Introduction

Business
School Strategy

Univ of Maryland Strategy

Conclusion

Author
Information

Looking Beyond Course Development Tools: 
Faculty Training Issues

Sunil Hazari & Ellen Yu Borkowski
University of Maryland
  

Keywords

Distance Education, Online Instruction, Faculty Training, Web Based Instruction.

Abstract

Many faculty are now comfortable using first generation commercial course development tools.  It is time to help reengineer faculty thinking to focus more on pedagogical issues.  Using examples, this paper describes a strong need for paradigm shift from tool based features of course development tools into the rough terrain of effective pedagogy.

Introduction

Many institutions have made huge investments in commercial course development tools as well as associated hardware, software, and personnel costs to support delivery of online instruction. With sound pedagogical design, online courses can create meaningful learning environments by engaging students in active application of knowledge, concepts and giving them an opportunity to control pace and monitor learning which will help them grow and evolve as the course progresses. However, this is contingent on faculty being prepared to look beyond the glitz and glamour of features provided in course development tools, and focus more on the teaching/learning aspects and outcomes of effective technology use rather than the technology itself.

The World Wide Web has provided higher education institutions an effective medium to distribute course materials over the Internet. Unfortunately there is no single standard that describes how courses should be created and distributed over the Web. Institutions must leverage the power of these tools beyond use of basic tool features and make faculty adjust to the new pedagogy that uses technology as an integral component in teaching. It is time to help faculty focus more on pedagogical issues. Use of course development tools is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. Many faculty fail to realize this and overlook the importance of instructional design and cognitive learning theories that directly impact student learning. Faculty workshops focus on teaching tool features but stop before exploring pedagogical implications that is in fact more important. The University of Maryland has been proactive in addressing these shortcomings, and during the past three years has taken steps to prepare faculty to be effective facilitators in the online environment. Delivery of instruction to remote sites that is on par with on-campus instruction was important in maintaining quality standards of the university. A combination of programs, seminars, and workshops has been used to achieve this goal.

In large universities, the IT operations and services are often decentralized with individual colleges supporting their own infrastructure and by using staff resources that are specific to the college. This is in addition to a central IT unit that provides additional services. Despite the existence of a central computing unit, many services such as e-mail, web, and administrative databases are internally developed and/or supported by individual colleges. The same is now true for course development tools with colleges trying to accommodate needs of faculty who feel comfortable with using one tool over another. The University of Maryland has adopted one main course tool to be supported at the campus level and individual colleges have chosen to support other tools some of which were developed in-house based using resources available in colleges. Training, therefore, must be developed and delivered to accommodate different course tools and individual needs of colleges. This paper will describe how University of Maryland has approached training initiatives that meet several needs of faculty in different disciplines. The case studies used here are for the Business School at Maryland and also the central computing unit (Office of Information Technology). Comparing and contrasting these approaches will help large universities as well as smaller colleges understand their needs and directions for developing effective faculty training programs.

Business School Strategy 

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is one of 13 colleges and schools of the University of Maryland, College Park, and one of the nation's leading research institutions. It is nationally recognized as one of the nation's best providers of New Economy business education and a prime resource for the region's economic community. The school's academic programs provide an in-depth education in core business disciplines integrated with cross-functional concentrations such as electronic commerce, telecommunications, financial engineering, global knowledge management, entrepreneurship, and supply chain management. The school has 115 full-time faculty members, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars. Faculty members encourage and challenge students by their commitment to excellence in teaching and their dedication to defining 21st century business practices.

By 1998 there were many Business faculty who were distributing course materials using individual web pages but there was no Business course portal that presented a consistent look-and-feel to offer a common user interface to students and faculty. A survey of faculty needs and course development tool vendors was undertaken and it was found that there was no single commercial asynchronous learning environment that met pedagogical needs for all Business courses. Although many off-the-shelf products were available, most products were generic in nature and difficult to customize for an entire college or university because of constantly changing needs and differences in student and faculty technology skills. In this case it was important to design a Course Development Tool that was specifically tailored for the needs of faculty and students in the Business School and leveraged existing resources. Therefore in 1998, a Course Template System based on Lotus Notes (a standard program for Business Organizations) was developed in-house. The goal of designing a Course Development Tool Template for the Smith Business School was to create an asynchronous Web learning environment based on faculty needs, cognitive learning theories, and available technology resources within the school. Ongoing design changes were driven by suggestions from faculty and students to add features or change existing design to facilitate course development, and improve teaching/learning. Developing courses using integrated features of a standardized tool offered single authentication scheme, directory structure, consistent interface, and simple way to publish and update content. Instructors had the ability to adapt components according to learning outcomes of the course and used the tool to promote collaborative learning, enhance critical thinking skills, and provide every student with an equal opportunity to participate in classroom discussions. Since its first implementation in 1998, the environment has been used in more than seven hundred undergraduate and graduate business courses. A complete list of current semester courses is available from http://courses.rhsmith.umd.edu

