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Do you enjoy mentoring others, working flexible hours and using technology to
create community? Do you have a Masters degree? If so, you could become an
e-learning instructor and reap the benefits of virtual teaching. Three years ago I became a part-time e-learning instructor at the
undergraduate and graduate level. Now I begin each day in my home office
checking up on my students' discussions. I still work full-time as a business
consultant, but my virtual teaching activities give me the satisfaction of
mentoring others. Colleges today are reaching a whole new breed of non-traditional students
through online courses. Over the past decade the number of degree-granting
higher education institutions that offer distance education courses has doubled
from 33 percent in 1995 to nearly 66 percent today (Tabs, 2003). Many
universities have found distance education to be a revenue source, without the
corresponding need to expand physical classroom space. And research shows that
interaction between faculty and students increases in an online environment
(Maguire, 2005). Yet these same universities have found that 50 percent of their faculty are
resistant to make the transition from classroom-based instruction to online
web-based courses (NEA, 2000). While it is no longer a novelty for faculty to
teach a mix of classroom and online courses, many schools are looking for
e-learning instructors who have real world experience. But to enter this world
you will have to develop a virtual teaching strategy that addresses the
preparation, performance, and process of online learning. Preparation The first aspect of a virtual teaching strategy is proper preparation. While
a traditional teacher might focus their preparation on creating lesson plans to
teach in the classroom, e-learning instructors take a different approach. Rather
than focus on what they should teach, they create a comprehensive study plan
that focuses on what students should learn. Keep in mind that online courses rarely conduct live video lectures. If
lectures are used at all, they are considered supplemental archives. Instead,
the real focus of online education is the work that learners complete through
reflective journals, formal papers, text-based dialogues and project portfolios.
This means that long before the course starts you need to create a well designed
mix of prepared readings, assignments and assessments. Then you will upload
these into a web-based course management system, such as Blackboard. This switch from a teacher-dominated classroom to a learner-centered format
will require you to rethink your role. Online instructors are more akin to
coaches, facilitators and guides, rather than lecturers. Faculty who switch to
learning-centered formats often come to characterize education, not as the
teacher transmission of content, but as the student construction of knowledge
through "questioning, criticism, discussion and deliberation" (Brookfield &
Preskill, 1999, p. 198). Educators refer to this as "self-directed learning" or nurturing "autonomous
learners" (Ponton & Carr, 2000). In one study of self-directed learning, 66%
of students rated their interaction with the teacher greater in online courses
(Chester & Gwynne, 1998). Performance The second aspect of your virtual teaching strategy is focusing and measuring
performance. This involves: (a) relating all assignments to real-world
performance competencies, and (b) establishing grading standards to objectively
evaluate whether students meet these in their formal papers and projects. Educator Peter Pipe challenges instructors to create a "Performance Pyramid"
for each course they design (Pipe, 1975, p. 99). You begin by asking, "What
would a successful student do in relationship to my discipline one month, six
months or one year after they finish my course?" You then list all "critical
incidents" or real-world encounters that your ex-student might likely face, and
how they would successfully handle it on the basis of your instruction. Then you
rework these critical incidents into "actions statements," with corresponding
subordinate skills. This performance map then becomes the "raw materials from
which objectives are fashioned" (p. 102). Process The third aspect of a virtual teaching strategy is guiding class dialogue so
it extends into higher levels of learning. Online courses normally create
threaded-text discussion forums, where students are required to post regularly.
These cyber-class dialogues are different from free-for-all message boards. They
differ in that: (a) students follow structured conversation posting protocols to
demonstrate their knowledge, and (b) the e-learning instructor then challenges
students to take their posts to a higher level. The School of Global
Leadership & Entrepreneurship at Regent University uses excellent
conversation protocols or what they call "dialogue guidelines" to guide student
forums (SLS, n.d). Each forum is open for three weeks. Students are required to
post a minimum of five to ten posts within an open forum, and limit each post to
201 words. The discussion in each forum is guided by a starter question directly
based on a course objective. Course dialogue is called for in three main styles:
"open-forum," "point-counterpoint-response," and "5-post 200-word." Open forum
is the least structured. Point-counterpoint-response calls on students to take a
position and defend it. And 5-post 200-word calls for scholarly demonstration of
research, beyond what is assigned. In contrast to traditional class discussion "the online environment lends
itself to... allowing students extra time to think and learn" (Wojnar, 2002, p.
2). That is where you come in as an e-learning facilitator. Your job is to
challenge students in dialogue to extend what they know, so that it ranges
across the six cognitive categories of Bloom's Taxonomy. These are: 1) merely
listing what one has read, 2) explaining what one has learned in their own
words, 3) applying knowledge to new situations, 4) analyzing complex ideas and
concepts, 5) combining complex ideas into new solutions, and 6) defending
one's thinking based on holistic evaluation (Wojnar, 2002). An e-learning
moderator, therefore, helps students practice inquiry by questioning their posts
and probing group assumptions. English philosopher Michael Oakeshott calls this
"unrehearsed intellectual adventure" (as cited by Brookfield & Preskill, p.
6). By structuring and then moderating online dialogue you help students process
what they learn at a deeper level. You give them the mental space to relate new
concepts to previous experience. And they come to see that learning is a social
process, not just from the instructor, but from other
students. Becoming an e-learning instructor is much more than just focusing on software
or the technical aspects of computer mediated teaching. An e-learning instructor
develops a virtual teaching strategy that focuses on: 1. Preparation - creating a course framework of student assignments that is
learner-centered, rather than teacher-centered. 2. Performance - relating all assignments to real-world performance
competencies, and insuring student work is graded objectively according to these
rubrics. 3. Process - establishing student dialogue on proven conversation protocols
and guiding it through inquiry so it extends into higher levels of learning.
With these virtual teaching keys in mind, you can join the thousands of
mid-career leaders who are transforming education online by becoming outstanding
e-learning instructors. Brookfield, S., & Preskill, S. (1999). Discussion as a
way of teaching: Tools and techniques for democratic classrooms. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. About the Author Jay Gary is president of PeakFutures, a leadership training group in Norfolk,
VA. Over the past twenty-five years PeakFutures has helped hundreds of leaders
in non-profits, corporations, and educational institutions develop new programs
and use cutting edge technology to deliver them. For more, see http://www.peakfutures.com |