Friday, February 18, 2000

Instructors Take a Turn as Students to Learn About Online Teaching By DAN CARNEVALE Beth M. Egan, who has been a dietetics instructor at Pennsylvania State University for several years, doesn't need anyone to tell her how to teach. But about a year ago, she found herself in a class that did just that. She was preparing to run an online course for the first time, although she had taught print-based correspondence courses for five years. So she took a Web-based course Penn State had created on teaching over the Internet. She not only got training and tips, but also "a taste of online education from a student perspective," she says. Many professors and instructors who have spent their careers in traditional classrooms are now finding themselves teaching online, and Penn State is hardly alone in offering resources and courses to meet the new demand for how-to help. Other universities have established similar programs, as have a number of private companies, including OnlineLearning.net and University Access. But tailoring the courses to instructors' varying needs can be a challenge. Many of the programs impart similar ideas and advice, although their modes of delivery aren't all the same -- course programs can last as little as a week or as long as a year. Penn State officials have tried different strategies for teaching online instructors. After creating the course Ms. Egan took, the university found that faculty members weren't interested in it. Instead, the university created a resource guide on the Internet called Faculty Development 101. "Beth is the only one who really took that course seriously as a student," says Lawrence C. Ragan, director of instructional design and development for Penn State World Campus. He says that some others were too busy for a structured course; that it was hard to for some faculty members to motivate themselves; and that many instructors would rather be taught face to face. On the other hand, the Faculty Development 101 resources page has worked well for many faculty members at Penn State and elsewhere, says Mr. Ragan. The page tells professors how to create an online course as well as how to teach one. It explains such things as how faculty members can establish themselves as the focus of a course even though they're teaching without a lectern. It also gives advice on leading interactive discussions over the Internet. Courses created by companies take much the same tack. Parker Hudnut, director of operations and client service for the department of academic partnerships at University Access, says the company provides a two-week Web course that teaches faculty members both how to use new technology and how to succeed at online teaching. University Access offers the Web course to help faculty members teach the online business courses the company sells to universities. Faculty members learn how to use the software, and the company adds a component on how to teach more effectively online. "While it does go over the functionality, it also involves some of the pedagogical issues," Mr. Hudnut says. One of the best ways instructors can learn to teach online is to see what their students will be seeing, he says. "It gives them the experience that they've never had as a student," Mr. Hudnut says. "With a lot of these instructors who are teaching a course, they have no idea what it's like to be an online student." He says faculty members who take the course generally respond positively to the additional training. "We don't try to force it down their throats," Mr. Hudnut says. "These are people with master's and Ph.D.'s, and they are very unfriendly to somebody trying to tell them what to do." Among other things, instructors learn how to confront an unruly online student and how to help those students who begin to fade from an online course midway through a semester. Instructors taking the teaching course can discuss its theories, and compare experiences, as they work toward their own conclusions about what works and what doesn't. To prove a point, Mr. Hudnut says, the trainers will at times not return e-mail messages to their students for a couple of days, so they'll know how it feels -- and won't make the same mistake as instructors. University Access hopes to expand the program in the fall. Faculty members who sign up would spend a semester in an online course and then be certified by the company as trained online instructors. "Teachers are teaching online when really right now they aren't qualified," says Mr. Hudnut. "They may know the material, but they aren't as effective." OnlineLearning.net, a company that provides marketing and other support to universities offering online courses, works with the University of California at Los Angeles Extension to make available a six-course program for faculty members and administrators who are interested in different aspects of running an online-education program. The courses include lessons on teaching and learning models, using different technology tools, developing a curriculum, and practicing online teaching. Each course takes about six weeks and costs about $450. "It's a comprehensive set of courses to help people understand not only the teaching but also the process of setting up an online program," says John E. Kobara, president and chief executive officer of OnlineLearning.net. Susan S. Ko, the company's director of online curriculum and instructor development, helped design the U.C.L.A. courses. Among other tricks, she says, instructors learn how to get students to actually use online resources provided for them in a virtual classroom: Make the resources the focus of assignments, so students will have no choice but to try them out. All of the courses encourage participants to discuss various teaching methods, OnlineLearning.net's Mr. Kobara says. Because online education is in its infancy, he says, it's important to balance adequate training with fostering creativity. "It's really presumptuous for anybody to tell anyone else how to teach online when everything is evolving," Mr. Kobara says. "But you need training because everything is so new." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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