Determining Training Needs
What are the training needs for online delivery of courses and programs at your institution? Discuss how those needs were defined and who is responsible for implementing them.
We currently require all new faculty to take a two week training course on how to teach online classes. Given that we constantly hire new online faculty, we do undertake such training on a quarterly basis. The needs were defined by the Office of the Chief Academic Officer and it is responsible for ensuring that they are implemented. The implementation proper is done by both the IT Department and Faculty Mentors. Faculty mentors must certify that the new faculty has successfully completed the mentorship or online training before the new faculty can be assigned to teach a course. Even after they have been assigned, their activities are constantly monitored.
JJ Asongu
Januarius,
Your description of the training provided to online faculty, with faculty mentors being subsequently assigned, is a sound approach. Who oversees the mentoring performance of the mentors and how are they evaluated?
Dr. Robert Roehrich
Mentors are selected from instructors who have proven their ability to facilitate online classes. The program chair is the one who selects the mentors and at the end of each week, they submit a detailed report. By this methods, we ensure that the mentoring is well done.
JJ
Januarius,
Do you conduct any "pre-mentoring" training? It might be wise to have a Mentor's Handbook to ensure the primary objectives are being covered. I would also encourage you to consider having quarterly "town hall" meetings with your mentors to share on successes and challenges that they have experienced. This will benefit everyone who attends and provide recognition and reinforcement for their mentoring efforts.
Dr. Robert Roehrich
At my previous company, educators interested in teaching online classes went through a two week training period and then participate in 5-week online class as students. The school has 11 campuses, so it created a separate unit that would maintain all online program administrations and provided its online services to all other campuses. Each campus had an online administrator representing that campus, and handled all students’ issues unless intervention from the unit was needed. The 24/7/365 system support was managed by a technical staff at that unit.
While I agree that an initial brief period of formal training is essential, I find that what instructors ultimately benefit from is prolonged monitoring and mentoring that is subtle and unobtrusive. Online studies create opportunities for this that are harder to come by in brick and mortar settings. And the guidance isn't always corrective but is more often used to reinforce what an instructor is doing right, applauding an instructor's handling of a student's help request or feedback on an evaluation of a student's work. The instructor senses that a kindly, not-so-sinister 'big brother' is watching and taking an interest in his/her approach to his/her work and raises the quality of the exchange accordingly.
Kevin,
I agree with your post and would add that establishing a faculty mentoring system that provides peer-to-peer guidance and advice is often better than administrative monitoring and oversight, particularly when it pertains to pedagogical practice.
Dr. Roehrich
I agree with a training before starting teaching or working in an online program. Also, mentors must be monitoring instructors for them to improve the skills required to use and the learning process.
Betsy,
I believe you misunderstood the response required for this Forum. The questions are: "What are the training needs for online delivery of courses and programs at your institution"? and "Discuss how those needs were defined and who is responsible for implementing them". Please review your response and resubmit accordingly.
Thank you,
Dr. Robert Roehrich
Needs to train all faculty and staff in order to market to our students. I need to do more of this because I get very little support in getting new enrollments so maybe this would help.
Brian,
I'm sorry, but your response doesn't make sense. Please respond to the following: What are the training needs for online delivery of courses and programs at your institution? Discuss how those needs were defined and who is responsible for implementing them.
Dr. Robert Roehrich
