- Students may feel that pair and group work are not beneficial. They have paid money for the course and want to be taught by the teacher, not other students.

- Students lack confidence in their own language ability and ideas generation so feel embarrassed about sharing ideas and posts to a wider group of people.

- Students may be able to complete tasks without having to contact each other and so, they aren't encouraged to do that (Eileen)

- Students may come from a culture where individual study is the norm and may be unaccustomed to working in groups (Eileen)

2)

- De-motivating for students who want to interact and who understand the benefits of working with peers and sharing ideas

- Creates extra workload for the tutor having to respond to inappropriate messages

- Devalues the course for all participants

- Slows the progress of the course. Other participants cannot complete activities on time and are left waiting for people to interact.

- Tasks may not be completed

3)

- Act quickly before it becomes ingrained.

- Contact students to encourage interaction and explain the purpose of it.

- Consider the instruction in activities. Maybe they need to be modified and clearer.

- Be visable and active yourself (in the early days). Post comments to people who are inteacting on the forums to show that this is how participants communicate and that if you do, the tutor will give feedback.

- Make sure that there are sufficient 'socialisation' activities to get students involved and communicating with each other (Eileen)

We thought that quick chat might be a little hard to organise ideas and suggestions, so set up a padlet page to make the activity easier to manage. If anyone would like to see how it was used you can find it here, http://padlet.com/barryelliott2/SocialSkills

Issue: 

Students are not working or interacting in pair or group work online, and direct discussion posts only to the tutor.

Causes:

- Students may feel that pair and group work are not beneficial. They have paid money for the course and want to be taught by the teacher, not other students.

- Students lack confidence in their own language ability and ideas generation so feel embarrassed about sharing ideas and posts to a wider group of people.

- Students may be able to complete tasks without having to contact each other and so, they aren't encouraged to do that.

- Students may come from a culture where individual study is the norm and may be unaccustomed to working in groups.

-Students may be available at different times and be able to dedicate different amounts of time to doing the coursework.

Consequences:

- De-motivating for students who want to interact and who understand the benefits of working with peers and sharing ideas

- Creates extra workload for the tutor having to respond to inappropriate messages.

- Devalues the course for all participants.

- Slows the progress of the course. Other participants cannot complete activities on time and are left waiting for people to interact.

- Tasks may not be completed.

Tutor action:

- Act quickly before it becomes ingrained.

- Contact students to encourage interaction and explain the purpose of it.

- Consider the instruction in activities. Maybe they need to be modified and clearer.

- As tutor, be visable and active yourself (in the early days). Post positive comments to people who are interacting on the forums to show that this is how participants communicate and that if you do, the tutor will give feedback.

- Make sure that there are sufficient 'socialisation' activities to get students involved and communicating with each other.

- Perhaps when designing tasks,Ts should makes sure that the tasks work for groups/pairs and individually.

- Make sure all students know what to do when a student is not taking part - give them all a list of 'inclusive' strategies to help help encourage each others in times of need.

B and E

Students may be available at different times and be able to dedicate different amounts of time to doing the coursework.

Sarah

Sarah

Perhaps when designing tasks, Ts should makes sure that they work for groups/pairs and individually?

Another idea - make sure all students know what to when a student is not taking part - give them all a list of 'inclusive' strategies to help help encourage each other in times of need

Sarah