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.

tech no faculty

I just read two more articles bemoaning the challenges of getting faculty to use instructional technology in ways that benefit students. Both articles offer the same staid suggestions for technology adoption, as well as the standard 5-step approach for implementing technology -- any technology -- to address a specific problem.

These regurgitated suggestions always fail to recognize the audience -- the faculty we are asking to rethink and retool. Beyond the anecdotal generational differences among faculty, there are a few other "conditions" that cause faculty to not fully accept our best efforts and good intentions in regard to instructional technology. For starters, faculty will not read anything that is not specific to their discipline, area or research, or something they've written themselves. Countless hours have we scribed workbooks, templates, tools, and guides to assist faculty in preparing to use instructional technology, only to find the wealth of knowledge therein committed only to the ether. Instead, faculty prefer to learn about instructional technologies by simply calling the help desk and asking, "How do I use [mention technology here] for my class that starts tomorrow?
 
To compensate for the lack of engagement with our written materials, we've fallen back on face-to-face training sessions scheduled around proven and well-designed project plans. Yet when provided a chance to sit and work hands-on with a new technology, faculty disregard the schedules, project plans, and other activities associated with having a course structured and complete prior to the start of the semester. They prefer, instead, to not interact with others -- particularly when with their peers -- nor to engage with support staff when in group training settings. Maybe it's an ego thing. Most likely, it's an ego thing.
 
So what are we left with? Beyond the old 5-step solutions, here's what seems to be working in places that have the balls to do it: First, link faculty training directly to an incentive -- pay them or reward them in some other way to learn and adopt instructional technologies for their courses. As with any effort involving faculty, get to know the culture in which you're working. Find out what motivates faculty and leverage those motivations in the cultural contexts of your school, college or university. Money and release time seem to be the most popular motivators. Second, teach faculty as they go -- don't jam them up with the traditional show-and-tell type training. Let them move through the technology in ways that scaffolds their use and competency -- make the technology seamless to their instructional objectives. This is the ego rub -- it's where you can make them think it's their idea. It works really well when done tactfully.

Two things to consider. Lots of issues associated with both. Of course, nothing is as easy it should be. All we can do is to keep chopping. Chop, chop, chop.

governance and chaos

It doesn't look like it should work, but it does...

I left the Sloan-C conference last week with a renewed vigor, ready to embrace the chaotic cultural context in which undergraduate online teaching and learning occurs at Syracuse University. The chaos is a byproduct or the operational and academic autonomy that each of our schools and colleges maintain. In regard to governance of online initiatives, this autonomy necessitates a multi-level structure. Faculty and Deans provide governance at the local level. The Provost's office provides oversight and considers initiatives against the University's broader goals. In regard to support and implementation, the Provost, CIO, and Dean of University College work collaboratively (at least in spirit) with Deans and faculty to determine courses of action. In regard to quality, the faculty ultimately certify that their courses satisfy the instructional requirements for the course. As a University, we've not yet decided how to address faculty preparation and design/development support (centralized or de-centralized, in-source or out-source, etc.), but it is coming. Policies relating to online teaching and learning are made at the local level, with only scant consideration toward executive level oversight/approval. Again, the autonomy of the schools and colleges means resolution of policy issues is a local process which involves central University administration only when necessary.

So here's what I got out of my work with Sloan-C this year: I went into the IELOL program thinking the differences in organizational cultures across the schools and colleges complicate efforts to standardize support and governance for online initiatives. What I've discovered is that the differences don't necessarily complicate the efforts if we approach governance and support as a shared effort. It's in that space of sharing that I see University College working well. Our entire mission is about sharing and brokering -- about working collaboratively across the campus.  That's the organized chaos in which we operate.

... and we never get bored.

pew and the new online learner

The keynote at this year's Sloan-C was delivered by a really smart guy from the Pew Foundation. They've completed yet another great research project that would imply we have to think about online teaching and learning in different ways -- or do we.

