11 Harnessing the Potential of OnIine Faculty Development: Challenges and Opportunities

University and College Teaching and Learning Center Web Sites

The opportunities for faculty development created through access to teaching and learning centers have created innumerable opportunities for faculty developers, faculty, and administrators. Dalhousie University’s Instructional Development and Technology Sites Worldwide (www.dal.ca/~oidt/ids.html#AD) lists over 100 web sites related to higher education teaching and learning around the globe. In addition to centers for teaching and learning, their web site listings include academic departments in education and instructional technology, university and college centers for instructional technology, associations and networks promoting teaching and learning in higher education, and university centers for instructional and faculty development. For the faculty developer, as well as faculty and administrators, access to these sites not only connects centers, but also provides a library of up-to-date resources and activities on other campuses.

University and College Center Online Workshops

Several university and college faculty development centers have put workshops on the web. Some have used their institution’s implementation of Blackboard or WebCT to make them available to faculty, but generally they are only available on a registration basis to faculty in their institution or system. The Adams Center for Teaching Excellence at Abilene Christian University, however, has put an Active Learning Strategies workshop on the web that is accessible to all (www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning). The web site demonstrates four strategies for classroom and online courses based on Mel Silberman’s 1996 book, Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach any Subject. The workshop’s introductory pages provide general information about active learning and its uses plus an overview of strategies for the classroom and for online courses. Each strategy is introduced by a general description, a comment on its instructional value, and directions for using the strategy. Printable portable document format (PDF) files containing a pre-class planning form and a post-class summary form are provided for the teacher to use in class preparation, implementation, and assessment. A series of short video demonstrations showing different stages of the strategy in a real class situation provide “touch and feel” to the online workshop. Each strategy is cross-referenced to Mel Silberman’s book. This site represents the beginning of a growing number of high-quality, multimedia workshops developed and sponsored by individual centers.

Virtual Teaching and Learning Technology Centers (V)TLTC

A number of faculty developers have just recently begun experimenting with a new concept, the Virtual Teaching and Learning Technology Center (V)TLTC. An example of an innovative, well-designed, emerging center is the Appalachian College Association and its Virtual Teaching, Learning, and Technology web site. Its stated mission is “to provide a place and means for the 33 member colleges to share knowledge in order to constantly improve the education offered to its students” (www.acaweb.org/Vcenter/). The project is funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. The Virtual Center provides access to virtual departments (www.acaweb.org/Vcenter/virtualdepartments.htm), information technology and services, instructional design resources, Appalachian College Association libraries, workshops, training and conferences, listservs, a faculty database, and more.

The virtual component of the faculty development office is moving well past a simple, informational web site. A recent virtual conference sponsored by WebCT and hosted by Steve Gilbert of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group discusses this emerging model for faculty development in some detail (Gilbert, 2000b).

Online Teaching and Learning Courses

Since 1995, there has been continued growth in online faculty professional development courses offered by college and university teaching centers, higher education professional associations, and business organizations. Due to the variety of technology and pedagogical issues involved in moving to computer-based or computer-enhanced instruction, the current trend in online faculty development seems to be an integrated series of course modules. Courses can be as short as one day or one week, and some offer a longer series of courses leading to certificates. Most courses charge a fee.

One such program is the Distance Education Certificate Program (DECP) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The DECP “is a professional development curriculum designed to build or enhance knowledge, skills, and leadership in distance education and training. This program offers a curriculum of core modules and electives and uses a variety of distance learning formats including modular print packages, audiotapes, videotapes, audio conference seminars, and Internet seminars to reach working professionals in their home communities” (www.wisc.edu/depd). Upon satisfactory completion of 200 curriculum hours (20 continuing education units), a Certificate of Professional Development is awarded. Students may enroll in individual courses on a certificate or a noncertificate basis. The DECP can be completed individually as a self-paced track curriculum or as a collaborative track curriculum using a cohort learning group. Where a cohort system is used, faculty have the opportunity to become involved in learning communities outside their institutions and take advantage of expertise from other institutions and organizations. The DECP web site provides three major learning hubs which include references and resources, learner support services, and a learning center. The resources involved in developing programs such as the DECP are often beyond the reach of individual centers. Therefore, most institutions will likely be taking advantage of existing, well-developed program offerings.