For the technology mediated learning environment to be pedagogically effective, proper use of the Course Development Tool required faculty training sessions. Initially, the training sessions were designed to demonstrate the mechanics of tool use and create an awareness of alternative strategies that can be used in this medium to support face-to-face classes. During this time, most of the use of the online environment was for convenience in distributing static material such as Syllabus, Schedule, Class Notes, and Assignments. After a year, when most faculty were familiar with mechanics of using the tool, the hands-on workshop was changed to seminar format with emphasis on discussion and dialog rather than hands-on use. 

A seminar  Effective Online Teaching is offered at the beginning of each semester to accommodate new and existing faculty interested in using the course development tool. Creative strategies that can be used to enhance online instruction and evaluation of instructional approaches for cooperative and collaborative learning are also covered in this seminar. Multiple sessions of this half-day seminar have been developed and revised on an ongoing basis to integrate faculty questions and additional topics as the online environment becomes an integral part of the curriculum. Typical items covered during this seminar include instructor role in online teaching, discussion of cognitive theories applied to online learning environments, creative and critical thinking, collaborative learning characteristics, and facilitating discussions in group settings. During any seminar, it is important to demonstrate techniques and best practices so faculty can identify and adapt these for use in their courses. In the seminar, using a demonstration course, examples of reflective techniques to validate worth of contribution, use of seconding technique, cultivation of self-direction in students, and enforcing Netiquette in discussion forums are explained to workshop participants. Examples of strategies and techniques that can be implemented in online courses are available online.    

As another example, the assessment feature available in course tools was discussed as a tool that can be used to improve teaching and learning. The use of online assessment provided opportunities to test mastery of concepts being studied. It offered a non-threatening means of helping students gauge their understanding of the subject matter. By providing such a tool, student motivation appeared to increase since the measurement of success was clear. For faculty who used the discussion component of the template, most observed that since students had more time to reflect on the material, the quality of discussion demonstrated higher order learning. Maintaining a historical record of discussion during the semester enabled students to see their progress, work within a structured format, and recognize the continuity within, and connections between the topics in a course. Analysis of faculty responses also revealed that the maximum benefits appeared to occur as a result of the interactive course components. Because of opportunities for web conferencing, critical thinking questions posted online, feedback, and web based assessment, course instructors were better informed about what students understood, as well as the concepts that needed clarification. Some instructors were shown examples of how to maintain an ongoing historical document of dialog with students, keep records of commonly asked questions, and present questions and responses to all students at the beginning of each class lecture. This provided a summary and/or review as it had the potential to recognize cognitive misconceptions held by the students. The feedback and assessment components were most beneficial to instructors since instructors had the opportunity to evaluate knowledge acquisition and retention rate of students. Faculty were shown the benefits of continuously being able to monitor students' learning. It was also a means of engaging students in construction of knowledge. Since evaluation of course effectiveness is built into the design of course development tool, the data which was collected during the course provided a better chance of faculty intervention by identifying and taking corrective action on issues that affect learning. Additional details on how feedback can be used to improve teaching is also available online

Assessment of technology based learning remains a closely watched topic in education. It was therefore important that results of online environments used by Business faculty in the past and their effectiveness be shared with participants in the seminar. From a pure research standpoint, some of the key shortcomings of original research on effectiveness of distance learning have been identified to be lack of control for extraneous variables, failure to use randomly selected subjects, inadequate control of reactive effects, and focus on individual technology tools rather than interaction of multiple technologies. To eliminate these identified problems associated with research design, and also since this was not a comparative study of groups or media, the assessment shared in the seminar focused on perceptions and behaviors of students and faculty toward the supplementary course tool. Analysis of data was based on faculty and student responses to survey, follow-up qualitative comments that elaborated statistical results from the survey, observations of online discussions, and feedback form comments submitted by students. Discussions in faculty workshops are based on the results of the survey and faculty need. Additional details on outcomes and the study itself that were obtained from the survey are available.

