Strategies to Resolve the Issue

             In order for faculty to be effective online educators and eliminate the challenges listed above, they must participate in professional development.  Professional development education for teachers is essential to improving teacher retention, program relevance, and effectiveness (Saucier, McKim, Muller, & Kingman, 2014).  In order for an organization to provide quality distance-education learning to all faculty members, technology training must be provided and required before teaching an online course.  There are many different ways training can occur.  Training can occur through a program and/or a workshop.  The two different ideas that will be discussed in the following paragraphs include the use of a three-tiered program and a boot camp workshop.  With the use of these training methods, faculty will be able to enter the online classroom with the skills, experience, and confidence they need to provide students with a valuable learning experience (Vaill & Testori, 2012).

Three-Tiered Program

           
            The first strategy to resolve the issue of technology illiteracy is implementing a professional development program that uses a three-tiered approach.  The program will provide faculty orientation to online education, mentoring, and ongoing support services (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  When creating a three-tiered approach program, it should be carefully planned, and should not simply consist of a single workshop or training session (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  The program should consist of multiple training sessions, hands on-experience with the technology, and should be done in a supportive atmosphere.  The program that will be implemented will run over a course of many weeks, with the last meeting being four weeks before the start of the instructor’s course.  It will provide a mix of pedagogical and technical content.  Faculty members will be provided with the technology skills they need to use in the online learning environment to its full potential, have an understanding of how online education works, and understand how it is different from face-to-face learning experiences (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  Since distance education is very different from tradition education, educators must be trained and educated on all aspects of distance learning.  By the end of this program, faculty will understand the relationship between technology, pedagogy, and their course content in order to develop a high quality course (Vaill & Testori, 2012).    

             Orientation is the first phase of the training program.  This part of the program focuses on developing an understanding of online education.  During this portion of the orientation, a number of critical topics are explored and participants begin to learn about the role of technology in the online classroom (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  Faculty members are also encouraged to develop their course plan and they begin to organize their course.  For example, faculty members group their course objectives and content into the correct number of weeks or modules for their course (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  Faculty members begin to learn how to design their course in this part of the orientation, which is a major role of distance education faculty members.  A syllabus is also designed by the instructor during this portion of the program.  Once the syllabus is designed, the Instructional Designer and content area expert from the subject area in which the instructor is teaching reviews and makes corrections to the syllabus in order to make it more comprehensive and easy to understand (Vaill & Testori, 2012). 

            Once faculty have an understanding of the basics of online learning and have an approved syllabus, they then move into a week focused on learning the LMS (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  This helps provide instructors with a thorough understanding of what the LMS is and how it works so they are able to use it appropriately and help students who may have questions about its use.  During this week of the training program, faculty members will learn how to navigate the system, develop course content, use the multimedia tools, and grade assignments with the rubric tool (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  The participants are then asked to practice creating course discussions, content pages, and assignments with the LMS (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  This is a significant part of the program.  During this part, instructors not only receive education on LMS and how to use LMS, but they are able to receive hands-on-experience using the LMS.  Learning management systems vary depending on the institution that the instructor works for, but the program will only educate the instructor on the use of the learning management system that is used at the instructor’s particular institution. 

            “The final weeks of the Orientation will continue to develop faculty members’ understanding of teaching online with readings and discussions focused on developing their course in the online classroom and making the transition to teaching their course easier” (Vaill & Testori, 2012, p. 115).  These readings and discussions will teach instructors about developing assessments and collaborative learning activities for their course (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  Instructors will learn how to effectively participate in an online classroom and learn methods to encourage interaction among students.

             The second phase of the program is known as the mentoring phase.  Each faculty participant will be assigned one mentor, who is an experienced online instructor, throughout the training course.  Mentoring is a vital part of the online faculty development process (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  Anytime an instructor has a question or needs help, there will always be mentors available to help.  Mentors also provide new instructors, as well as experienced instructors with tips and strategies, and allow instructors to learn from the experience of their skilled counterparts (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  A trusted relationship develops between the instructor and the mentor and the instructor begins to feel safe talking about questions, problems, or concerns with their mentor.    

            The third and final phase of the program is the ongoing support that will be provided to online faculty after the program ends.  The Instructional Designer, as well as all other mentoring staff members will always be available to provide support for all faculty in the use of the LMS (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  Support members check new online instructors’ courses regularly and provide constructive feedback when needed (Vaill & Testori, 2012).

            This is a great program to eliminate faculty illiteracy in technology, while also improving the online learning environment.  This type of program has already been implemented at Bay Path College.  Surveys have been provided to the 106 faculty members that the program prepared to determine faculty satisfaction.  Survey results showed overall, 84% of faculty completing the survey felt more prepared for teaching online following the program.  Seventy-six percent of program participants felt that the content obtained in the program, and the overall experience, were valuable to their professional growth (Vaill & Testori, 2012).  These results show that a relationship exists between this particular program and improvement in overall online faculty preparedness.  This program will help eliminate the many issues caused by technology illiteracy, such as problems with preparing and delivering materials; communication problems; misuse of technology, problems with equipment, and the inability to properly perform distance education faculty roles.  Faculty members will be better prepared and will be able to not only provide quality instruction, but also help students who are having difficulties transitioning from a traditional to an online learning environment. 

