If tutors’ work is to engage writers in learning, it is essential to know what tutoring techniques and strategies they use to structure learning. Drawing upon previous work on the tutoring strategies of instruction, scaffolding, and motivation within in-person writing tutorials (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015), this study analyzes ten transcripts from asynchronous screencast tutorials to determine how and to what extent writing tutors use instruction, scaffolding, and motivation in an online setting.
Keywords: online writing tutoring, screencasting, asynchronous, tutoring strategies, scaffolding, motivation, instruction, tutor discourse
However, while the engagement, participation, and communication inherent in interaction are essential to learning, not all interaction produces the same learning opportunities. If the aim of tutoring is to facilitate learning, it is essential to understand how tutoring techniques and strategies are used to improve or impede learning. The work of writing center researchers Jo Mackiewicz and Isabelle Thompson (2014; 2015) outlines three distinct tutoring strategies used to facilitate learning in in-person writing tutoring sessions: instruction, scaffolding, and motivation. Additionally, the researchers identify tasks and techniques associated with each strategy, which is useful for both educating tutors and further examining interactions within tutoring sessions. While effective writing tutors integrate multiple strategies in complex ways within in-person sessions (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015; Merkel, 2018; Grimm, 2009; Thonus, 2014), it is important to understand the function and features of instruction, scaffolding, and motivation and how these strategies are implemented and altered in online tutoring sessions. This research study of asynchronous screencast writing tutorials identifies how instruction, scaffolding, and motivation are applied and adapted by tutors in ten online sessions to define roles and facilitate learning opportunities.
> Return to top.
Instruction involves supplying vertical expertise within a learning exchange or interaction. This sharing of expertise informs and establishes a foundation for other learning structures and strategies (Marsh, Bertrand, & Huguet, 2015). Instruction, as a tutoring strategy, is visible through tasks and techniques such as telling, suggesting, explaining, and exemplifying (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015).
Scaffolding
Where instruction informs learners, scaffolding is used to more fully involve learners and activate learning within tutorials. Since interaction is a defining characteristic of scaffolding, it is a strategy closely connected to sociocultural theory and tutoring writing (Nordlof, 2014; Parisi & Graziano-King, 2011; Weigle & Nelson, 2006). As a tutoring strategy, “Scaffolding entails structuring learning interactions to provide tailored assistance to help the learner recognize the current knowledge level and reach the next level of development” (Kim, 2015, p. 67). Scaffolding requires tutors to constantly assess and adjust the learning activities to the needs of individual learners, tailoring assistance, guiding practice, and negotiating within tutorials to enable and enact learning. In practice, scaffolding involves soliciting the learner for additional information, reading aloud, responding as a reader or listener, referring to previous topics, limiting or guiding choices, prompting or asking the learner to fill in the blank, hinting or giving context clues, and demonstrating or modeling (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015).
Motivation
While instruction and scaffolding provide writers with cognitive learning support, motivation provides learners with purpose and encouragement while writing and learning. When writing tutors use motivation as a tutoring strategy, they often establish and build rapport with the writer and increase the level of engagement a writer feels within the tutorial or learning exchange. Tasks associated with motivation as a tutoring strategy include offering praising, being optimistic or hopeful, showing concern, encouraging ownership, expressing sympathy or empathy, and using humor within a tutorial (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015).
> Return to top.
Synchronous Tutoring
Synchronous tutoring takes place in real time with both the tutor and writer present in the learning exchange. Previous research studies have indicated many students prefer synchronous videochat sessions to asynchronous email exchanges because synchronous sessions allow for personal relationship building as well as instant clarification and negotiation in communication (Borup, West, & Thomas, 2015; Mick & Middlebrook, 2015; Ene & Upton, 2018). As researchers Connie Mick and Geoffrey Middlebrook (2015) have noted, with synchronous feedback and consulting the “primary advantage typically is identified as interpersonal rather than cognitive, ostensibly owing to participants’ feelings of intimacy and real-time engagement, which tend to be associated with student satisfaction, student learning, and lower rates of attrition” (pp. 130-131). In addition to interpersonal interactions between writer and tutor, the presence of a tutor as a reader can also heighten audience awareness, encouraging writers to think critically about their “rhetorical use of writing, their purposes and their audience” (Nowacek & Hughes, 2015, p. 173), which enables cognitive development and learning. In spite of the many benefits of synchronous online tutoring, limitations of this approach include convenience, accessibility, social preferences, and complications of technology.
