I have decided to take a break from the book tonight, and yes, last night I did not post. Between trying to grade papers and finish reviews for a colleagues book proposal, I have been running at full tilt. So tonight, I did not have the energy to read 30 pages from the book we are working on and decided, instead, to briefly discuss one of the articles for my colleagues book. I can't give titles yet, because it is not officially printed, or accepted, but I will fill all of this information in later once it is published. Because the reviews are blind, I can't even give you the name of the author yet.
The author writes about how we need to prepare faculty for engaging 21st century learners and what that means for faculty. The author is spot on when they point out the short comings of colleges and departments to adequately train faculty or provide them with sufficient professional development. There are also issues of expecting faculty to teach online and use software with outdated equipment or insufficient bandwidth. Not to mention the extra work that is involved in teaching a course completely online.
Faculty are also often encouraged, even required, to use course management systems (CMS) that do not fit the pedagogical needs of teaching online. These systems are always closed and often difficult to interact with. Not to mention the fact that they often don't function as advertised.
A final point that I will mention here that I wholeheartedly agree with is the lack of incentive for faculty members to take on the extra work load that teaching online ALWAYS requires. Faculty who are not familiar with online instruction, often believe that anyone who teaches online has it made. "Hell" they say, "they can teach in their pajamas if they want to." Well, this is rarely true because we often have to be on campus that day for other obligations, and we figure our chairs or deans would frown on us arriving in PJs to work. Then there is all the extra work involved in making a course work successfully online. Everything we want our students to learn online are the same things we want them to learn in the classroom. We want them to have the same experiences. In order to make this happen, we have to find a way to upload all of the required information to the online space our students will learn in (the classroom so to speak). This is not an easy chore and requires a lot of forethought and planning.
So if we do not get paid any extra; and we don't get the training, software, and hardware we need; and we spend tons of extra hours designing our courses and teaching them, then why do we do it? Why? because we believe in the medium and believe it is important to ensure online learners have as close to the same experience as their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
The author writes about how we need to prepare faculty for engaging 21st century learners and what that means for faculty. The author is spot on when they point out the short comings of colleges and departments to adequately train faculty or provide them with sufficient professional development. There are also issues of expecting faculty to teach online and use software with outdated equipment or insufficient bandwidth. Not to mention the extra work that is involved in teaching a course completely online.
Faculty are also often encouraged, even required, to use course management systems (CMS) that do not fit the pedagogical needs of teaching online. These systems are always closed and often difficult to interact with. Not to mention the fact that they often don't function as advertised.
A final point that I will mention here that I wholeheartedly agree with is the lack of incentive for faculty members to take on the extra work load that teaching online ALWAYS requires. Faculty who are not familiar with online instruction, often believe that anyone who teaches online has it made. "Hell" they say, "they can teach in their pajamas if they want to." Well, this is rarely true because we often have to be on campus that day for other obligations, and we figure our chairs or deans would frown on us arriving in PJs to work. Then there is all the extra work involved in making a course work successfully online. Everything we want our students to learn online are the same things we want them to learn in the classroom. We want them to have the same experiences. In order to make this happen, we have to find a way to upload all of the required information to the online space our students will learn in (the classroom so to speak). This is not an easy chore and requires a lot of forethought and planning.
So if we do not get paid any extra; and we don't get the training, software, and hardware we need; and we spend tons of extra hours designing our courses and teaching them, then why do we do it? Why? because we believe in the medium and believe it is important to ensure online learners have as close to the same experience as their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
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