Supporting Teachers to Design Digital Basic Skills Programs for Adults

Introduction

Learner support measures are of key importance when it comes to courses (especially ones being fully online or having a digital element) targeting the basic skills training of adults. This chapter’s content focuses on what we mean by learning support and how we can approach it strategically to be able to design a set of support measures that can help our learners during their learning path. The content this chapter is divided into the following 3 sections that are mostly based on a key resource: Ufi/learndirect and Kineo. (2007). Learner support reviewed. (online document). This document is focusing on online and blended learning programs for adults.

• Defining learner support – basic considerations, tentative definitions, complexity of providing support to learners.
• Benefits of good learner support strategies – advantages of designing a strategy to learner support, main use of support measures.
• Tools of learner support – actual service types, functions and case studies.

What is learner support?

Providing support to learners in a learning program that involve e-learning elements is especially important when adults with basic skills challenges and having less experience in digital learning are on board. Learning is a complex process in itself, and it is even so when the learning environment is hosted by a number of different platforms (e.g. classroom, libraries, at workplaces, in online learning management systems etc).

In our key resource provided by Ufi/learndirect and Kineo (2007), one of the most important considerations about learning support is that “successful blended and e-learning programmes are designed from the outset with learner support in mind” (p. 3). This calls for course designers to consider learner support measures from the very beginning of the development process having an extra eye on it. The following quote explains the integral nature of support measures:

“Traditionally, learner support is seen as that which happens after the course materials have been made. Such boundaries however no longer hold in an online or blended course where collaborative learning plays a major role, and there is great potential to ‘bake in’ the support as part of the design process. If much of the content of such a course is generated through online interaction and collaborative activities, you can't consider course design without also dealing with learner support at the same time”
(Ufi/learndirect and Kineo. 2007).

Attempting a definition

To be able to design support strategies efficiently, it is vital to see how they can be defined. In a general sense one would say that learner support is about making sure that learners carry out learning successfully and, in the case of blended learning, to develop their own understandings of blended or online learning materials.

Three types of learner support were identified by the British Institute for Learning and Development:

• Support for learners’ mediation with course and learning resource materials.
• Support to create a social environment, which encourages dialogue and interactions both between learners and staff and between learners themselves – this reinforces the view that learning is a social activity.
• Support for the administrative framework, management and information necessary for learners to progress.

The types of support measures presented above refer to the function of the measures and not really to its constituents. It is a good idea to consider which of these functions are more important for your context, which may lead to different tools and elements in the support service.

The Institute of Employment Studies (IES) makes the point that support measures directed towards learners “is a key element of a comprehensive blended and e-learning strategy”. IES proposes learner support in the following frames:

• Automated support to learners
• Expert support measures (“synchronous (real time) or asynchronous (post hoc) contact between learners and tutors")
• Peer-to-peer support (“contact between learners, either as a follow-up to particular learning activities”)
• Mentoring (one-on-one channel for interaction between learners and tutors/teachers)

Further examples for learner support elements are listed by Ufi/learndirect and Kineo (2007):

• Tutoring
• Coaching
• Counselling
• Assessment
• Advice and guidance

Which of the three functions quoted from the British Institute for Learning and Development (e.g. learner mediation, social environment, administrative framework) could be the most relevant for your target group? Could you identify a priority list among these three?

Have you thought of implementing learner support tools to your course? Which of the tools mentioned by IES have you tried for the benefit of your learners? If you have not yet tried any of these, which do you think would be viable to implement?

Why is learner support necessary?

Ufi/learndirect and Kineo (2007) mentions that low completion rate is often due to the following factors:

• learner isolation
• lack of personal feedback
• technical problems
• lack of social interaction

These factors can have important implications about the nature and format of the support measures trainers may need to keep their learners active, motivated and on the track. In this section we are looking at five benefits of having a learner support strategy as described by Ufi/learndirect and Kineo (2007, pp 7-9).

1. Attracting learners in the first place

“The first action of effective support should be to raise awareness among learners of the existence of the learning programme, what’s in it for them, and why they should consider it. Effective marketing of learning is really the first step in effective learner support – you can’t support them if they don’t know about the learning and don’t show up” (Ufi/learndirect and Kineo, 2007).
Outreach initiatives play an important role in learner support, which may feel like an unusual topic to discuss when it comes to learner support measures. However, when your target group is adults with basic skills needs, outreach strategies proved beneficial in past programs. The following excerpt is taken from EBSN’s OER on EPALE on Integrated Approach to Basic Skills Policy about one example of such initiative!