Asynchronous Email Tutoring
Asynchronous tutoring refers to tutorials where the writer and tutor are not simultaneously present within the tutoring exchange. Asynchronous email tutoring is often the easiest and most economical form of online tutoring for writing centers to implement and students to use. In fact, previous studies cited accessibility as a major reason many students favor asynchronous email-based online exchanges. Students appreciated being able to access and scan written asynchronous feedback from a range of locations and within various timeframes (Borup, West, Thomas, 2015). Asynchronous tutorials also may accommodate different learning levels and preferences by increasing processing time and providing archived materials that learners can refer back to and engage with at various points in the writing and learning processes (Martinez & Olsen, 2015; Mick & Middlebrook, 2015). Additionally, asynchronous email tutoring may assist learners with social anxieties (Boone & Carlson, 2011), although the lack or mitigation of a tutor or teacher’s presence in asynchronous email exchanges may also leave learners feeling disconnected or isolated from the reader providing feedback (Mick & Middlebrook, 2015).
Asynchronous Screencasting
Screencasting as a form of online tutoring seeks to make use of both the benefits of synchronous and asynchronous tutoring. Screencasting allows a tutor to simultaneously capture and record video and audio portions of their review of a student’s submitted work. Coupling audio and visual forms of feedback enhances communication by increasing nonverbal cues and providing greater transparency (Anson, Dannels, Labov, & Carneiro, 2016). Studies have also shown that screencasting increases engagement and comprehension within the learning and writing processes (Griesbaum, 2017; Orlando, 2016; Cranny, 2016). This may be because asynchronous screencasts not only help writers know what to revise, but where to do so since in a screencast the tutor or teacher typically connects comments and feedback to specific portions of a paper (Anson, Dannels, Labov, & Carneiro, 2016; Boone & Carlson, 2011; Cranny, 2016; Soden, 2017).
Like asynchronous email tutorials, students are not as restricted by time and location when accessing asynchronous screencast feedback, making multiple or modified connections with feedback possible. In fact, with screencasting, students are able to “methodically work their way through the feedback, toggling between the screencast and their work, pausing, listening, then making and applying changes as they go along, and possibly closing the feedback loop” (Cranny, 2016, p. 29113), which may make this form of online tutoring especially helpful for some learners, including English language learners (Cranny, 2016; Séror, 2013).
Drawing upon the strength of synchronous tutoring, screencasting has the potential to improve both the relationship between tutor and writer and the type of feedback learners receive. The audio presence and nonverbal communication of screencasting expands possibilities for and perceptions of more personal connections and rapport building than asynchronous email tutorials (Anson, Dannels, Labov, & Carneiro, 2016; Borup, West, Thomas, 2015; Boone & Carlson, 2011; Cranny, 2016; Griesbaum, 2017; Soden, 2017). This improves both the interpersonal aspects of the tutorial and may activate learning through increased audience awareness (Boone & Carlson, 2011).
It is also worth noting that screencasting often leads to different kinds of feedback within an online tutoring appointment. In general, writers participating in asynchronous screencast exchanges have received more positive feedback (Anson, Dannels, Labov, & Carneiro, 2016; Borup, West, Thomas, 2015) and more feedback on global issues of content and organization than the more focused sentence-level suggestions that may come via written feedback (Vincelette & Bostic, 2013). Through screencasting, writers have often received more feedback in general (Madson, 2017; Sommers, 2013), with writers in one study receiving an average of 745 words via screencast versus 109 words in written commentary on the same assignment (Anson, Dannels, Labov, & Carneiro, 2016, p. 388). In a similar study, the differences in word count were much more modest with “video feedback averaging 190.46 words, and text feedback averaging 103.1 words.” (Thomas, West, & Borup, 2017, p. 65). However, researchers have noted the importance of not mistaking the quantity of feedback for a measure of the quality of the interaction or learning exchange.
