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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Designing Competency-Based Self-Paced Online Workshops for Introducing Faculty to Online Teaching Technologies

Online Learning Consortium Conference
October 29, 12:00-12:35

Session Title: "Designing Competency-Based Self-Paced Online Workshops for Introducing Faculty to Online Teaching Technologies"

Presenter: Jason Rhode, Northern Illinois University
Theme: Faculty Development

Northern Illinois University is currently implementing a innovating faculty development initiative offering introductory technology training via self-paced workshops as a component of a comprehensive online teaching certification.

NIU has a "pretty diverse" faculty body who teach 100-150 course sections per semester. Use of the learning management system (Blackboard) has a 96% student usage rate and a 92% faculty usage rate. Most instructors, both full time and part time, have a lot of experience teaching online; however, the college has recognized the need for more technology training as part of their faculty training initiatives.

The college started with "Online Teaching 101", a 6-week online learning experience for NIU faculty. However, the 6-week format proved to be too long for most faculty to be able to participate. They repackaged it to a 1-day workshop that took a pedagogical, pragmatic look at online teaching, but still, did not provide much exposure to the technology behind online learning.

As a result, NIU came up with a self-paced 3-step approach to potential online teaching certification process that focuses on pedagogy and technology. In addition to this initiative, they have archived over 110 online workshops on topics related to online teaching and technology integration.

Step 1 of NIU's new initiative is for faculty to take a "Readiness Self-Assessment," so that the instructional designers can tailor their support to the faculty's experience and their needs. Among other things, faculty describe their experience with different learning management systems and technology.

Next, the online teaching and learning support staff facilitate a 3-hour Intro to Blackboard workshop in the face-to-face format. It is offered once a month in a lab setting.

The rest of the training is 100% self-paced. Doing this accommodates a full spectrum of previous faculty experiences. It also makes the training scalable, flexible, and mobile.

What are your thoughts on a mix of face-to-face and self-paced training for preparation for online teaching and learning management system use?

Blog by Kayla Gori

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