“Awareness raising about the issue of adult basic skills among the target group, the general public and the involved stakeholders is an important factor in any integrated and cohesive national policy in this field.

An EPALE article published in September of 2018 announces an “Irish Campaign launched to help people to improve their literacy and numeracy skills”. You can read more about this campaign and follow its results on the website of NALA, the Irish National Adult Literacy Agency.”

2. Addressing key learner questions

Concise learner support strategies are especially useful in providing:

• the mechanism for learners to query a statement or ask for technical clarification
• examples and help place the learning in their context
• feedback on qualitative elements of assessments and assignments
• re-assurance and support during long or important training programmes
• ways to share ideas and discuss alternative approaches
• a means to minimise learner isolation
• technical support

“Put simply, if there’s no element of learner support in the blended or e-learning solution then it will not be as effective as it could be. Effective learner support can ensure you have higher completion rates, lower dropouts, higher learner motivation and increased relevance and impact in your learning programmes” (Ufi/learndirect and Kineo, 2007).

3. Enabling rapid response

“E-learning is often launched to address a time critical need in the organisation. It’s critical that there’s sufficient support in place during the launch period to ensure learners can access, use, and complete the e-learning – you do not want to be responsible for a delay in completion, or cause low levels of uptake because the support was not in place” (Ufi/learndirect and Kineo, 2007).

4. Improving completion rate

Learner support measures can be a significant factor in increasing and keeping learner motivation to complete learning programs. Efficient learner support mechanisms can scaffold learning from the beginning to the end of the learning process.

5. Sustaining learner performance

“Completion of blended and e-learning programmes should just be the beginning of course. What really counts is the sustained change in behaviour and performance as a result of the training intervention. Effective support of learners during this phase, when they’re applying the learning in the workplace, and perhaps facing challenges that were not anticipated during the learning experience is critical. (…) this is as much the territory of effective learner support as during the course or programme itself. It may require similar or different channels of support, but it cannot be overlooked if a sustained change is to be realised” (Ufi/learndirect and Kineo, 2007).

How to plan successful support measures?

We chose three models here to show you examples of how blended learning can look like in practice. These models are recommended by Rosen, D.J. & Vanek, J. (2020) for practitioners, course designers who work with adults with basic skills needs. Take a careful look at the model and read the notes and resources listed below. Think about how well these models would serve your practice. Could you adapt or integrate them? If so, how? If not, think of the reasons why? Please note, that the presentation of these models is primarily based on school education where young learners are involved. While going through the materials, think about how these models, activities would need to be changed to an adult learning setting.

Step 1 - Setting clear objectives

It seems obvious, but effective learner support starts with clear objectives. If properly commissioned, your learning programme will have clear business and learning objectives. The purpose of learner support should be to assist with the delivery of those objectives. Objectives that are particularly relevant to support are:

• Those relating to raising awareness (marketing)
• Those relating to learner experience during the programming itself
• Those relating to completion rates (e.g. 100% of learners complete and pass the compliance assessment by June 30th)
• Those relating to ongoing performance (we expect to see 25% reduction in calls to the support desk as a result of the systems training)

You should be designing your support by thinking through the business objectives, and identifying how your support structures could enable them – given the timeline, scope and budget constraints identified.

An initial time and cost for support efforts is key to identify at this point. In some programmes, where a tutor relationship is critical to enable completion, it’s key to factor in the human cost of this support upfront so you can secure the time and resources required.

Step 2 - Consider your audience

Whatever the form of your learning programmes, effective learner support will rely on accurately identifying the learner’s needs and adequate induction and communication with the staff in the support roles.

Thus one of the key factors is to know your audience and to tailor the support accordingly.

Step 3 - Plan your framework

The level of the support your need will depend upon the nature of the audience and the nature of the e-learning. You have to decide what framework you will create to handle the support.

• Will the human contact be by email, chat room, telephone or face to face?
• How long will it take you to reply to email queries - can you promise them a certain time-scale, such as 2 working days, in which you’ll respond so that they know what to expect?

It’s important to balance the need to be available with the need not to be overwhelmed. It’s easier to increase your availability once the course has started than to reduce it, so start off doing the minimum you feel necessary and be prepared to add more if you need it.

Step 4 - Identify your support network

There are many people who can support you in creating an effective learner support structure. These include:

• Subject matter experts
• Tutors
• Line Managers
• IT/technical support
• Senior people through participation in webinars, online discussions
• Expert groups or communities of users

It is important that you involve these people from the outset, if your framework suggests their input would be valuable, since you will need their commitment to make the programme successful.

A key group that you can involve is line managers, given the evidence of their strong influence on learners. They are also your best link to sustained performance through ongoing liaison, support, appraisals, showing interest, endorsing the learning and critically encouraging people to share what they’ve learned with others to help to foster a learning community.

Step 5 - Create a support plan

Things don't happen by chance. To maximise the potential success of your programme you need to plan and design in learner support from the outset. The plan should contain at a minimum:

• Objectives for support
• Channels to be used
• Resources required for each channel (human and technical)
• Time and cost implications
• Risks and contingencies

You will also need to make sure in any business case for the e-learning that you include the costs of learner support.

Step 6 - Test and adjust

It’s impossible to anticipate the complete and precise list of support queries you will get upon launch of your programme. User testing and review of your support materials will help but inevitably your learners will have issues and questions that you did not account for.

It’s critical to conduct a review of support provision very shortly after launch. On a time sensitive project, you may find you need to do this on a daily basis for the first week after launch. This should be a short review to:

• Analyse which channels of support are being used the most, so you can adjust resourcing to support those channels better.
• Analyse which questions are most commonly being asked that are not covered in existing support materials, so you can add to the FAQ, tutorials, etc).
• Pro-actively follow up if the level of calls on support is low, as this may be an indicator of low uptake of e-learning, rather than low demands on support.

If you’re responsible for providing support, you will know the answers intuitively, however if another part of your organisation is providing the support, you should seek them out to help you determine what’s working. So who is providing effective learning support, and what can be learned from their experience? That’s the subject of the next section.

It is important to mention that ”there’s no one optimal model for learner support in blended and e-learning programmes. Your models should be developed based on the objectives of your programme and what your audience needs.” The following table gives an overview of different methods with practice-oriented notes to help trainers and course designers decide what could work best in a given learning setting:

Learner support method	How to use it in blended and elearning programmes	Practical considerations
FAQs on intranet/access point for elearning	Simply and quickly capturing frequently asked questions Easily divided into sections to enable scanning e.g. technical and content Easy to update as long as process for capturing FAQs is automated (e.g. email address, form submission)	This is the baseline level of support you’d expect to provide with all blended and e-learning Cost level is very low, but you do need to assign a resource to monitor inbound FAQs and update list
Email-based support	Responding to basic queries Queries can be routed to technical resource or content expert by using different addresses, or using online forms	Relatively easy to support once a resource is assigned FAQs should provide the templates for most email inquiries
Tutorials	A form of using e-learning to support e-learning: Creating short tutorials using authoring tools to demonstrate key tasks such as how to log in, to the LMS, how to use the controls in the rapid e-learning	Can be very effective as of an interactive FAQ list and marketing campaigns, and can be quite easily included in development effort
Chat support (Instant Messenger)	A good combination of ‘high touch’ support without having to provide phone-based support, by providing an Instant Messenger based online help desk Subject matter experts can provide support to groups of learners during fixed time clinic sessions where they answer questions via instant messenger	More expensive to provide and support, but worth considering if Instant Messenger is used by target audience as it is rapid (immediate) and the feedback loop is closed (the chat session always leads to a resolution of the issue) Can be time consuming Responses can be templated to reflect most commonly asked questions and ported into a collaborative resource over time (e.g. a wiki)
Virtual how-to sessions	Using virtual classroom or collaboration software to perform live demonstrations of the e-learning, usually involving a project champion/sponsor and a member of the development team Can be used to deliver ‘What’s in it for me’ and marketing messages as well as functional explanation of elearning and its contents	Can be a very effective way to launch an initiative and achieve multiple support and marketing goals at once Can be recorded and used as a tutorial (see below) Requires scheduling and resourcing but relatively limited effort and could be held with pilot user group so recorded version is ready for launch
Phone support	May be required as a back-up if above levels of support fail to resolve issues Note: Using Voice over IP applications such as skype and googletalk provide opportunities to combine phone and IM support levels	Typically the most expensive form of support to provide and maintain, especially if working across multiple geographies May be critical during an initial launch period but only consider by exception

Source: Ufi/learndirect and Kineo. (2007). Learner support reviewed. (online document). (pp 12-14)

• Which of the six steps do you find more important in your context than the others?
• Could you integrate one or more of these steps into your teaching practice? Would you need any assistance from your team? Who would you involve?
• What challenges could you foresee in adapting a complex support mechanism for learners (e.g. regarding human capacity, time, equipment, experience etc.)?