Asynchronous screencasting provides opportunities for writers to benefit socially and cognitively within a tutorial. While previous research has demonstrated student and tutor satisfaction and positive perceptions of asynchronous screencast interactions (Boone & Carlson, 2011; Cranny, 2016; Soden, 2017), more research is needed to understand how tutors use the tutoring strategies of instruction, scaffolding, and motivation within asynchronous screencast writing tutorials.
> Return to top.
Four research questions guide this study:
- How and to what extent do tutors use instruction in asynchronous screencast tutorials?
- How and to what extent do tutors use scaffolding in asynchronous screencast tutorials?
- How and to what extent do tutors use motivation in asynchronous screencast tutorials?
- How might the use of tutoring strategies differ in online asynchronous screencasts versus in-person tutorials?
Building upon a sociocultural framework, the research design for this study centers around increasing understanding of asynchronous screencast tutorials by examining tutors’ use of instruction, scaffolding, and motivation as tutoring strategies. To date, most research on online screencast writing tutorials has focused on participant perceptions, experiences, and satisfaction rates (Cranny, 2016; Mathieson, 2012; Morris & Chikwa, 2014; Orlando, 2016; Boone & Carlson, 2011; Borup, West, Thomas, 2015). This study is meant to complement and extend previous research on perceptions of learning and tutoring exchanges by focusing on actual use of tutoring strategies as understood through specific tutoring tasks.
Setting
The setting for this study is a large research university in the Rocky Mountain West that boasts multiple writing support programs with a variety online (synchronous and asynchronous) tutoring offerings. The ten online tutoring sessions included in this study were all asynchronous screencasts conducted by writing center tutors, who provide about 200-300 screencast sessions each year.
Screencast Sessions
The asynchronous screencast sessions used for this study are comprised of an emailed draft of the writer’s work that the writing tutor comments on minimally, in the margins, and an accompanying screencast video where the tutor further addresses the writer’s concerns and writing concepts. Drawing upon both the strengths of synchronous and asynchronous tutoring, the screencast tutoring sessions offered allow for the convenience of an asynchronous exchange while providing the increased rapport and interaction often connected with synchronous sessions. As Michael Madson (2017) notes, “much current scholarship has considered screencasts in isolation from, or in opposition to, written comments. But the two methods are not mutually exclusive, and for many students, a combination might be best (p. 222). For example, if a writer asks for help with commas in the intake form, the tutor may comment on the paper and suggest the writer review a particular comma rule and also recommend the writer view the screencast video for more information. In the screencast video, the tutor might review the guidelines for working with commas and sentence-level language, talk about strategies for identifying and revising the writer’s comma concerns, and point out instances where the writer is using commas correctly. Since the asynchronous screencast tutorials for this study provide both a tutor’s written comments and screencast response, writers may choose to simply scan the minimal written comments in the margins of the paper or delve into the tutor’s response more fully by watching the uploaded video or reading the generated video transcript. They may access the individualized screencast (sample below) multiple times or in segments, depending on their needs as a writer and learner.
To participate in an asynchronous screencast tutorial, writers schedule an online tutoring appointment and complete an intake form that requests information about the assignment and course, the writer’s primary and secondary concerns, the assignment due date, and other context for the tutor to work with. During the 60-minute appointment slot, the tutor reviews the intake form, any attached assignment prompts or rubrics, and up to five double-spaced pages of the writer’s submitted work. Based on the writer’s listed concerns, assignment description, and the tutor’s insights, the tutor establishes an agenda and priorities for the session and provides a limited number of focused comments on the writer’s draft, using the commenting function of the word-processing program. The draft and accompanying comments are then saved as a pdf, so the writer cannot simply accept the tutor’s changes after receiving the reviewed paper. This approach requires the writer to read through the tutor’s comments and actively revise or edit their own work after the tutoring session. The writer’s identifying information is removed from this draft, so it will not appear in the screencast.
