Abstract
This chapter revisits the full PAUSE acronym and repositions the full framework within the online learning capacity building continuum, as well as the distance of understanding framework. By providing feedback to students that includes praise and is applicable, understandable, specific, and encouraging, faculty can enrich a student's progress to persistence at the online university. This chapter will review why PAUSE is important and the connections between encouraging feedback, andragogy, and the online learning capacity building continuum.
Keeping the acronym in mind when grading has helped me realize that some of my wording could be less academic and still convey the same message. It's been relatively easy to simplify my feedback. -Faculty Participant
When considering the PAUSE framework, think about how the seven practices of engagement (Chickering & Garrison, 1987) are included. These are:
Simultaneously, consider Kennan et al.’s (2018) preferences of older students. Instructors should
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leave evidence of participation,
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create a learning environment built on respect, and
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present content in a way that is understandable.
The inclusion of PAUSE in the teaching and learning cycle encompasses many frameworks and ideas that are used in online and distance education. While learners must still exert control over their own learning via heutagogy (Falloon, 2011), feedback can help reduce the challenges of being an online learner (Kumar & Johnson, 2017). Students who are new to the online higher education platform show greater risk of not persisting or having more challenges adjusting to online learning (Netanda, 2019; Rotar, 2022). Online instructors face the challenge of designing feedback that supports the teaching and learning cycle in a way that helps students’ motivation (Li et al., 2020), provides space for students to benefit from the feedback (Crook et al., 2012), and promotes self-regulation by incorporating feedback (Ajjawi & Boud, 2018; Boud & Molloy, 2013; Nicol & MacFarlane-Dick, 2006; Willam, 2013). Since about one-third of all students are online (Lederman, 2018), helping students learn ways to use feedback for feedforward (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) learning can support persistence and retention.
The complete PAUSE framework supports instructors’ feedback practices and helps to bridge the distance of online education (transactional distance) for discipline-specific writing (pedagogy) to adult learners (andragogy) to support heutagogy (building capacity for academic success). PAUSE lays the foundation for holistic feedback, including a pedagogy of care that extends validation theory and provides space for praise and encouragement in our feedback.
Figure 2. Online learning capacity building continuum
Understanding that faculty are teaching applicable, understandable, and specific strategies that must overcome the distance of online education (transactional distance) for discipline-specific writing (pedagogy) for adult learners (andragogy) to support heutagogy (building capacity for academic success) lays the foundation for applicable feedback. Likewise, including that foundation within a pedagogy of care that extends validation theory provides space for praise and encouragement in our feedback.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Transactional Distance: This is the psychological and communicative distance between students and instructors in online education.
PAUSE: A framework for giving feedback that reminds faculty to provide praise, and then applicable, understandable, specific, and encouraging feedback.
Feedback: Summary information provided to students to help them understand their areas of strengths and opportunity with the skills and subskills needed to complete assignments or to be successful in the online university.
Continuum for Capacity Building Framework: The framework used through to position the broader study in the context of online higher education. This framework shows that through the combination of andragogy and pedagogy, while keeping in mind the building heutagogy of online students, faculty can narrow the transactional distance of online higher education.