Technology Product Companies

One of the major reasons for the ongoing explosion of online resources is the maturation of software tools for creating and maintaining such sites. WebCT is one of a handful of major providers for course management software, the core software for creating and delivering distance learning classes and web-assisted, traditional classes. The home page (www.webct.com) is a good demonstration of a portal (discussed later), where WebCT is providing a variety of value-added services in order to create brand loyalty in a highly competitive market. In addition to providing links for seeing a demo of the software, downloading the software for a trial period, and ordering or reordering the software, the home page contains options for

• students, including online tutoring, a career center, a scholarship database, a discussion room concerning binge drinking, an online research tool, and technical support

• instructors, that includes discipline-specific content and discussion boards, newsletters, an online course (Introduction to Multimedia), a collection of case studies of exemplary courses, online colloquia events, and technical support

One great advantage faculty developers have is that the competition in the software market will ensure regular updates and improvements to course management software.

Publishing Companies

Houghton Mifflin’s Faculty Development Programs unit has provided face-to-face campus-based faculty development workshops for a number of years. Faculty development professionals under contract have delivered these for Houghton Mifflin, which markets and supports the delivery of these workshops to campuses around the country (www.facultytraining.com). Since 1999, Houghton Mifflin Faculty Development Programs have partnered with both software companies and academic associations. Technology partnerships include WisdomTools, Inc., to use their proprietary web-based tools, and Time Revealed Scenarios, to develop online faculty development programs. Academic partners in the development of these workshops, called FacultyDirect, include The League for Innovation in the Community College, The TLT Group: The Teaching, Learning, and Technology affiliate of the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), The Historically Black Colleges and Universities Faculty Development Network, and The National Teaching and Learning Forum.

The product consists of a suite of workshops designed for four different audiences: college and university faculty, community college faculty, teaching assistants, and those interested in the integration of technology into teaching and learning. They are available to individuals on a scheduled basis throughout the year. Enrollment is limited to 25 participants per section (a minimum enrollment of 15 is required to offer the workshop). Participants are asked to invest 20 hours for asynchronous activities and discussions during a four-week workshop. Group registration packages are also available for institutions, districts, systems, and consortia. These workshops will be scheduled according to a group’s needs, and will be facilitated by Houghton Mifflin’s Faculty Development Programs or they will provide training for facilitators designated by the contracting group (www.facultytraining.com/facdirect/index.html).

Associations

Good efforts are currently underway at a number of associations, though none offer comprehensive resources for teaching, learning, and technology. Three examples illustrate the range of available resources. The American Association for Higher Education’s web site offers the broadest array of resources for faculty development. In particular, the Teaching Initiatives and TLT pages offer ideas and examples of faculty development activities appropriate for both individuals and institutions (http://www.aahe.org).

The Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD), North America’s association of faculty development professionals and practitioners, is a rich source of information and publications for the development of teaching and learning in higher education. It also sponsors a particularly effective listserv for those involved in faculty development programming (http://lamar.colostate.edu/~ckfgill/).

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) offers a convenient group of resources in its Knowledge Network section, which bills itself as a “resource hub for general education, teaching and learning, civic responsibility, campus leadership and more . . .” (www.aacu-edu.org).

Professional Academic Discipline Associations

Professional disciplinary associations provide a variety of member services. Most associations have interest groups or divisions focused on teaching and are accessible online. One example is The Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) (http://teachpsych.lemoyne.edu/teachpsych/div/divindex.html),a division of the American Psychological Association (APA). STP represents the interests of psychologists in academic institutions from the secondary through the graduate level. Among its extensive services, it publishes Teaching of Psychology, a quarterly journal devoted to improving teaching and learning, develops and distributes a variety of peer-reviewed teaching and advising materials, sponsors programs and conferences, maintains a web site (OTRP-Online), and fosters a teaching community through PsychTeacher™, a moderated electronic discussion list. In addition, it publishes a monthly electronic newsletter, TOPNEWS-Online, through Psychology Partnerships Projects that includes extensive links to psychology resources worldwide. STP also provides resources through Psych-E, an electronic journal for undergraduates. Clearly, professional associations are major players in professional development for instructors, and increasingly, for students. Current technologies provide new and exciting learning connections and opportunities, and instructors are encouraged to explore their professional associations’ online resources.