After providing comments on the paper, the tutor creates a screencast and provides additional insight and revision strategies connected to the written comments and aligned with the session agenda and priorities. To create a screencast, the tutor opens Microsoft PowerPoint and selects screen recording from the insert options in a blank presentation. As prompted by the program, the tutor selects the amount of screen to record; makes sure the writer’s work, intake form, handouts, and website resources are ready for the screencast; and begins recording the screencast, talking through writing concepts, the writer’s concerns, the assignment requirements, and writing and learning process strategies. They may also choose to share additional writing resources as part of the screencast. The tutor ends the screen recording, and the screencast is automatically inserted into a PowerPoint slide. The tutor then selects and saves the screencast and uploads it as an unlisted YouTube video labeled with the time and date of the appointment, but no other identifying information. A link to the screencast is email to the writer along with the PDF of their reviewed paper, and an email message with information about the types of feedback the writer receives. While platforms with more robust screencasting capabilities exist, this simple PowerPoint screencast approach allows tutors to focus less on the technology and more on tutoring strategies and tasks within an online session.
Participants
The participants for this study include writers who voluntarily participated in an online asynchronous screencast writing tutorial and writing tutors trained to conduct these online tutorials. Given the research design and writing center privacy practices, participants’ work was deidentified as part of the online tutoring process. However, those using these online tutoring services are typically undergraduate university writers.
Participating tutors were also deidentified prior to data collection, but tutors conducting screencasts at this writing center are undergraduate tutors between 19 and 26 years of age. The tutors are hired from across campus, complete a 3-credit academic internship on writing center theory and practice, and conduct 25 hours of tutoring prior to beginning 5 hours of training in online tutoring. Given this background, tutor participants are familiar with the tutoring strategies of instruction, scaffolding, and motivation as outlined in writing center research (Mackiewicz & Thompson 2014; 2015). Based on staffing at the time of this study, participating tutors had all worked as online tutors for at least three months prior to data collection.
Data Collection
Although the asynchronous sessions included in this study use both written comments and screencast videos, only the transcripts of the tutors’ screencast responses were used to assess tutors’ use of instruction, scaffolding, and motivation as tutoring strategies. Cluster sampling guided data collection. This approach involved selecting deidentified screencast transcripts from a two-week period, and then identifying ten screencasts of similar length (7-8 minutes long) to provide a more standard comparison across the sessions.
Data Analysis
The ten screencast transcripts were analyzed using a priori coding (Mackiewicz & Thompson 2015) previously applied to in-person writing tutorials. Prior to coding the transcripts, the established codes were adapted to represent and research tutoring strategies in an online setting (see Table 1).
Table 1. Adapted Coding Scheme for Tutoring Discourse and Strategies
Instruction |
Scaffolding |
Motivation |
Other |
|
|
|
|
For example, prompting and hinting remained coupled as a single code to show ways in which tutors use context clues or fill-in-the-blank approaches to encourage writers to problem solve; however, demonstrating was set aside as its own code, acknowledging that in an online setting, the tutor is more likely to model options than to prompt a writer since the writer is not present in the asynchronous exchange. Under the tutoring strategy of motivation, since identifying the use of humor via a written transcript is difficult without nonverbal cues, and given that humor can be applied to almost all other codes related to motivation, this code was removed. Finally, an additional code was added to distinguish tutors’ explanations of the tutoring process from their explanations of writing concepts or writing processes since tutors often begin in-person and online tutorial by introducing the tutoring process and establishing roles and expectations.
Each of the ten session transcripts was coded twice to increase the reliability of the process and resulting data. The coded data was quantified, and descriptive statistical analysis assisted in “identifying trends and patterns in the data and uncovering potential relationships among the variables” (Ivankova, 2015, p. 220). Where the qualitative data gathered in previous studies in online tutoring provide depth and needed descriptions, a quantitative approach was employed to shed light on the scope and frequency of tutoring strategies.
> Return to top.
Table 2. Tutoring Strategy Codes for each Asynchronous Screencast Session
Session |
Number of Codes |
Session 1 |
100 |
Session 2 |
93 |
Session 3 |
67 |
Session 4 |
125 |
Session 5 |
107 |
Session 6 |
80 |
Session 7 |
105 |
Session 8 |
89 |
Session 9 |
101 |
Session 10 |
78 |
Total Codes |
945 |
Some of these differences in coding frequency are related to tutors’ speed of speech and use of pauses. However, code differences also aligned with the tutors’ techniques or strategies in the session. For instance, in Session 3, the tutor spent 23 seconds (minute 1:28--1:51) responding as a reader, which is associated with scaffolding as a tutoring strategy (see fig. 1).