Pew claims we're in the midst of a digital revolution with three components: 1) broadband access, 2) social networking, and 3) mobile computing. The mobile aspect of the digital revolution is really interesting in only one regard: There are now 328 million wireless lines in the US. The total population of the country is 315.5 million. Do the math. Broadband is simple -- the number of homes, schools, and public places that have broadband has doubled in five years and continues to increase. With broadband comes better access, better access means engagement in things like... social networking.

I've never been a fan of generational labels, simply because I'm at the extreme top end of the GenX club (35-46). I've often thought I have more in common with the Baby Boomer generation than GenX, but Pew doesn't think so. In regard to the social networking component of the digital revolution, my generation has, on average, 196.7 Facebook friends. I don't think this statistic means anything by itself, but it is part of the overall claim that our friends, followers, likers, etc. in social media spaces facilitate peer-to-peer learning by doing. This learning by doing aspect of online social spaces is changing the role of social networks. In one interesting way, our social networks are now serving as early warning systems; we use them to gauge what's going on and to evaluate information -- to connect with (perceived) smarter people and determine what is true and what we should care about. Most interesting about these changing social spaces is the way in which we are using them to cobble together learning experiences -- DIY learning. People don't need credentials to teach us and we don't have to be accepted into a closed or elite community to learn.

So what does all this say about online learning? I still don't believe digital literacy is necessarily a prerequisite for being a successful online learner. What it does say is that as attention zones change, we may find that more of our students (traditional age through adult learners) will begin to demand more learning opportunities beyond the physical and virtual classroom structures we use today.

A final point from the keynote. The Pew guy asked, "Has the digital revolution -- technology -- made us stupider?" We all laughed and he answered: "We're not any stupider now than we were 20 years ago. The difference is that today we can find the answers to questions and problems instantly using smartphones and connected devices."

sloan-c and the state of online learning at su

First session of the Sloan-C conference starts shortly. I'm going to make a concerted effort to post thoughts, comments and concerns. Before I get too far along, I'm going to set up the framework or online teaching and learning at Syracuse University for my proposal to my IELOL colleagues, which I'll present tomorrow.

When I first met with a senior University official to discuss aspects of online teaching and learning, my initial feeling was that we (the University) were being naive and little short-sighted in regard to online initiatives. Having now (nearly) completing the Sloan-C IELOL program, I have an entirely new perspective on the University's position.

At the graduate level, Syracuse University has a highly interdisciplinary set of programs with clear differentiation points. It's clear that the University will be more aggressive in pushing these opportunities, but we will not accommodate a free-for all among the schools and colleges. The University Provost has indicated he will be strategic and deliberate in assisting the schools and colleges with vetting and planning their graduate programs (and this is a space in which I believe University College can provide considerable support and assistance). Yet SU remain's committed to our graduate residency requirement because we place a high value on our campus experience and access to faculty, staff, and facilities -- this is one critical point of differentiation -- it creates a connection to the University. At the undergraduate level, the University administration continues to support the schools and colleges as they develop online course offerings that provide increased flexibility for our students -- students who are increasingly asked to engage in scholarship beyond the classroom. These visions align with our overall vision and mission in that they support the principles of Scholarship in Action.

More to follow in what I hope to be a useful and productive couple of days.

happy halloween

We are, for the most part, a PC house here at UC. We have three Mac users in the entire college -- two of them in our marketing group of course.

Because my small IT team is creative, moderately techno-geeky, and fun, they suggested our submission (see accompanying photo) to the the college's annual pumpkin carving contest needed to reflect our collective eccentricity.

We didn't win the contest, but we certainly continue to impress. It's one of the reasons that makes coming here everyday easy. And in case you're wondering, yes those are Macintosh apples.

oh loathsome blogger - revisited

It’s a discipline. I keep telling myself that. The chaotic pace of things this time of year only goes so far to excuse drop-off-the-earth absences. What bothers me the most is that I haven’t taken the time to use this space to sort out my thinking, which is really the most practical thing this space is good for. Well that and navel gazing.

And sorting out my thinking I shall be doing over the coming weeks and months. Lots of really exciting (cool?) efforts underway that I’m going to need to vet and mull. Vet and mull? Hmmmm. There’s a lot of cheese layered on that pomposity, eh?