Online Newsletters

The National Teaching and Learning Forum publishes a bimonthly newsletter containing articles on teaching and learning in higher education. The editor aims to create a conversation on teaching and learning on a wide variety of cross-disciplinary concerns. One or more articles from the current issue and sample articles from previous issues are available online from the newsletter’s web site. Individuals can order print subscriptions and institutions can order site licenses for their entire faculty, making all past and current issues available online (www.ntlfcom).

Teaching and Learning Online Journals and Magazines

The development and availability of online teaching and learning journals continues to expand. Some are currently accessible in both print and online. An excellent example of an exclusively online journal is The Technology Source, a free, peer-reviewed, bimonthly periodical whose purpose is to provide “thoughtful, illuminating articles that will assist educators as they face the challenge of integrating information technology tools into teaching and into managing educational organizations” (http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/). The journal provides articles and resources on faculty and staff development, assessment, technology tools, case studies, commentary, etc. Because of its online format, this type of journal is readily accessible to all faculty, and like print journals, develops a community of national and international followers interested in this particular faculty development technology thrust. In addition, it is easily archived for future reference and research.

International Resources Online

The International Consortium for Educational Developers (ICED) was formed in Oxford, England, in 1993, with the goal oflinking national and regional educational development networks and sharing best practices in higher education across national boundaries. It sponsors biannual conferences, the latest having taken place July 2000 in Bielefeld, Germany (www.uni-bielefeld.de/lZHD/ICED/). Its member organizations sponsor web pages with numerous resources. HERDSA (Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia) (www.herdsa.org.au) offers conferences, publications, and sponsors research on teaching and learning in higher education with links to many of these resources on its web page. SEDA, the Staff and Educational Development Association of the United Kingdom, offers accreditation services for faculty development professionals as well as publications, conferences, and web resources for faculty development practitioners (http://www.seda.demon.co.uk/). Particularly useful is its links page, with pointers to many resources and organizations dedicated to faculty development in the English-speaking world (http://www.seda.demon.co.uk/other.html). Links to faculty development organizations in other countries can also be found at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education/La société pour l’avancement de la pédagogie clans l’enseignement supérieur in Canada (http://www.umanitoba.ca/academic_support/uts/stlhe).

ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES

The breadth and depth of these new online resources and providers offer a wealth of teaching and learning opportunities for faculty and faculty developers. In particular, faculty developers and centers have much to gain, including

• more faculty development opportunities than ever before

• continuous provision of faculty development through anytime/any- where delivery of resources

• easier access to information, especially at time of need

• access to providers of faculty development beyond one’s institution

• increased opportunities for faculty developers to connect with and assist a greater number of faculty and for faculty to assist one another

• increased opportunities to facilitate the development of faculty learning communities inside and outside one’s institution

• online opportunities for publishing teaching and learning scholarship

• expanding faculty development from an event on-campus to everywhere all the time

• opportunities to develop fresh models for faculty development

All of the above, through increased access to a larger variety and higher quality of pedagogical resources, contribute to more engaged, better informed, creative faculty with an emphasis on the role of faculty as learners. They also create a variety of new avenues for faculty to learn together and alone.

As faculty developers continue to gain experience using these new resources, they will need to be particularly mindful of how traditional faculty development practices can be utilized to maximize their benefits. In particular, faculty developers will need to focus on continuing to provide

• occasions for face-to-face faculty development events

• leadership for campus focus, direction, and coordination of all faculty development resources

• opportunities for collaboration across departments, divisions, academic/student affairs, etc.

One thing is certain: The flood of new, online resources is only the beginning. The challenge, even at this early stage, is to find a way to bring the best and most meaningful online resources to the faculty at your institution. The next section, which introduces the concept of the portal, provides a means for accomplishing that objective.

The Portal

The portal, an increasingly common concept in today’s Internet world, “is a place that draws people to it because of what it offers and what it enables” (Norman, 2000). An example of a general portal is Yahoo.com, AOL.com, or MSN.com. Each service wants you to enter the World Wide Web through them, so they try to offer the most value to the general user–an easy to use search engine, an email service, a chat room service, as well as current news, sports, and entertainment. The value they provide entices the user to continue to use their site as an entry point to the World Wide Web.