University of Maryland Strategy

Located in College Park, Maryland, the University of Maryland is the flagship campus of the University System of Maryland. It is a comprehensive Carnegie Research-I University with 24,638 undergraduate students, 8551 graduate students, and 3604 faculty. According to the National Research Council ranking, the University has top-twenty ranked programs in engineering, computer science, physics, journalism, art history, economics, criminology, mathematics, oceanography, astronomy, education, and agricultural economics. In its 13 schools, 102 Undergraduate and 88 Graduate degrees are offered. 

Support for academic computing at Maryland is provided both centrally through the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and distributed through computing units in some of the larger colleges. These college computing units provide user support for their constituents at the computer hardware and application level and rely on OIT to provide the network infrastructure support.

In the past, faculty development at Maryland has mainly focused on skills training of currently available tools. As faculty mastered each of these tools, their inquiries into further training has been concerned with the use of the various tools in their teaching. Recognizing this change in needs, the Academic Support Unit, in collaboration with the Center for Teaching Excellence (housed in the Office of Undergraduate Studies), created the Institute for Instructional Technology (IIT) - focusing on the instructional use of technology and combining it with skills training. Faculty mentors are integrated into the training to discuss the pedagogy around the use of technology. The importance of offering support for faculty interested in integrating technology into their teaching was recognized by OIT upper management, and a small budget was allocated for costs to provide free training for faculty.

Faculty development at Maryland has been treated as a ramping up process. Each course offered in the IIT serves as a building block upon which faculty can slowly build skills to integrate technology into their teaching. Many faculty began with enhancing their lectures using a presentation graphics tool. As these faculty became more comfortable with this type of tool, they came back to the IIT for training in web pages. Initial web page development centered on static pages that provided access to syllabi and online references. Interactive sites became the next step and so on. During 1997-1998, faculty who were attending IIT modules on web page development began inquiring into online course environments where their static information could be integrated and linked into their interactive activities. A campus selection process was implemented that resulted in the selection of the web-based course management tool WebCT . Faculty input is integral to the development and modification of IIT modules. Development is an iterative process of conducting the training, gathering faculty feedback and then redesigning the training based on this feedback. The series of training developed for introducing WebCT to the campus has undergone changes, both major and minor, after each offering.

The selection and subsequent training for the web-based course management tool was done in a very short timeframe. The first pilot training for the web-based management tool was scheduled for two weeks after the purchase of the tool. The trainers had no choice but to develop the training while learning the tool. Other training modules developed by institutions using this course management tool provided some assistance, but the training design relied heavily on help screens embedded in the tool with training exercises developed by the Maryland IIT training staff. Pedagogical suggestions were part of the training, but were at this point more of an adjunct rather than an integral part. 

Faculty input during and after the training provided valuable input into the re-design of the training. The second series of training was developed to the following five three-hour modules:

· Introduction to WebCT
· Creating your WebCT Course Content
· WebCT Course Administration
· WebCT Quizzing & Self-Assessment Tools
· WebCT Student Activity Tools

The modules were simplified and the order of the training was based on feedback from faculty who completed the pilot training on the order they felt they would need to use the tool. The first two modules were required for faculty who wanted to have a course space. The last three modules could be taken at any time, in any order, and were not required. However, they were taken by most of the faculty attending the first two modules.

In the re-design of the training, pedagogy was woven tightly into the training. The structure of the training was designed to model pedagogical techniques for the faculty. Pedagogical suggestions and tips were included throughout the training. The faculty mentor role was initially taken on by one of the trainers using the tool in an undergraduate class. Mid-semester, a faculty member who had participated in the pilot training offered to be a mentor. With the growing number of faculty who have completed the training and are offering courses, mentors are now available from most colleges on the campus.

The current version of the training has come about due to the change in population of faculty attending the training. The "early adopters" had already gone through the training and were effectively using the tool in support of their courses. The IIT staff were now seeing the early majority attending the workshops. These faculty were motivated to integrate technology, but not as technologically savvy as the early adopters. To not overwhelm this faculty population, the five module series was broken up into beginner, intermediate, and advanced modules. A basic "What is WebCT?" module was created to introduce the tool to those who were interested in what was possible in this tool. This module does not provide training on how to design in this tool. The beginner modules are still three hours in length and are broken up into:

· Getting Started with Your WebCT Course
· Introduction to WebCT Course Cotent
· Introduction to WebCT Course Management
· Introduction to Student Activity Tools

Only the first module is required for faculty who want to have a course space. Intermediate and advanced modules cover more advanced features of the tools covered in the beginner series. In addition, due to the changing inquiries from faculty already using the tool, the following additional pedagogically based training modules were developed for the intermediate and advanced series:

· Intermediate WebCT Series 
· Additional Tools for Enhancing Online Content 
· Course Management 
· Planning Online Discussions 
· WebCT Quizzes and Surveys 
· Classroom Assessment Techniques and Student Feedback
· Planning Online Assignments 
· Advanced WebCT Series
· Advanced Question Types 
· Advanced Quiz Design

To further encourage faculty to focus on the pedagogical issues, an instructional design module was also developed. The module, Instructional Design Principles for Online Instruction: Rethinking a Course for the Web, integrates discussions around teaching strategies and examining best practices.

