Often faculty are given the responsibility of teaching online courses, with little regard to their technical abilities. Designers and Developers play a strategic role in providing guidelines to help faculty build their courses. The presentation will offer an overview of strategies to help faculty on their course development journey.
When instructional designers and developers are tasked with assisting faculty, it is essential to view things from the faculty’s perspective. Does the faculty member understand the different roles they will take on in an online course? Are they going to be able to manage the course effectively? It is important to understand that, “faculty cannot be expected to know intuitively how to design and deliver an effective online course” (Palloff & Pratt, 2010, p.113). Do how can designers help a faculty member that is thrusted into the world of online learning without much technical knowhow?
There are many different aspects to teaching online. Faculty are learning that teaching online is not just transferring face to face content to the internet (Schmidt, Hodge, Tschida, 2013). From understanding the pedagogy of teaching online to being able to guide students through the basic daily tasks in the course, faculty must be aware all of the components needed for success. While all online teaching elements are important, for the purpose of this presentation, we will focus on getting faculty members to feel technologically competent during the course development cycle.
Through the first-hand perspectives of the presenters (an instructional developer and faculty member working together) this presentation will explore the roadblocks and successes of the course development cycle. The presenters will discuss the different ways technology support was provided to help faculty feel comfortable with building course components. Through the presenter’s experience, the course development journey will be discussed through the perspective of faculty and from an instructional developers.
Participants will learn how to:
- Understand the possible pitfalls a faculty member can face when developing an online course.
- Explore different ways to developers and designers can provide support to faculty members during the development cycle.
- Build steps to help faculty members feel empowered to ask questions about course technology helping to dissolve divides between faculty and designers/developers.
References:
Palloff, R.M., & Pratt, K. (2010). Faculty training and mentoring at a distance: Learning together in the virtual community. In K. Klinger (Eds.), Cases on Digital Technologies in Higher Education: Issues and Challenges (pg. 111-114). Hershey, Pennsylvania: Information Science Reference.
Schmidt, S.W., Hodge, E.M., & Tschida, C.M. (2013). How university faculty members developed their online teaching skills. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 14(3), 131-140.