Scenario and Voice

Description:

In the face-to-face classroom verbal communication filled with tone and inflection facilitates learning with ease. An online facilitator must carefully articulate and sequence activities and discussion using wording that conveys a “voice and tone” that promotes learner-learner and learner-instructor interaction (more about those later). To illustrate how challenging this can be, practice saying, “Yeah, right”, out loud using several different inflections that express agreement, surprise, and sarcasm. You can see that our meaning isn’t always adequately communicated by the written word.

Assignment:

The Online Facilitator

To learn more about the roles and responsibilities of an effective online facilitator, read the attached articles Learning Online Facilitation Online and The Top Ten Tenets of Effective Online Facilitation.

As emphasized in the articles, it’s important to develop your “tone and voice” as an effective online facilitator. To learn more about developing your style, read The Scenario. Post two discussion forum responses as described below.

The Scenario

A teacher posts this writing prompt in the online discussion forum:

Choose an experience in which you helped others by serving as a volunteer, making a charitable donation, or stepping in to help make a situation better. In one paragraph describe the experience. In another paragraph explain why that experience is worth sharing with others. In the third paragraph describe how much information you would need to include to make sure your audience understands and appreciates the significance of your actions.

The student posts this response:

One Thanksgiving, my family and I decided to help out at the Salvation Army by helping to cook and serve dinner. We worked hard to help these people. Some of them were very nice to us and some seemed to be embarrassed because they were there. Even though I missed my mother’s home cooked meal that day, I still feel good because we helped.

The information I included to ensure that the audience understands and appreciates the significance of my actions is to tell them that we worked hard and gave up Thanksgiving Dinner at our house.

Your turn:

Reply to this student, using what you think is an appropriate voice and tone. Remember that you are addressing the whole class, not just this student so that everyone learns more about planning and drafting a paragraph, and that the online dialog is extended, focused, or redirected to promote your learning goals.

After you have posted your response to the student, reply to your posting identifying the type of voice and tone from the article, Learning Online Facilitation Online that best describes yours. Also include how your response furthered your learning goals. Be sure to read and respond to at least three others' postings as well.

My Work:

Reply to the Scenario:

Dear Student:

What an interesting day you must have had! Can you tell us more? I’m wondering about your specific jobs that day. Were you able to have conversations with any of the people who came in for their meal? It would be so interesting to know what “life” circumstances led people to dine with the Salvation Army on Thanksgiving. (Remember that the directions call for three paragraphs.)

My Voice and Tone:

I used my Personal Muse voice when I wondered about the details about the duties of the student or about possible conversations with folks eating at the SA. My voice was that of the Conceptual Facilitator when I reminded the student that a third paragraph was omitted. My tone was curious until I inserted the reminder about the third paragraph. For the reminder, my tone was neutral.

My response furthered my learning goals by giving the student some ideas for more meaningful details that would elevate the level of the writing. Also I redirected the student so that the information would be correctly organized into the three-paragraph format.

My Scenario:

In my online learning class, it will be important to always consider my voice and tone as I communicate with my students. Netiquitte will be explicitly taught to these young learners as they learn that their written comments must be made with diplomacy and sensitivity. With my students, I often use my nurturing voice as I support and encourage students to dig deeper to produce their best work. As the instructor, I will set the tone for the communication in this class.