A company’s home page would be another type of portal. Its purpose is to serve existing customers, prospective customers, suppliers, and stockholders. The home page would have information and services of interest to all stakeholders. Meanwhile, a very distinctive path through the site is developed for each stakeholder group so that they may pursue information and services specifically focused to their needs. Likewise, a university’s campus portal will serve as a “gateway to the entire Internet and an aggregator of information on one or more areas of interest” (Pittinsky, 1999). These sites will typically have a common home page as well as different paths for current students, prospective students, alumni, and faculty. The prospective student path might include university promotion of the school, admissions, academic support, and career services. In this way, each path is “an abridged and customized version of the institutional Web presence” (Java in Administration Special Interest Group (JA-SIG) Clearinghouse, 2000), or put another way, “personalized information sources and communities of interest within a campus or university World Wide Web site” (Olsen, 2000).

The primary purpose of the portal is to provide value. Groundswell, a consulting company specializing in portal development, promotes the following characteristics for a successful, valuable portal (www.groundswell.com).

• An aggregation of products and services including

  • ~ knowledge that is useful for the intended audience(s)

  • ~ transactions, such as online purchasing or registering for a workshop

  • ~ analytics, tools to help the user find, compare, and evaluate products

  • ~ collaboration, or means to support, facilitate, and enhance personal connections;

• A people-centric, well-designed site

• A focus on developing brand loyalty, by such means as encouraging communication by email or through online registration

• An unparalleled online experience

A second, more detailed description of portal content with regard to features, information, tools, and relationships is available from David Eisler’s work as provost of Weber State University (Eisler, 2000).

For the faculty developer, an institution’s teaching and learning portal will be different from but linked to the campus portal or institutional web site, and also different from but linked to the various course portals that serve individual distance learning or web-enhanced classes. An institutional teaching and learning portal can provide value by offering a useful collection of resources and communication links that will attract faculty members to the site and provide incentive for them to use it again–whenever they want to be connected to a community of faculty focused on teaching and learning.

Much of the value of portals, especially an academic institution’s teaching and learning portal, is fueled by two trends. First, we live in an age where faculty and students need more information than ever, and need their information refreshed and updated more frequently than ever before in order to be effective (Levine, 2000a). Secondly, due to information overload, finding the right information is often a difficult, tedious task. As teachers, faculty are being pushed

• to find new ways to improve both their productivity inside the classroom as well as enhance their role outside the classroom (Sherer & Shea, in press)

• to find ways to be more sensitive to diversity issues in the classroom

• to be more attentive to the needs of the fastest growing demographic of college students–adult learners

• to incorporate an ever-expanding array of new instructional technologies

• to successfully compete against the well-heeled, profit-making sector that is rapidly making inroads into the traditional academic marketplace

Unfortunately, there is too much information, too many attractive options, and a lot of useless information, especially on our main source of connection, the World Wide Web. Therefore, we are both overconnected and disconnected at the same time (Hallowell, 1999). This is exacerbated by the overlap of resources provided by knowledge producers and content providers, such as course management software providers, textbook publishers, PBS, and the like.

For the inundated faculty member, the faculty developer can become the architect of an institution’s teaching and learning portal, providing value as a filter and as a connection point. By designing useful, well-organized, and easy-to-access content from within the campus and beyond, the faculty developer can provide access to high-quality, relevant, and coherent information. The faculty developer provides connections by identifying and providing means to communicate with both on-campus and off-campus resources. On-campus resources might include the reference librarian, media services, registrar’s office, student technical assistants, sources of internal funding opportunities, and the local Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable (TLTR). Off-campus links might include the national TLTR, assessment centers, professional societies, and book publishers who also provide faculty development workshops and discipline-specific online content. In doing so, the portal creates a link between faculty using the portal and the faculty development office.

While the definition of a portal is not precise, three characteristics common to most portals include: 1) a core product or service plus related, value-added products, 2) services and connections outside the site’s institution, and/or 3) a clear organization of different paths through the site depending on specific interests of the end-user. The following are examples of academic web sites already described in an earlier section with some characteristics of portals.

• WebCT, a leading course management software company (http://www.webct.com/),illustrates the idea of connecting value-added components such as discussion groups on current topics (for example, binge drinking), recent educational news, tutoring, research, and discipline-specific course content. These components are intended to get student and faculty users to come back and use the site as part of a learning community, rather than simply as a software company.

