our students were letting us know their needs in informal ways, asking course instructors for advice throughout their programs.
Rationale for Study • A few faculty seemed to be bearing the burden of advising • Not all faculty were equally knowledgeable about program requirements Some adjunct faculty used off-campus knew almost nothing about the program requirements.
Rationale for Study • Not all faculty were available to advise - especially if they didn’t teach grad. Level courses, or hadn’t met students who had gotten their undergraduate degrees with ECU. Some adjunct faculty used off-campus knew almost nothing about the program requirements.
Rationale for Study Estimates of time intensiveness for faculty of delivering online courses altready range between 25 to 50% increase over face-to-face courses (without consideration of any advising time) This additional burden made teaching online even more time consuming.
Students Need Assistance: • Degree Requirements (Portfolio, Research) • Selection of Add-on Certificates • Technological Issues • Using the Library • Disability Student Services • Career Planning • Who to go to if Something Goes Wrong
Faculty all had various styles of mentoring, and not all of them gave the same information.Faculty had differing amounts of time to help students in this way. Most had very little.
Confusion Reigned Information from Other Students What choices do I need to make? Electronic Portfolio Rumors.... Research Project or Thesis? Which cohort am I in? HUH? Information from different faculty
Basis for the Survey • Extensive review of the literature on mentoring online • Consideration of our own mentoring styles and experiences • Consideration of the perceived struggles of our students
Method • The Survey • Initial group of 38 current and former • A pilot study • Would continue over each semester (ongoing)
Method • We knew our advising was inadequate thus far, and began to design a “mentoring and advising” website for our students.
We designed our survey to answer several basic questions: • What information were students getting now, and how and when did they receive the information? • Was it timely?
Information Categories of Survey Questions: • Was current advising equitable between off and on campus students? • Did off-campus students get information about all university services and programs?
Did online students feel they had an advocate? • Who could students go to when things “went wrong”?
…and the most important question: • What did students think was important to include on a mentoring web site? What did they think was missing?
?? Results and Discussion Did we answer our questions? Or…just end up with more questions? ? ????? ? ? ?
22 of our surveys were returned Age range: 24-50 Mean age: 32 82% in between 24 and 39 Demographics of the Population
Undergraduate Degrees from ECU? • Roughly 1/2 had done their undergraduate training at ECU, so they had some familiarity with programs and services.
Undergraduate Degrees from ECU? • Sometimes this made them feel more comfortable approaching faculty who they already knew.
Clarity of Information Where Got Information Timeliness of Information Equipment Competency Software Connectivity First Set of Questions:Technology Requirements of Program
What they said about Program Technology Requirements • Technical Equipment • 1/3 understood clearly • 2/3 understood somewhat • 17% got information from faculty outside courses or their “advisor”