In contrast, the tutor in Session 4 addressed sentence-level concerns, and in the same 23-second interval (minute 2:09-2:34) varied techniques and strategies that elicited multiple codes associated with all three tutoring strategies (see fig. 2):
Despite the tutors’ differences in communication and techniques, each of the ten asynchronous screencast transcripts indicated the frequent use of all three tutoring strategies (see Table 3).
Table 3. Overview of Tutoring Strategies Used in Asynchronous Screencast Tutorials
|
Percent of Instruction |
Percent of Scaffolding |
Percent of Motivation |
Percent of Explaining the Tutoring Process |
Session 1 |
28% |
44% |
20% |
8% |
Session 2 |
31% |
38% |
17% |
13% |
Session 3 |
36% |
37% |
22% |
5% |
Session 4 |
21% |
50% |
24% |
6% |
Session 5 |
20% |
37% |
36% |
7% |
Session 6 |
25% |
28% |
34% |
13% |
Session 7 |
26% |
53% |
18% |
3% |
Session 8 |
20% |
39% |
28% |
11% |
Session 9 |
34% |
40% |
21% |
6% |
Session 10 |
32% |
32% |
26% |
10% |
Mean Totals |
27% |
41% |
24% |
8% |
Table 4. Use of Instruction Techniques Per Screencast Session
|
Tell |
Suggest |
Explain/ Exemplify |
Instruction Total |
Percent of Total Codes |
Session 1 |
1 |
10 |
17 |
28 |
28% |
Session 2 |
9 |
9 |
11 |
29 |
31% |
Session 3 |
8 |
7 |
9 |
24 |
36% |
Session 4 |
10 |
6 |
10 |
26 |
21% |
Session 5 |
9 |
5 |
7 |
21 |
20% |
Session 6 |
6 |
6 |
8 |
20 |
25% |
Session7 |
3 |
12 |
12 |
27 |
26% |
Session 8 |
1 |
7 |
10 |
18 |
20% |
Session 9 |
3 |
15 |
16 |
34 |
34% |
Session 10 |
5 |
7 |
13 |
25 |
32% |
Totals |
55 |
84 |
113 |
252 |
27% |
Tutors use of scaffolding overall accounted for about 40% of the tutoring strategy used in each screencast. However, the coded tutoring tasks for each screencast indicated tutors often referred to a specific place in the paper and responded as a reader but varied in their use of other scaffolding techniques (see Table 5).
Table 5. Use of Scaffolding Techniques Per Screencast Session
|
Demonstrate |
Hint or Prompt |
Limit or Force a Choice |
Read or Refer to Specific Text |
Refer to Previous Topic |
Respond as a Reader |
Solicit Information |
Scaffolding Total |
Percent of Total Codes |
Session 1 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
25 |
4 |
44 |
44% |
Session 2 |
3 |
5 |
0 |
7 |
3 |
15 |
2 |
35 |
37.6% |
Session 3 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
7 |
1 |
14 |
1 |
25 |
37% |
Session 4 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
18 |
9 |
17 |
8 |
62 |
49.6% |
Session 5 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
8 |
1 |
23 |
2 |
40 |
37.4% |
Session 6 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
3 |
12 |
2 |
22 |
27.5% |
Session 7 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
19 |
6 |
25 |
3 |
56 |
53% |
Session 8 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
8 |
3 |
21 |
0 |
35 |
39% |
Session 9 |
4 |
0 |
1 |
8 |
1 |
25 |
1 |
40 |
40% |
Session 10 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
10 |
4 |
9 |
0 |
25 |
32% |
Totals |
21 |
15 |
8 |
100 |
31 |
186 |
23 |
384 |
41% |
The coded screencast sessions revealed that tutors also vary techniques when using motivation as a tutoring strategy, with encouraging ownership as the most common approach. Tutors’ use of motivation accounted for almost a quarter of the overall codes (see Table 6).
