What items do not need to be included in the training of these professionals?
For those who teach at multiple institutions, do you see any major trends in these training programs? If so, what are they?
This is a timely question and I will be very interested in any responses. I'm in the process of creating courses to onboard online faculty - the skill list includes technology literacy, LMS-specific literacy, online learning and teaching skillsets and very basic design principles.
The last items (basic design principles) are what I think differs from institution to institution - each institution may be using different resources to create their course materials.
My recommendation is to review various quality standards documents (rubrics) and use them as the basis for informing faculty development. If we teach faculty about online course development and teaching by beginning with respected quality standards, and using the standards document as part of the "training" so they know what informs the process, then we can be confident that what we teach provides a strong foundation on which to build in the long run.
I have reviewed many standards documents over the years and facilitated a faculty committee at my own institution to write our own standards. They are all essentially the same with, perhaps, a few minor differences. The standards that I have used are:
- Quality Matters (https://www.qualitymatters.org/) is a well regarded one and although it requires paid institutional membership, they do have a 1-page overview available on their site.
- Another is the Online Learning Consortium, (http://onlinelearningconsortium.org/) and their 5 pillars of Quality.
- One that I began with years ago is the California State University, Chico standards (http://www.csuchico.edu/roi/the_rubric.shtml).
- Googling will certainly bring more.
I've used these to determine our curriculum for faculty development for teaching online.
The other thing that I've done is look at what other institutions are doing and identify what is common. Typically, they cover the same content. If all of the above align, quality standards and the content from other institutions, then I feel pretty confident in what I develop for teaching our faculty about online teaching.
I hope this helps at least somewhat.
Glenna
I tend to look at these sort of issues from the other end of the question - in this case, do you think that the skills required for Online Education (other than the technological skills) are different from the skills required for face to face or blended education. My concern is that when we focus on the technology or the platform, we elevate it to a higher position in the list of important factors for a successful learning experience. So from my perspective, the leading items for online education are very similar to the leading items for any education; namely, an ability to connect with learners, an ability to tailor learning to the needs of the learner, effective assessment and feedback etc. If you get the basics right, the particular affordances of the technology can then be utilised; if you don't doesn't matter what you are using.
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