The Online Teaching Academy (OTA) is a training program for faculty to enhance their leadership skills in online teaching and learning. Participants gain knowledge through five masterclasses as well as working in teams create proposals relating to online teaching and learning that are presented to University leadership and colleagues.
As demand continues to increase for online course offerings at Southeast Missouri State University, the department of Southeast Online felt it necessary to work towards creating a culture on campus that focused on exceptional teaching and learning in online. Reinforcing a culture where faculty understand the components of a successful online course, but to be innovative as well.
This program enables faculty to be leaders in online teaching, not only at the University but in their academic fields. The program objectives for OTA are: (1) Identify faculty leaders in online teaching and learning, (2) Foster research and scholarship in the field of online education, and (3) Create a culture of exceptional teaching.
The Online Teaching Academy (OTA) is a special opportunity open to 25 faculty members yearly that offers faculty a series of five topical masterclasses that are facilitated by national experts focusing on one of five areas in the online teaching equation. Additionally, participants work in small teams to address and explore a topic related to online teaching and learning that they have selected. The purpose of doing this is to encourage collaboration among peers across disciplines all while allowing faculty to be innovative. Each team prepares a 10-minute presentation and written report for their project. The presentation is given at an OTA graduation event where all chairs, deans, the university provost, and the university president are asked to be in attendance. A written report for the project proposals are also created by teams to be kept in the Provost office for future cohorts to review.
The first cohort of OTA at Southeast started in September 2018 and concluded April 2019. The masterclasses were held each month, except during the holidays, with a specific focus: Online Learning (September 2018), Student Success (October 2018), Teaching & Learning (November 2018), Course Design (February 2019), and The Instructor (March 2019). The featured speakers presented both on-site and via web conferencing, depending on the structure of the masterclass, and either facilitated the entire masterclass or spoke about a specific topic relating to the overall topic of the day. The second cohort will start September 2019. Even though the second cohort will follow much of the same layout as the first cohort, there are improvements such as an added monthly lab to incorporate more experiential learning activities to go along with the masterclass presentations.
Overall, OTA cohort participants indicated that the experience was highly positive in relationship to learning more about online teaching and learning. OTA cohort participants (70.8% response rate) completed a survey given after the OTA program ended which helped shed light on how well the OTA program was received by participants. When asked about overall experience in the OTA program participants indicated an 8.81/10 in overall satisfaction on a 10-point Likert Scale (10 being outstanding). When asked about how the OTA program met the stated objectives participants indicated that all objectives were met; Objective 1 (9.47/10), Objective 2 (9.12/10), and Objective 3 (9.35/10). There was also strong support deemed from the survey that overall participants felt that their experience in the OTA program contributed to their further understanding in online teaching and learning, and that they would suggest participation in the OTA program to a colleague. Concluding the OTA graduation, program planners also received overwhelming verbal feedback from deans and department chairs on how they wanted more of their faculty to be a part of the OTA program.
This education session will touch on four major areas: (1) factors that led to the creation of the OTA program, and why it is important to have programs like this at other universities, (2) description of how to plan such an event on limited resources, (3) the overall structure of the OTA program, and (4) program revisions from cohort one to cohort two. Participants should be able to take the resources provided in the session and what they have learned to use as a guide to plan a similar program.
Session attendees will experience what it is like to be an OTA cohort participant as the presenters hold their own short masterclass. Presenters will start off with a short introduction about the creation of the OTA program and its structure. After introductions, the session will lead directly into guided discussion activities; the first activity being a fishbowl. Fishbowls allow for a structured discussion where the attendees can either be in the fishbowl discussing their thoughts and opinions on one of the five provided topics from the presenters, or they can select to be outside the fishbowl and simply listen in to see what others have to say about the topic. After the fishbowl activity is concluded the group will share some of the big themes discussed about each masterclass topic.
Next, session attendees will look at artifacts that program planners used in planning and hosting of the OTA program. Such artifacts will include: OTA recruitment documents (application and flyers), Logic Model, Program Budget, Program Agendas, OTA Project Guidelines, Task List, etc. These artifacts will be newly revised and session attendees will have the chance to see the major changes that program planners undertook between cohorts one and two. By having these artifacts, session attendees will have physical resources they can use if they wish to develop a similar program at their institutions.
To conclude the session, presenters will take the last ten minutes of the session to complete a muddiest point activity with session attendees. The muddiest point is a technique that will allow participants to write down on a piece of paper an answer to the following question: “What did you least understand in this education session?”. These will be collected and presenters will use the remaining time to provide more clarification on any “muddy” points from the session before ending.