ASG Best in Show faculty training & development model

There was certainly no shortage of information sessions dealing with faculty training and development at the recent Distance Teaching and Learning conference, held in August 2015 at the Monona Convention Center in Madison. The development of faculty to effectively create online courses and supporting materials, as well as effectively teaching online, has always been a top priority at ID&T. But effective methods for preparing faculty have remained elusive. The primary issue with any faculty-centered development program is time. Is it possible to develop a training program that 1) respects the limited time available to faculty for attended training sessions, and 2) provide the information needed to meet the workshop outcomes.

One of the better sessions was presented by Ryan Anderson and Terry Tao, University of Wisconsin-Extension, on their faculty-centric professional development model. Developed in conjunction with University of Washington and University of California-Irvine, the model is based on faculty input on the most commonly asked faculty questions surrounding development and teaching courses for the online environment. The result is the website ASG Best in Show. The website is split into eight areas that correspond to the areas most commonly asked about by online instructors. For example, the first area is titled Orientation and deals with how a new online instructor would get started developing an online course. The section contains short videos of faculty discussing their experiences with getting started. The section also contains a video tutorial on how to get started with online course creation, learning objectives, and additional resources. Each of the remaining sections is laid out similarly, with a section overview, video lesson, lesson objectives, and videos of faculty discussing their experiences. The other sections on the website include Content, Structure, Communication, Interaction, Comprehension, Assessment, and Engagement. Follow up training on each section topic is also offered. And best of all, the website content is freely available. Well done, Ryan and Terry.