While the world of distance education is booming and coming into its own there is no lack of research being done in the major areas regarding learners and courses, but there seems to be a significantly smaller amount of research being conducted regarding the faculty who deliver online courses. Specifically I wanted to read a variety of articles that related to different aspects of online faculty, but one concept in particular caught my attention.
Zappala (2007) discussed the transformation of distance education and how it has evolved from a very behaviorist teacher centered concept to a more social constructivist learner centered model. This evolution is good and has done much to advance the educational experience of adult learners in distance education programs. How have these changes affected the faculty who facilitate these courses?
In the article Zappala (2007) applies the same concepts of andragogy being applied to distance learners and turns it around on distance faculty. Why would the faculty, who learn the same way adult learners do, not need to apply the same principles of social constructivism and transformative learning? He argues that distance faculty are often isolated from their peers and their students while in need of the same levels of interaction and authentic experience. There does not appear to be enough research to declare a best practice in dealing with the circumstances, but most researchers believe that faculty must be afforded a collaborative experience with their peers and a transformative interaction with their students if they are going to be satisfied and successful as online faculty members.
As I read through the article I was struck by the lack of any solid answers to the issue and the lack of research being done in the area. It would seem that all the best practices in the world will not mean anything for the rest of distance education if the faculty who are called to teach are not in a position to do so. Too often the mistake is made of over emphasizing one particular component of a problem and I am afraid that this is the case in modern day distance education. While many of the issues for learners and course delivery are being solved, the faculty are being left in the dust.
References
Land, T. (2004). Distant Learning Leaders: What You Don't Know Could Hurt You!. In J. Nall & R. Robson (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2004 (pp. 107-112). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved from
http://www.editlib.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/p/11325.
Miller, G., Stokes, D. & Williamson, L. (2009). Reconstructing Distance Education Training in the State of Utah: Connecting the Literature on Best Methods to the Development. In I. Gibson et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2009 (pp. 466-474). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/p/30639.
Zappala, A. (2007). Social Constructivism and Transformative Learning Theories in the development of Online Instructors: Best Andragogical Practices. In C. Montgomerie & J. Seale (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2007 (pp.2487-2493). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/p/25721.
Hi Aaron, you make a great point. Online course faculty is something that may be often overlooked. In most of my research so far, I have only looked at how to make online courses more effective. We often talk about how online students may be isolated, but never hear about online faculty having the exact same issues. This would be something very interesting to continue to study and research. Thanks for bringing this up! You have spiked my curiosity. It was great working with you in this class. Good luck with the rest of your endeavors! -Nicole
ReplyDeleteI think part of the problem we face is that all of this technology is so new that educators have not had the time to catch up and engage their classes with it all. Teachers tend to find the safe stuff and use it FIRST.
ReplyDeleteWe are, indeed, in pioneering days as far as the use of technology. I look forward to finding new applications of technology I use all the time. The problem is, once that becomes widely used, we are off to the next big thing.
I think that FAR too often teachers think that teaching online is easy. They don't put in as much effort for online classes, and then when the online learners fall short of expectations they say it's evidence that online learning doesn't work. Self fulfilling prophecy.
ReplyDeleteWe need internships to show teachers how to build classes online. Just this week I saw a discussion about this at the ISTE site -- http://www.iste-community.org/forum/topics/online-student-teacher -- having teachers act as online student teachers so they learn about teaching online.