Formative and summative evaluation are critical components for the training. Feedback is encouraged from faculty during the training. At the end of each module, an online anonymous and open-ended survey is completed by the faculty. Faculty input has been one of the most valuable resources in the training re-design process both in terms of content as well as pacing of the materials.

In addition to training, follow on support for faculty is just as critical to successful use of the tool. The Academic Support unit provides access to instructional designers for individual one-on-one sessions. Online support materials include an online student manual and student tutorial, online WebCT support space in which faculty are students in an online space full of resources and places for questions and answers. A listserv is used for announcements of upcoming events or system outages. To help foster community amongst the faculty, there are monthly faculty Brown Bag lunches where they share what they are doing and discuss issues around effective use of the tool.

In addition to evaluation from faculty during the training, the Academic Support unit is also conducting evaluations around the use of the tool. Each semester student surveys are distributed to not only gather demographics but to get feedback on the tools within WebCT and what students feel are successful activities. A faculty survey is now being distributed to gain perspectives on how faculty feel about the support provided, how the tool is affecting their teaching style and how they are using WebCT. In addition, we are inquiring about their satisfaction with the tool and asking about any of their anticipated future needs.

What have we learned from over three years of offering training around WebCT? From early feedback, we learned that faculty would like to see modules focused on one particular aspect of WebCT rather than trying to cover a lot of different things in one module. Changing the format of the training material into "less words" and having step-by-step exercises significantly improves support during and after training. Breaking the modules into more manageable "chunks" has helped the "next wave" of faculty feel more comfortable with learning the tool and its applicability. It is important to "weave" pedagogical examples in between and into training exercises. 

What is most significant is what we have learned about the developmental process faculty go through when learning to integrate technology into their teaching. As expected, the first step for faculty is to acquire the skills to use the tool. Their initial approach is to focus on the skills - what button do you click and where do you type in information. Although we include pedagogical discussion throughout our training, it is often not "digested" the first time around. After mastering the skills, faculty then focus on pedagogy - we normally see this after one or two semesters of using the tool. Faculty need to experience themselves how different tools and exercises work with students and "learn by doing" what works and what doesn't. After they have begun focusing on pedagogy, the questions about instructional design begin to surface. These questions normally focus around the look and feel of the course and how best to design specific exercises or assignments. Re-conceptualizing a full course only occurs much later.

Conclusion

Online education is a new environment for most faculty, and training workshops are one vehicle to demonstrate ideas of change from face-to-face teaching to online pedagogy. As described above, a multi-pronged approach may work best in a large university that has varying needs. Distributed training initiatives to meet discipline specific needs can address problems endemic to faculty needs in individual colleges as well as bring together collaborative effort between various faculty to take advantage of features available in the online learning environment. Once faculty are empowered with the right tools to understand and create effective learning environments, students will ultimately benefit from a new medium which is interactive, and provides a strong foundation for collaborative learning and effective communication thereby meeting the needs and preparing students to function effectively in today's knowledge based society. 

Author Information

Sunil Hazari, Ed.D, is Faculty Research Associate in the Office of Information Technology and Adjunct Professor in the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of e-learning, web based instruction, usability, security and infrastructure design of E-commerce sites. He has authored several peer-reviewed journal publications in Information and Instructional Technology, and presented papers at national conferences. He is also a certified online instructor, and has been project manager for application software development, managed IT facilities, conducted technology-training workshops. 
E-mail: shazari@umd.edu Web: http://sunil.umd.edu

Ellen Yu Borkowski is the Director for the Academic Support unit in the Office of Information Technology. Academic Support provides leadership in the innovative use of technology in education and research at the University of Maryland. Its goal is to support faculty, students, and staff in designing and integrating technology in the teaching and learning and research process. Ellen is responsible for leading Academic Support's efforts in four major areas: Classroom Technology Support, Teaching and Learning Support, Technology Training Services, Research Support and Outreach. She has presented and published on faculty support issues. 
E-mail: eyb@umd.edu Web: http://www.oit.umd.edu/tel/staff/Ellen.html

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