September 2004 — Web/Net
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Faculty Training for Online Teaching
Pedagogical Training
While this research demonstrates that most faculty receive adequate technical training to teach online, the situation with pedagogical training is quite different. Techniques that are effective in the traditional classroom are not necessarily effective in an online environment (White and Weight 2000). An online classroom provides the opportunity to establish a community of learners, but the techniques required to facilitate the development of such a community are very different from those that work in the traditional face-to-face classroom (Palloff and Pratt 2000). Faculty who are experienced and successful in traditional classrooms cannot intuitively make the transition to the online environment (Harasim 1990). They need professional development in order to learn what works and what d'esn't work online. Faculty do not want to "reinvent the wheel"; they recognize that the sooner they learn effective pedagogical techniques for the online environment, the more their students are likely to succeed. That is, faculty do not particularly choose to learn by experience. They recognize that formal training can save them time in the long run, as well as allow them to become more effective and more successful online teachers faster.
As previously indicated in this article, participants in the research were experienced faculty who, for the most part, received technical training to teach online; however, few received pedagogical training. While 75% of the participants received technical training, only a third received pedagogical training. Their pedagogical training included topics such as providing feedback to online students, active learning, student collaboration and designing online content.
A Spearman correlation c'efficient was calculated to determine whether a relationship existed between duration of training for online instruction and faculty incorporation of best practices for online education. The correlation was not significant; however, the correlation between faculty experience in online teaching and their incorporation of best practices was significant at a =0.05. The more experience faculty have in online teaching, the more they incorporate recognized best practices for online education in their courses.
This finding indicates that the pedagogical training received by most faculty is not adequately preparing them to teach online; instead, faculty are learning online pedagogy by experience. While experience is an effective teacher, it is necessarily slow. Pedagogical training provided before faculty begin to teach online would improve not only faculty morale, but also, and more important, would increase student satisfaction with online courses.
When a subset of participants were interviewed in small focus groups, all spoke of the difficulty of engaging students online, and indicated a need for pedagogical training geared specifically to teaching online courses. Of the 14 faculty interviewed, only two reported receiving pedagogical training to teach online.
Best Practices for Online Education
It is not that best practices for online education have not yet been established. The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) published "Quality on the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-Based Distance Education" in April 2000. This document identifies 24 benchmarks "considered essential to ensuring excellence in Internet-based distance learning." In particular, the teaching and learning benchmarks state that student interaction with faculty and other students should be facilitated through a variety of ways, and that constructive and timely feedback to student assignments and questions should be provided.
