Fundamentals of Online Course Design: A Model for Faculty Development Valerie West Rich Hernandez Mary Mauldin The Medical University of South Carolina
Overview of Presentation Background - Valerie West The Course - Rich Hernandez Outcomes - Mary Mauldin Discussion - Everyone
Characteristics of MUSC Free standing academic health center Decentralized culture/faculty support structure Excellent core of “early adopters” - beta site for WebCT Some outstanding human resources
The Issue Growing distance education involvement Distributed education innovations Administrative push No central source of “free” help for faculty No one’s job to organize faculty support No new resources
Selling the Idea Identify the issue with data –University wide survey –Issues identified Engage stakeholders –Provost –Retreat with Deans and key faculty and administrators
Proposing the Program Semester long, 5:00- 8:00 weekly –Commitment to a course or project –Agree to train others –Hire our own faculty to teach –Reverse roles - pay students as teachers –Grassroots group development
Approval of Funding –Initial Budget- $21,000 ($808 per faculty) Faculty and Teaching Assistants Supplies –Source of funding –Surprise addition - Laptops ($60,000- $3,116 per faculty
Marketing to Faculty Directly through multiple means Through Colleges/Deans
Planning Faculty Planning Group Assessing participant needs Addition of Laptops/Software Physical location considerations Acceptances
Lessons Learned Get data Engage key stakeholders Listen and adapt Make it doable Get people excited STAY FLEXIBLE
What We Taught Pedagogy of online teaching (Webagogy ) Instructional design Working with graphics Transferable web skills WebCT tools Other course building tools
How We Taught It Lecture Demonstration Open labs TAs Guest speakers Impromptu activities Online discussions Online resources “Student” show & tell
Additional Innovations Laptop surprise & aftermath Wired classroom Participant Faculty TA network “Frank’s minute”
Course Quick Tour
Pre-Course Survey What do you want to accomplish? –Get a course online –Engage students in discussions/activities
What skills are you hoping to develop through this course? –Independence –Graphics –Quizzes –Online Discussion Pre-Course Survey
After completing this course, I would be very happy if I could –Complete a course online –Put things up independently –Train/help others Pre-Course Survey
Post-Course Survey 94% met their goals 100% more comfortable designing and using web-based instruction 100% said time devoted was worth it 94% said they could help others 83% developed a usable unit
Post-Course Survey Highest Rated Items –Recommend course be taught again (100%) –Recommend to others (94%) –Faculty had expertise to teach the course (94%) Lowest Rated Items –Theoretical Issues –Open Source Systems viable option –Introduction to other systems
Post-Course Survey If you were teaching course, what would you add, remove, or change? –Hands on practice –More Dreamweaver –Problems from the field –Divide class into groups
Summary Course Structure: divide class into groups Content : less testing, less Blackboard, more Dreamweaver Methods: More hands-on
Lessons Learned Relevance Don’t waste their time Be flexible Participants are bringing experiences with them (lessons from the field) and they want to share Takes a lot of energy - plan for ways to encourage and motivate