"Online courses are where marginal teachers meet marginal students for marginal results,” suggested one faculty leader in a recent survey. Online classes require more faculty time, yet corresponding professional development programs are often ineffective and sparsely attended. Let’s explore institutional strategies that “kill” online faculty development, and construct a more engaging model.
This workshop will present the results of a survey of faculty observations of online professional development programs. How effective do they think these training programs are? What motivates their interest and participation? What they look for in online professional development? In addition, to what extent they actually utilize best practices, strategies, and concepts from the online professional development programs they participate in. We’ll examine some of the answers that were provided to these questions, and, through a series of active learning activities, participants will use the survey data as a jumping off point for identifying the common barriers and challenges facing the design and implementation of professional development training for online teachers. The collaborative activities in the session will include:
- A “human wiki” activity in which participants rotate around different stations, each of which is organized around a different challenge or barrier to online professional development.
- A “share out” discussion of the elements of successful online professional development programs that address these challenges “move the meter” of faculty participation and engagement.
- Google Forms will be used to record and share the results of these activities to session participants
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Identify some of the key challenges facing professional development programs for online faculty
- Understand some of the factors influencing faculty engagement and participation in those programs
- Determine strategies for implementing successful online professional development programs