September 2004 — Web/Net
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Faculty Training for Online Teaching
Experts agree that faculty need training to teach online, yet a survey of faculty who teach undergraduate mathematics courses online indicates that most faculty at two-year colleges are still not receiving adequate training. While 89% of the participants in this research received at least some training, about half said that the training they received did not adequately prepare them to teach online. In addition, 60% said that they would have benefited from more training in facilitating online interaction before they began teaching online.
Demographics of Survey Participants
In October 2002, the online survey "How Do Undergraduate Mathematics Faculty Learn to Teach Online?" was sent via e-mail to 64 faculty who teach online undergraduate mathematics courses throughout the United States; 35 faculty responded to the survey. These faculty members teach a wide range of online mathematics courses, ranging from developmental mathematics through college algebra, trigonometry and calculus.
Participants in the study are experienced faculty, with more than 91% reporting five or more years of classroom teaching experience; only 17% reported more than five years of online teaching experience. Geographically, participants teach courses for colleges located in Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Washington, and 91% of the respondents teach at two-year institutions. As a follow-up to the online survey, 14 of the respondents were later interviewed during focus-group sessions where they provided additional information regarding the training they had received to teach online.
Technical Training
The most common type of training reported by participants was training to use course management software (CMS). CMS systems provided by companies such as Blackboard and WebCT integrate instructional functions. Typically, CMS is characterized by user-friendly interfaces that facilitate access to online lectures, assignments, moderated discussions, quizzes, grades and synchronous chat sessions. Altogether, 75% of the participants in this research received training to use either Blackboard or WebCT. This technical training generally lasted less than 30 hours and was provided by the college where the faculty member was teaching.
Occasionally, personnel from a college's instructional technology department provided technical training on an individual basis. Some faculty also received assistance from colleagues. Both of these types of training occurred far less frequently than college-sponsored workshops, wherein faculty were trained to use CMS. Even less frequently reported was training in the form of graduate-level coursework or workshops provided by for-profit companies or professional organizations. By far, the most popular training vehicle, indicated by more than 70% of participants, was workshops provided by their institution.
During follow-up focus-group sessions with several groups of participants, faculty expressed satisfaction with the technical aspects of the training they received to teach online courses. They referred to the continual improvement of both hardware and software, as well as agreed that, if a college uses a CMS to deliver online courses, faculty should be provided training to use that CMS.