• Dalhousie University’s Office of Instructional Development and Technology (http://www.dal.ca/~oidt/)lists internal resources but also maintains a list of links to instructional development and technology sites worldwide (http://www.dal.ca/~oidt/ids.html).

• Abilene Christian University’s Center for Teaching Excellence (www.acu.edu/cte) focuses on internal resources but clearly defines separate, multilevel paths for first-time web visitors, information on academic computing, instructional technology available on campus, faculty interests, and policies. The site becomes an entry point and a guide to help the user get the information they desire.

A teaching and learning portal for a specific institution begins with the strategic objectives for teaching and learning within the institution. The faculty developer, as architect of the institution’s teaching and learning portal, will focus on organizing the enormous variety of resources available, from on campus and throughout the web. The goal is to create a relevant, organized, and coherent site that will also integrate communication links to helpful online discussion groups, chat rooms, and the like. The next section considers the changing emphases and roles that faculty developers will want to consider in order to become a successful architect of their institution’s teaching and learning portal.

University and College Teaching and Learning Center Web Sites

Dalhousie University’s Instructional Development and Technology Sites Worldwide

http://www.dal.ca/~oidt/ids.html#AD

University of Kansas Listing of Worldwide Teaching and Learning Centers

http://eagle.cc.ukans.edu/~cte/index.html

University and College Center Online Workshops

The Adams Center for Teaching Excellence at Abilene Christian

http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/

Virtual Teaching and Learning Technology Centers (V)TLTC

The Appalachian College Association and Virtual Teaching, Learning, and Technology

http://www.acaweb.org

Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS)

http://www.georgetown.edu/main/provost/candles/

Online Teaching and Learning Courses

Distance Education Certificate Program University of Wisconsin, Madison

http://www.wisc.edu/depd

LERN: A one-week course (Teaching Online)

http://www.lern.org/TeachingOnline/

UCLA: Online Teaching Program (OTP)

http://www.onlinelearning.net/CourseCatalog/index.html

Florida State University: Five-module online professional development program

http://www.fsu.edu/~pie/

Technology Product Companies

WebCT

http://www.webct.com

Blackboard

http://www.blackboard.com/

eCollege

http://www.ecollege.com/

JonesKnowledge.com

http://www.jonesknowledge.com/

Publishing Companies

Houghton-Mifflin’s Faculty Development Programs

http://www.facultytraining.com

Harcourt Brace

http://www.harcourtelearning.com/

Southwestern Thompson Learning (E-Learning)

http://www.swcollege.com/front.html

Associations (resources, listservs, chat groups, archives)

American Association for Higher Education (AAHE)

http://www.aahe.org

Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU)

http://www.aacu-edu.org

DeLiberations

http://www.lgu.ac.uk/deliberations/

Epiphany Project for Teachers of Writing

http://www.has.vcu.edu/epiphany/

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD)

http://www.podnetwork.org

Tomorrow’s Professor Listserv (Originates at Stanford University’s Learning Laboratory)

http://sll-6.stanford.edu/projects/tomprof/

Online Newsletters

lnfobits

http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/infobits.html

Teachdaedalus: Moderated discussion lists

http://daedalus.pearsoned.com/

National Teaching and Learning Forum (NTLF)

http://www.ntlf.com

eCollege Newsletter

http://www.ecollege.com/

Chronicle Report on Teaching (from The Chronicle of Higher Education)

http://[email protected]

TLT Group Flashlight Newsletter

http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/F-LIGHT/f-light_Aug2000.html

Teaching and Learning Online Journals and Magazines

The Educational Development Resource Center Online Journals in Education

http://158.132.100.221/INET_EDU.folder/OnlineJrnls.html

The Technology Source

http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/

International Resources Online

International Consortium for Educational Developers (ICED)

http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/lZHD/ICED/

Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA)

http://www.herdsa.org.au

Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education/La société pour l’avancement de Ia pédagogie clans l’enseignement supérieur (STLHE/ SAPES) in Canada

http://www.umanitoba.ca/academic_support/uts/stlhe

The Staff and Educational Development Association of the United Kingdom (SEDA)

http://www.seda.demon.co.uk

UK Learning and Teaching Support Network

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk