September 2004 — Web/Net
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Faculty Training for Online Teaching
At a minimum, technical training should include both the CMS that will be used to deliver the online course and the use of other software that facilitates communicating via the Internet.
Pedagogical training must emphasize accepted best practices for online education such as those published by IHEP, AFT, or Chickering and Gamson. Specifically, faculty should receive training in:
- Facilitating interaction and discussion in online courses;
- Facilitating active learning and collaboration online;
- Assessment and evaluation for online courses; and
- Community-building activities for online courses.
Some portion of either the technical or pedagogical training for faculty to teach online should be delivered online so that faculty experience online education from the student point of view.
Finally, faculty participants in the focus-group interviews also cited the need for mentoring as a type of training that should be provided. Many of these faculty said that, without the assistance of a particular colleague, they doubt that they would have continued to teach online. Recalling the positive correlation between years of online teaching experience and faculty incorporation of best practices in their online courses, it appears that a formal mentoring program would be one way of familiarizing faculty with best practices for online education.
References
American Federation of Teachers. 2000. "Distance Education: Guidelines for Good Practice." Online: http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/downloadable/distance.pdf.
Chickering, A., and Z. Gamson. 1991. "Applying the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education." New Directions for Teaching and Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Online: http://www.msu.edu/user/coddejos/seven.htm.
Harasim, L., ed. 1990. Online Education: Perspectives on a New Environment. New York, NY: Praeger.
Institute for Higher Education Policy, The. 2000. "Quality on the Line: Benchmark for Success in Internet-Based Distance Education." Online: http://www.ihep.com/Pubs/PDF/Quality.pdf.
Palloff, R., and K. Pratt. 2001. Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom: The Realities of Online Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
White, K., and B. Weight. 1994. The Online Teaching Guide. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
About the Author
Peg Pankowski, Ed.D., is the Dean of Information Technology and Telecommunications at The Community College of Southern Nevada. She has spent more than 25 years as a community college educator. Pankowski has served as interim director of distance learning for the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) in Pittsburgh, Pa., and has taught online for four years. Before taking her current position in Southern Nevada, Pankowski was a professor of mathematics at CCAC and secretary of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges. E-mail: peg_pankowski@ccsn.edu.
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