Since the dawn of online courses at Mississippi State University, there have been four units vying for the right to train faculty. This presentation documents the quest to establish a unified training track that aligns the units’ strengths and allows each to build a larger support system for faculty; it also seeks to uncover the unforeseen challenges to the proposed alliance and the plan to launch the training track.
Since the dawn of online courses at Mississippi State University, there have been four units vying for the right to train faculty to teach online: The Center for Teaching and Learning, University Libraries, The Center for Distance Education, and Information Technology Services. This presentation will document the quest to establish a unified training track that aligns the units’ strengths into a common system and allows each to build a larger support system for faculty. More specifically, this presentation seeks to uncover the unforeseen challenges to the proposed alliance and how those challenges are addressed today to launch the training track.
At Mississippi State, faculty only need to complete one four-hour course to be eligible to teach online. They are not required to attend any trainings on the use of the LMS, integrated software, online best practice, or any other training that could inform how they approach their online course and maximize the experience for students. While the required training is hosted in The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), all other trainings that pertain to online courses and teaching online are hosted by other units on campus: Information Technology (ITS) teaches the LMS, The Center for Distance Education (CDE) teaches online pedagogy and best practice using technology to teach online, and the University Libraries (UL) teach enterprise software. The nuances between what each unit trains, how each unit trains, and where the training exists is often more confusing for faculty than helpful. This means that faculty teaching online have widely and wildly varying skills and knowledge, which can be frustrating for students and support staff alike.
To ease the frustration of the masses and combat the pervasive sense of confusion at all levels, the directors of the realm set out to correct the situation. Their solution, championed most fervently by CDE, was to create a training track that would provide a single source of training for teaching online, and thus increase faculty levels of professional development in online teaching, increase intra-unit communication and collaboration, and make use of a wide net of established resources. The track held six levels, with each level requiring faculty to sample training from each unit to move forward. The track also served to highlight the work done by all four units during the Covid-19 pandemic, which fostered a renaissance of new and interesting trainings and resources directed towards helping faculty teach online. Using those trainings and resources, the directors crafted a training track proposal and offered it to faculty senate for approval. The proposal has sat, nearly forgotten, for two years.
Recently, a renewed interest has unearthed the training track proposal from faculty senate; however, the staff required to manifest the training track have since lost interest, lost buy-in, and have lost the intra-unit collaboration that was key during the pandemic. There is little cross-collaboration and even less faculty interest in training than ever before. The task has since fallen to CDE to successfully resurrect the training track, unite the units, and garner the interest of faculty, all while maintaining the credibility of the training and the needs of four different units.