Table 6. Use of Motivation Techniques Per Screencast Session
|
Express Optimism |
Encourage Ownership |
Sympathize or Empathize |
Praise |
Show Concern |
Total Motivation |
Percent of Total Codes |
Session 1 |
1 |
9 |
0 |
6 |
4 |
20 |
20% |
Session 2 |
2 |
8 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
16 |
17% |
Session 3 |
1 |
5 |
1 |
5 |
3 |
15 |
22% |
Session 4 |
1 |
17 |
1 |
5 |
6 |
30 |
24% |
Session 5 |
7 |
16 |
1 |
9 |
5 |
38 |
36% |
Session 6 |
5 |
9 |
0 |
11 |
2 |
27 |
34% |
Session 7 |
4 |
3 |
0 |
7 |
5 |
19 |
18% |
Session 8 |
4 |
6 |
0 |
9 |
6 |
25 |
28% |
Session 9 |
3 |
8 |
0 |
6 |
4 |
21 |
21% |
Session 10 |
0 |
7 |
0 |
8 |
5 |
20 |
26% |
Totals |
28 |
88 |
6 |
67 |
42 |
231 |
24% |
On average, explanations of the asynchronous screencast tutoring process accounted for 8% of the codes for the screencast sessions. In sessions 2 and 6, these explanations reached 13%, representing a significant portion of time spent on this task (see Table 7).
Table 7. Use of Tutoring Process Explanations Per Screencast Session
|
Explain the tutoring process |
Percent of Total Codes |
Session 1 |
8 |
8% |
Session 2 |
12 |
13% |
Session 3 |
3 |
5% |
Session 4 |
7 |
6% |
Session 5 |
7 |
7% |
Session 6 |
10 |
13% |
Session 7 |
3 |
3% |
Session 8 |
10 |
11% |
Session 9 |
6 |
6% |
Session 10 |
8 |
10% |
Totals |
74 |
8% |
> Return to top.
Instruction, Motivation, and Scaffolding in Screencast Tutorials
Certainly, tutors’ use of specific strategies and related techniques are not siloed but intersect as tutors work to create spaces for learners and learning in asynchronous screencast sessions. The complex and varied use of tutoring strategies within the ten screencast session echoes findings from previous work on writing tutoring interactions in in-person sessions (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015; Merkel, 2018; Grimm, 2009; Thonus, 2014). For example, tutors rarely relied on a single technique or strategy. They often used reader response (scaffolding) coupled with praise (motivation) and explanation (instruction) to provide the writer with positive, replicable feedback (e.g., “As a reader, I really appreciate and like your strong topic sentences because they connect the ideas of each paragraph back to your thesis.”). In addition to providing feedback, tutors appeared to use multiple tutoring strategies and techniques to encourage audience awareness, reflection, and critical thinking, encouraging and engaging writers in the learning process (see Figure 3).
In instructional communication, providing explanations should be a two-step procedure: the first didactic step includes providing an instructional explanation. However, this is not sufficient. In a second didactic step, instructional communicators should elicit an active processing of the explanation by “inviting” the learners to further process the instructional explanation. Typically, this second didactic step is neglected in instructional communication, even though it is highly relevant because active processing of the explanation is crucial for utilizing the potential of instructional explanations. (p. 36)
While the use of tutoring strategies has potential to encourage active learning for writers, this study demonstrated how the interaction and intersection of tutoring strategies available through asynchronous screencast tutorials may amplify opportunities for learning, aligning with what research has shown in in-person tutoring (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2014; 2015).
Adapting Tutoring Techniques and Strategies for Screencasting
Analysis of the ten asynchronous screencast sessions revealed that tutors are not simply applying the tutoring techniques and strategies they use in in-person session in a new online setting, but they are adapting these tools and approaches. For example, across all ten sessions, only six codes appear for sympathizing or empathizing with the learner as a strategy for motivation. These tasks generally require the tutor to mirror or respond to the writer or learner’s emotional state, and without the writer present, the tutor has fewer opportunities to make use of this technique. Additionally, across the screencast sessions, there were only 23 instances of soliciting writers for information (what Mackiewicz and Thompson call pumping). While tutors commonly solicit writers for information in in-person sessions (Mackiewicz & Thompson 2014; 2015), tutors in an asynchronous online setting make frequent use of other scaffolding techniques to engage the learner, who is not immediately present in the conversation. Likewise, where tutors and writers often read portions of a paper aloud to encourage learning through scaffolding, without the presence of both participant in an asynchronous screencast, reading aloud was not common. However, tutors still made use of scaffolding by shifting from reading aloud to referring to a specific area text within the screencast session. Tutors using screencasting provided both visual and auditory prompts to do similar work of scaffolding through drawing attention and encouraging reflection and response a particular part of the writer’s work. These changes in tutor discourse between face-to-face and asynchronous online screencasting suggest that when a particular type of tutoring discourse or technique is less applicable, tutors still make use of the same tutoring strategy by shifting to another more appropriate tutoring approach for the setting.
