overcoming perceived barriers by enfranchising faculty

Oh random thoughts of progress...

What is our growth of part-time faculty, adjuncts, lecturers, etc.? This is part of the trend and equation. What are the resistors to online teaching for full-time faculty?

Can we look at  a model of faculty (full-time or otherwise) at a distance?

What percentage of our faculty/instructors teaching in the iMBA and iSchool programs are on-campus? Do we have remote faculty in those programs?

General question for preparing faculty: Should we require faculty to teach the course at least once in a F2F format before allowing them (or preparing them) to teach the course online (in full or hybrid format)?

Barriers to allowing distance faculty:

1) Tradition
2) Perceived faculty role change.

Similar concerns/arguments surrounding remote workers.

• "How do they attend faculty meetings?"
• "They can't take full advantage of support resources on campus."

What can we do:

• Develop alternate support options
• Change attitudes about the "weight" or value of teaching online
• Identify a champion
• Assess the institutional culture (already done this at the macro level)
• Environmental scan (this is the core of my proposal -- it's a micro-level environment scan).
• Spec or create an infrastructure that would allow faculty to participate as a member of the faculty community (we do this for students)

putting the pieces together

We continue to work toward an institutional vision for online undergraduate instruction. It continues to be good and challenging work. In regard to the challenges, we have many. The biggest (at this point -- today) may be effectively communicating or providing a clearing house for information regarding online teaching and learning. Should it be web-based, a dedicated site, a series of road shows, or frequent workshops? Should it be all of the above? There is no way currently to share best practices here; no forum in which to vet and consider options, policies, procedures, etc. On the tail of that challenge: Getting faculty to understand that the LMS -- the platform -- is not the process of teaching online. We need to broaden their understanding of online teaching and learning, then help them find the appropriate technology to support the teaching processes. 

So here are my random thoughts regarding faculty preparation/development options:

• New Instructor Orientation/Workshop
• Continuous Development Series (monthly online sessions)
• Instructor Webinar Meetings (includes veteran online instructors
• Comprehensive Faculty Resource Site (OLS)
  -- We can/should base this within Blackboard (?)
  -- Wiki for best practices
  -- Instructor news blog -- should be external facing (?)
• Online Teaching and Learning Newsletter - monthly. What feature? Sustainable? How much work?
• Online Faculty Certification Program (you are certified to teach an online course at SU)

Get 'em while they're starry eyed: During new faculty orientation, can we survey or discover new faculty preferred mode of professional development. Also inquire about experience teaching online; interest in teaching online. This is what I need to do. What is her frequency of the new faculty sessions? Is there a first-year community/forum to engage with this population? What about adjuncts? This is the bulk of SOM and IST instructor cohort.

We have the technology/LMS training opportunities, but they are not required. How do we require them? How do we get a sign-off or performance of some level of competency before we let them "use" Blackboard for F2F courses?

Lots of pieces to come together -- one piece at a time.

time and location

The industry trade journals all predicted that smart phones and tablets would overtake PC shipments by the end of last year. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I’ve been curious to see how this trend plays out with our traditional age undergrads. If we work from the assumption that mobility eliminates time and space boundaries, then we can assume a predilection for content that can be “consumed” any time/any place.

This isn’t a new concept, but it does serve our ongoing conversations about the use of technology to maximize classroom time. If, as some argue, SU will never see a critical mass of hybrid or full online courses, we should focus our energies (resources, money, time, etc.) on helping faculty use technology outside the classroom. Our undergrads today – the much hyped “digital natives” – may not be demanding instructional content outside of the classroom, but they would most certainly be comfortable consuming it on their time. 

If we continue to demand an ass in a seat for 1 hour and 20 minutes two days each week, let’s make sure that we’re exploiting that face time. Move the contextualizing back-drop blather to ether and get to DOING in the classroom. That would truly be technology-enhanced instruction.

progress at any pace

I had the opportunity yesterday to attend an online teaching and learning prep session hosted by the SU Writing Program (WP). The WP has shown extraordinary vision in this regard, as they’ve been hosting these events at least once a year for the past six or so years. The sessions are now required for any Professional Writing Instructor (adjunct) or doctoral student interested in teaching an online writing course.

This year, a scholar who I’ve long admired as a teacher’s teacher gave a terrific overview of her strategy for engaging students in an online course. It was interesting to see how someone who is keenly aware of pedagogical moves in the writing classroom was challenged to make her online course less about technology and more about learning. By that I mean selecting specific tools and technologies based on pedagogical requirements, rather than the other way around. If I can convince her to deliver a version of her presentation to faculty outside the WP, it would go a long way toward moving antagonistic faculty beyond the problem of conflating the concepts of online teaching/learning and instructional technology.

I also found during this year’s session that the small group in attendance expressed the same valid concerns we’ve been wrestling with for a long time. For example, there remains a concern about the lack of more rigorous or formalized options for preparing faculty (and others) to teach online. This may be changing here on the iceberg – stay tuned.