Preparation For Online Teaching And Actual Practices For Technology Oriented Courses

The growth of distance education and the corresponding demand for online instructors is a trend that has continued over the past ten to fifteen years. Quality online instruction should be preceded by high quality preparation for online teaching including exposure to best practices for online teaching. Despite the strong relationship between good teaching and good preparation, there is a perception that the type of preparation and the amount of preparation provided for instructors prior to teaching online courses is highly variable from one institution to another institution. Given this context, instructor preparation is the main focus of this paper and best practices for online instruction is a secondary focus. To explore these topics an existing survey instrument was selected and minor revisions were made in order to collect data regarding the type of preparation, the amount of preparation and the source of that preparation. Another aspect of the survey is the exploration of exposure to best practices that instructors may have gained through their preparation and training. The natural progression also leads to questions regarding actual practices in online courses and whether best practices are being employed by online instructors. The survey instrument was administered via email and online to a sample of faculty from a wide range of technology-oriented programs from universities across the United States. The quantitative data collected will be analyzed using measures of frequency and variability through SPSS in order to compare the universities from different state systems. Findings are intended to promote change in order to support student success in the online learning atmosphere. Introduction Distance education has been growing as a form of undergraduate education over the last decade. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, for the 2000-2001 academic year there were 2,876,000 students enrolled in distance education college level courses. 29 Eighty-two percent were undergraduate level courses. This represents a 111% growth of total student enrollment from the 1997-1998 (1,363,670) academic year. 28 Additionally, 78% of 4-year, public degree-granting higher education institutions were offering distance education courses in 1997-1998 30 . This percentage increased considerably to 86% in the 2004-2005 academic year. 31 Allen and Seaman states over the past few years, enrollment in online courses have grown substantially faster than the overall higher education student body growth. 1 According to Allen and Seaman, 3.2 million students took at least one online course in the fall of 2005. In the fall of 2004, this number was 2.3 million and authors state that growth will not level off but continue to increase. P ge 12173.2 As the offering of distance education programs has grown dramatically over the past decade some major players have emerged. Among the leaders in distance education are institutions such as the University of Phoenix, Walden University, Colorado Technical University and a few others. As mentioned above, traditional brick and mortar universities have also ventured into distance education in an effort to stave off competition or in an effort to expand their own market share. With the continued growth and popularity of online courses, the number of faculty required to teach these courses continues to expand as well. Patrick and Yick state that “[t]his rapid growth has spurred administrators in universities and colleges to implement online courses. Faculty members feel pressured or perhaps are being pressured to learn new technological mechanisms to deliver curricula and to put their courses online”. 21 Ehrmann and Hewett clearly indicate why preparation for online teaching is important: “Instructors cannot directly transplant their understandings, strategies, and skills from face-to-face to online teaching environments”. 11 Busch and Johnson add to this sentiment by offering that experienced faculty members find it difficult to change their thinking processes to be successful in an online course unless they are properly trained. 5 Faculty members’ success in the online classroom is contingent on receiving support from the university 16 and to facilitate instructor success training programs must be available to prepare them for teaching online. 11 Faculty at the major distance education players (i.e. University of Phoenix, Walden University, Colorado Technical University, etc.) enter their jobs with a clear understanding that they will be teaching online. They are recruited for the skill sets they possess and the successes which they have experienced in online teaching. Even with experience, new faculty at the leading distance education institutions are required to complete online training prior to teaching online. By contrast, faculty members at traditional universities are likely to enter the profession with little or no online teaching experience. They may also seek employment at a traditional university with an expectation that the primary teaching will be face-to-face in a traditional classroom. Still another group of faculty at traditional universities will have a number of years of experience in the traditional classroom and have only recently felt the pressure or the need to make the transition to online teaching. Among all of these universities the opportunities for training workshops to provide preparation for instructors varies widely. “ Online faculty training that occurs at UOP [University of Phoenix] is rigorous in discipline, comprehensive in approach and focused on development of competent and aware online faculty”. 20 Walden University provides mandatory preparation for instructors before they are allowed to teach their first online course. These universities approach the situation differently because distance education is their main focus and a significant portion of their faculty are part time employees (or adjunct). Traditional universities have historically provided very limited training and preparation for new faculty entering the traditional classroom. The new faculty member either succeed or fail based on their own abilities to survive what is essentially a trial by fire. To a great extent, based on anecdotal evidence, the same is true for faculty who agree to teach online for the first time within a traditional university. A few studies support this claim. “Professors are often given little or no P ge 12173.3 training before teaching their first online course”. 35 According to a study by Bower, 40% of institutions did not provide training or preparation for their online instructors. 2 The type of training is not limited to online course design. Training is also needed “in all aspects in which faculty interact with the online program”. 24 The basics of the delivery technology may be covered in training or it may be left to the instructor to learn the technology on their own. Beyond the first-time online instructor there is also a need for faculty to maintain and upgrade their knowledge about online teaching. In particular, best practices for online teaching continue to emerge and faculty must learn the latest developments. Continued innovation in distance education technology is another motivation for faculty to stay informed about these new advances. Literature Review In this section the literature is reviewed in the two main topic areas of interest, preparation for online teaching and best practices for online teaching. These topic areas are also the primary and secondary focus in our survey questions.