It is also important to note that tutors adapt their strategies and techniques not simply based on whether they are tutoring in-person or online. Tutors adapt their approaches based on individual learners and circumstances. For instance, in Session 10, the tutor did not read the writer’s work aloud; however, this likely had little to do with the lack of the writer’s presence and more to do with the session’s focus on citations and punctuation concerns. Tutors’ adaptation of strategies and techniques, may be more about people and priorities than platforms.
Tutoring techniques used in the asynchronous screencast sessions also show how tutors emphasize roles and responsibilities in the tutoring and learning process in ways not immediately visible in previous research on in-person tutoring exchanges (Mackiewicz & Thompson 2014; 2015). Across the ten screencast sessions, there was a high frequency of encouraging ownership and responding as a reader. Although encouraging ownership is linked to motivation and responding as a reader to scaffolding, their function may differ in an online setting. With interpersonal relationships playing a noteworthy role within student and tutor satisfaction rates of online tutoring, providing reader response and highlighting ownership may be more aligned with the social aspects of screencast tutorials rather than doing the cognitive work of increasing audience awareness. Cunningham (2017) has suggested that students receiving written feedback typically see the reviewer or tutor as an authority or expert, but video and audio presence may open up opportunities to understand the position of the one providing feedback. It may be that tutors used reader response to clarify and define an otherwise unclear relationship, mitigating their expertise and emphasizing their role as a peer and co-learner in the process. Additionally, tutors may have encouraged ownership to emphasize the writer’s role in an online tutoring space, highlighting the idea that “just like in an onsite writing center, students should remain the agents of their own writing” (Martinez & Olsen, 2015, p. 185). The frequency of tutor techniques associated with defining roles suggests tutors respond as readers and encourage ownership as tasks related to tutoring strategies but also to define relationships in an asynchronous setting where participants are not both present to otherwise negotiate and establish roles.
> Return to top.
> Return to top.
Anson, Chris M., Dannels, Deanna P., Laboy, Johanne I., & Carneiro, Larissa. (2016). Students’ perceptions of oral screencast responses to their writing: Exploring digitally mediated identities. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 30(3), 378-411. doi: 10.1177/1050651916636424
Berthold, Kristen & Renkl, Alexander. (2010). How to foster active processing of explanations in instructional communication. Educational Psychology Review, 22(1), 25-40.
Boone, Joni & Carlson, Susan. (2011). Paper review revolution: Screencasting feedback for developmental writers. NADE Digest, 5(3), 15-23.
Borup, Jered, West, Richard E., & Thomas, Rebecca. (2015). The impact of text versus video communication on instructor feedback in blended courses. Educational Technology Research and Development, 63(2), 161-184.
Cranny, David. (2016). Screencasting, a tool to facilitate engagement with formative feedback?. AISHE-J: The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 8(3).
Cunningham, Kelly. J. (2017). Appraisal as a framework for understanding multimodal electronic feedback: Positioning and purpose in screencast video and text feedback in ESL writing. Writing & Pedagogy, 9(3), 457-485.
Ene, Estela & Upton, Thomas A. (2018). Synchronous and asynchronous teacher electronic feedback and learner uptake in ESL composition. Journal of Second Language Writing, 41, 1-13.
Fitzgerald, Lauren & Ianetta, Melissa. (2016). The Oxford guide for writing tutors: Practice and research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Griesbaum, Joachim. (2017). Feedback in Learning: Screencasts as Tools to Support Instructor Feedback to Students and the Issue of Learning from Feedback Given to Other Learners. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 7(9), 694.
Grimm, Nancy. (2009). New conceptual frameworks for writing center work. Writing Center Journal, 29(2). 11-27.
