Faculty Mentoring: A New Program for Online Faculty

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Faculty Mentoring A New Program for Online
Faculty
Dr. Kevin R. Morgan Instructor/Designer St.
Petersburg College Seminole/eCampus
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Context Institutional Setting
1998 New Seminole Campus Opens Focus on
technology
Project Eagle Grant To Create, Implement, and
Evaluate 160 Online Classes/Programs over
five-year period at SPC
High-Tech Infrastructure Instructional
Technology Department and Support Systems WebCT
authoring tool
1999 eCampus offers online, TV and Tele-web
courses
2000-2002 100 Growth in eCampus Courses
40-160 2002 SPC WebCT server registers 1 million
hits per day
2002 St. Petersburg College begins offering
4-year programs in Technology, Nursing, and
Education
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The Problem Supply and Demand

• Meeting the Student Demand for Online Classes

• Non-Traditional Students Need Asynchronous
  Learning Adult Learners

- Rapid Growth of Online Learning and Distance
Education Nationally
- Expansion of 4-year college classes and
programs online SPC Mission
Rapid Growth of eCampus 30/Semester-greater
than face-to-face

• Limitations Human Resources- Instructor/Designer
  s

• Full-Time Instructors limited in available hours
  to design and teach

• Campus and Institutional limits in total classes
  that can be taught

• High learning curve in WebCT design for
  content-rich learning classes

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Solution Online Supply and Quality

• Faculty Mentoring for Online Instructors

• Online classes can be easily reproduced in
  WebCT.

• Online designers can train and collaborate with
  other
• full-time and adjunct faculty teaching their
  courses.

• More classes can be offered for more students.

• Mentoring can facilitate the transition for
  faculty
• new to online delivery for the first semester.

• Faculty Designers can facilitate quality by
  providing

Instructional Design of Course
Content-Matter Expertise
Pedagogy of Online Teaching
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Faculty Mentoring Specifics

• High-demand and successful online courses to be
  identified by program directors and Instructional
  Technology

• Selected courses to be duplicated and given to
  full-time
• and adjunct professors to additional sections
  online.

• Original designers of courses to work with
  instructors
• instructors for first semester teaching
  classes online.

• Faculty Mentors will be compensated (1/3 of
  class pay)
• for collaboration as needed during
  implementation. (600)

• Faculty Mentoring to be documented and
  evaluated by
• program director of eCampus and both
  participants at
• end of the semester with signed contract for
  pay.

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Benefits of Faculty Mentoring

• Mentoring Encourages Collaboration.

Subject-Matter Expertise
Online Pedagogy for content specific areas.
Designers of Courses as Mentors
Familiarity with specific course design
Familiarity with WebCT and online pedagogy
Providing just in time information to
instructors
Providing quick fixes for online students and
instructors
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Promoting the Idea of Faculty MentoringAffecting
the Institutional Culture

• Instructional Technology

- Inst.Tech. Director Saw a possible conflict of
domains.
- Mentors should not do work of Instructional
Technologists.

• The Compromise

- Mentors will not replace Instructional
Technologists.

• Mentees must take mandatory WebCT training prior
  to
• teaching online classes or entering Mentoring
  Relationship.

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The Political Process to Approval

• 1. Win support Director of Instructional
• Technology Department for Endorsement
  (ITAG)

2. Present Concept to Technology Advisory Group
3. Present Proposal to Faculty Senate
4. Get endorsement Seminole Campus Provost
5. Provost Council Approval April, 2001
6. Faculty Senate Approval May, 2001
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Feedback Other Mentors
It works better in emergency situations than
using a manual.
It enables problems to be fixed on the spot,
which benefits the students more, than
waiting until Monday.
It encourages collaboration and often leads to
improvements in design and pedagogy by
increasing content expertise.
Mentoring adds the human touch and benefits both
the mentor and the mentee in the relationship.
Faculty mentoring rewards and encourages
collaboration in higher education, which
seldom occurs otherwise.
Faculty mentoring offers instructors a
transition online.
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Feedback New Online Faculty/Designer

• I believe working one-on-one with someone more
• experienced gave me the confidence to design my
  first
• online course.

• When I struggled with an element of the design
  process,
• answers were just a phone call or meeting
  away.

• When I would make a mistake or oversight, it was
  quickly
• rectified because someone with more experience
  was
• checking my progress.

• Working with a mentor makes the learning process
  a
• real team effort that I think benefits both
  members.

• I would highly recommend it to anyone
  considering
• online teaching and/or design.

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Observations From Mentoring
New online instructors need just in time
help beyond Instructional Technology training
sessions.
Most new online instructors need 24/7 help, which
includes times outside of normal college hours.
Most online students work late at night and
outside of normal institutional hours, requiring
24/7 help.
Online faculty need to respond to student needs
24/7.
Most faculty can be effective online instructors.
Few faculty become designers, even with training.
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The New Online Learning Paradigm
Designer
Content Matter
Instructional Technology
Technical Support 24/7
Online Learning Environment
Online Pedagogy
Non-traditional Online Student
Instructor as Facilitator
Help Desk 24/7
24/7 Communication
Self-directed Learning
Technical skills
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Faculty Mentoring A New Paradigm

• The roles of the faculty have changed.

- The faculty member must first be a designer of
learning.

• It takes a team to design, develop, implement,
  support
• and evaluate a quality online program.

• Instructional design is different than teaching
  or facilitating.

• Online learning is asynchronous, requiring
  entirely new
• paradigms of instructor/response (24/7 should
  be goal).

Therefore New institutional polices need to be
made in response to online design and learning.
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A Future Plan for Design/Mentoring
Design and Mentoring can meet the demand for
quality and quantity in the rapidly expanding
domain of Online Learning.
Each online instructor can be a mentor for new
online instructors. Some may become designers as
well as mentors. Online instructors may also
provide feedback to designer for course
improvements.
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Suggestions Mentoring, Design, Practice

• Faculty mentoring should be expanded to meet
  expanding
• student demand for more and better online
  classes.

• Design needs to combine Instructional
  Technology
• pedagogy and content-specific expertise.
  (Teamwork).

• Continuous Evaluation and Innovation (ISD
  approach).

• Institutional policies need to consider online
  learning as
• central, rather than ancillary to the mission
  of education.

- Encourage online design, mentoring, and
instruction through Virtual Office Hours,
Full-time and Supplemental Pay.
- Facilitate the creation of fully-online
faculty who are centered in online pedagogy,
as well as their own content matter.
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Extending Faculty Collaboration

• SPC Onliners A Discussion Area

• To extend collaboration for Online Designers and
  Instructors,
• a Discussion Forum was constructed on WebCT.

• Onliners Discussion Area was created in May
  2001, and
• made available to all online instructors and
  Instructional
• Technologists from the colleges six campuses
  and centers.

• Other Online Discussion Areas have been created,
  such as
• a collaborative area for ESL Instructors and
  adjuncts
• (Clearwater Campus Li-Lee Tunceren)

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SPC References and Links
SPC E-Campus
SPC Seminole Campus
Project Eagle Research
Best Educational E-Practices BEEP
Dr. Kevin R. Morgan