Boot Camp Workshop

            Another strategy that can be implemented, which is very similar to the program listed above, is known as “boot camp”.  Instead of a program lasting several weeks, boot camps last only three days.  They are three-day summer workshops in which faculty learn to redesign a current face-to-face course to an online course (Johnson, Wisniewski, Kuhlemeyer, Isaccs, & Krzykowski, 2012).  Another difference is in boot camp workshops, participants work in small groups of three or four faculty members, whereas in the program described above, participants work individually.  Boot camps work by each of the groups receiving one-on-one instruction with an instructional technologist for their particular course and learning objectives, as well as learn from their peers who may be from different disciplinary backgrounds (Johnson et al., 2012).  This strategy may be better for individuals who are busy and may not have time to be involved in a multiple week program.  By the end of the workshop, faculty members produce a substantively-ready online course to be launched the following academic year (Johnson et al., 2012).  The following paragraph will describe each day and what instruction will occur each day.

            Day one consists of research on online learning (Johnson et al., 2012).  During this part of the workshop, faculty members participate in wide-ranging discussions of research on online learning and its application to each faculty member’s course (Johnson et al., 2012).  This allows faculty members to learn about online learning and how the information they learn can be used and applied to their particular discipline.  Day two consists of an introduction and investigation of online tools (Johnson et al., 2012).  This is where faculty participants learn about the technology used in online education and how to properly use the technology.  Faculty will receive advanced training in the learning management system and create a personal “tool box” of online tools (Johnson et al., 2012).  During this part of the workshop, a great deal of hands-on learning occurs.  For example, faculty participants will learn how to use a video camera, how to edit clips and upload them to YouTube, and how to embed a video into the learning management system (Johnson et al., 2012).  Day three puts both day one and day two content together (Johnson et al., 2012).  “Faculty members will revisit the student learning outcomes, content, and assessment for their particular course, determine how technology might enhance student learning, and design the content of their online course” (Johnson et al., 2012, p. 65).  At this point, faculty members will be able to take what they have learned and apply it to their particular course, while also remembering how to properly use the technology. 

             This workshop is utilized at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  Over the summers of 2010 and 2011, 25 faculty members participated in boot camp and were given a survey to complete (Johnson et al., 2012).  Survey results showed (n=24) indicated that faculty liked the small group discussions, learned quite a bit from their peers, and appreciated the individual attention from the instructional technologist on “their” specific course (Johnson et al., 2012).  Survey responses also indicated that attendees felt the boot camp was effective or very effective in helping them become familiar with the scholarship in online teaching and learning (n=21), learning about tools that help engage students (n=22), increased confidence levels for teaching online (n=23), and made them feel more comfortable working in their LMS (n=21) (Johnson et al., 2012).  Again, a relationship exists between the boot camp workshop and improvement in overall online faculty preparedness.  With programs and workshops, such as the ones listed in this blog, online teachers can begin to feel comfortable with teaching online, feel comfortable and be competent in using the LMS, and various other technological tools to help make online teaching more effective.   

            Both the strategies listed are not only based off the evidence provided above, but are also based off professional standards.  One particular professional nursing standard is standard 5B: Health Teaching and Health Promotion (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2010).  In order to promote health, nurses must follow the competencies that go along with this standard.  Nursing educators need to use information technologies to communicate health promotion and disease prevention in a variety of settings (ANA, 2010).  For distance education, nursing educators must be able to effectively use information technologies, such as computers, learning management systems, PowerPoint presentations, and discussion board posts to communicate health promotion and disease prevention education to nursing students.  The way that these instructors use these technologies may be very different in the distance education environment, but they still must use them appropriately and effectively to guide and facilitate student learning.  Both of these programs can help nursing educators meet this particular nursing standard.  These programs can improve instructor to student communication, help instructors to learn how to properly engage and create an interactive environment, while also facilitating independent learning.    

            A specific nursing educator competency that these strategies were based on include the competency of facilitating learning (Kalb, 2008).  Being a facilitator is one of the major roles in distance education (Yi, 2012).  When the faculty member is unable to use technology appropriately, the faculty member is unable to facilitate learning.  When learning is not facilitated, education in the distance learning environment does not occur.  These strategies help faculty members facilitate learning by preparing them on how to use specific online tools to promote learning and how to properly use the institution’s LMS to provide quality instruction.  When faculty members are better prepared for teaching an online class and are educated on how to properly use technology, they can facilitate student learning more effectively through communication and collaboration activities.