Harris, Muriel. (1995). Talking in the middle: Why writers need writing tutors. College English, 57(1), 27-42.
Ivankova, Nataliya V. (2014). Mixed methods applications in action research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Kim, Eun-Young Julia. (2012). Providing a sounding board for second language writers. TESOL Journal, 3(1): 33-47.
Kim, Eun-Young Julia. (2015). "I don't understand what you're saying!": Lessons from three ESL writing tutorials. Journal of Response to Writing, 1(1): 47-76.
Mackiewicz, Jo & Thompson, Isabelle. (2014). Instruction, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational scaffolding in writing center tutoring. Composition Studies, 42(1), 54-78.
Mackiewicz, Jo & Thompson, Isabelle. (2015).Talk about writing: The tutoring strategies of experienced writing center tutors. New York, NY: Routledge.
Madson, Michael. (2017). Showing and telling! Screencasts for enhanced feedback on student writing. Nurse educator, 42(5), 222-223. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000000385
Mahoney, Paige, Macfarlane, Susie, & Ajjawi, Rola. (2018). A qualitative synthesis of video feedback in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 1-23. doi:10.1080/13562517.2018.1471457
Mathieson, Kathleen. (2012). Exploring student perceptions of audiovisual feedback via screencasting in online courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 26(3), 143-156, doi:10.1080/08923647.2012.689166
Marsh, Julie A., Bertrand, Melanie, & Huguet, Alice. (2015). Using data to alter instructional practice. Teachers College Record, 117(4), 1-40.
Martinez, Diane & Olsen, Leslie. (2015). Online writing labs.In B. Hewett and K. DePew (Eds.) Foundational practices of online writing instruction (pp. 183-210). Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/books/owi/foundations.pdf
Merkel, Warren. (2018). Role reversals: A case study of dialogic interactions and feedback on L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 39, 16-28. Retrieved from https://search-lib-byu-edu.erl.lib.byu.edu/byu/record/edsbyu.aph.127762346
Mick, Connie Snyder & Middlebrook, Geoffrey. (2015). Asynchronous and synchronous modalities. In B. Hewett and K. DePew (Eds.) Foundational practices of online writing instruction(pp. 129-148). Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/books/owi/foundations.pdf
Nordlof, John. (2014). Vygotsky, scaffolding, and the role of theory in writing center work. The Writing Center Journal, 34(1), 45-64.
Nowacek, Rebecca S. & Hughes, Bradley. (2015). Threshold concepts in the writing center: Scaffolding the development of tutor expertise. In L. Adler-Kassner and E. Wardle (Eds.) Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies (pp. 171-185). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.
Orlando, John. (2016). A comparison of text, voice, and screencasting feedback to online students. American Journal of Distance Education, 30(3), 156-166. doi: 10.1080/08923647.2016.1187472
Parisi, Hope & Graziano-King, Janine. (2011). Integrating best practices: Learning communities and the writing center. The Community College Enterprise, 17(1), 23-39.
Séror, Jérémie. (2013). Show me! Enhanced feedback through screencasting technology. TESL Canada Journal, 30(1), 104-116.
Soden, Bill. (2017). The case of screencast feedback: Barriers to the use of learning technology. Innovative Practice in Higher Education, 3(1), 1-21.
Thomas, Rebecca A., West, Richard E., & Borup, Jared. (2017). An analysis of instructor social presence in online text and asynchronous video feedback comments. The Internet and Higher Education, 33, 61-73.
Thonus, Terese. (2014). Tutoring multilingual students: Shattering the myths. Journal of College Reading & Learning, 44(2), 200-213. doi:10.1080/10790195.2014.906233
Vincelette, Elizabeth Jackson & Bostic, Timothy. (2013). Show and tell: Student and instructor perceptions of screencast assessment. Assessing Writing, 18(4), 257-277.
Weigle, Sara Cushing, & Nelson, Gayle L. (2004). Novice tutors and their ESL tutees: Three case studies of tutor roles and perceptions of tutorial success. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(3), 203-225. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2004.04.011
Weissberg, Robert. (2006). Scaffolded feedback: Tutorial conversations with advanced L2 writers. In K. Hyland & F. Hyland (Eds.), Feedback in second language writing: Contexts and issues(pp. 246-265). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.