Lesson 3 - Implementing Online Learning

In universities, faculty are trained, through the doctoral route, to do research, but there is no requirement to be trained in teaching methods. At best faculty development is voluntary for faculty once appointed, and although post-doctoral students may be offered short courses or in some instances even a certificate in preparation for classroom teaching, this is usually voluntary and minimal. Indeed, post-graduate students interested in experimenting with learning technologies or taking professional courses or programs in teaching are often deliberately discouraged by their supervisors from doing so, as it would detract from their research. Increased use of adjunct/contract faculty exacerbates the problem. Being on contract, they require payment for any training, but institutions are often reluctant to train contract workers who may then leave at the end of the contract and take their training and skills to a competitor.

The situation is somewhat different in two-year colleges. Many jurisdictions (but by no means all) have a regional, state, or provincial Instructor Diploma Program that some colleges require instructors to take on appointment or shortly afterward. However, many of these programs have not been adapted to take account of online learning, and probably none are yet up to date on blended learning. I was an external reviewer for one such program a while ago, and there was almost no mention of online or blended learning. Most of the technologies discussed in this program were at least 20 years old.

The lack of comprehensive and systematic training at a pre-service level places a disproportionate burden on ongoing professional development, which is at best ad hoc and variable in both quantity and quality. Above all, it is an entirely voluntary system – in other words, teachers or instructors can choose not to take any in-service workshops or courses on teaching, if they decide – as most do – that their professional development time will be better spent focusing on research rather than teaching. Christensen Hughes and Mighty (2010) argue that less than 10 percentage of all university instructors take professional development activities focused on improving their teaching, and the faculty that do opt-in are often those in the least need of training as they are often already excellent teachers.

Lastly, most faculty and instructors do not base their teaching practice on empirically-based evidence or research on the effectiveness of different approaches. Christensen Hughes and Mighty (2010) have edited a collection of studies on research on teaching and learning in higher education. In the opening lesson the editors state:

…Researchers have discovered much about teaching and learning in higher education, but that dissemination and uptake of this information have been limited. As such, the impact of educational research on faculty-teaching practice and student-learning experience has been negligible.

In the same book, Christopher Knapper (also of Queens University) states (p. 229-230):

There is increasing empirical evidence from a variety of international settings that prevailing teaching practices in higher education do not encourage the sort of learning that contemporary society demands….Teaching remains largely didactic, assessment of student work is often trivial, and curricula are more likely to emphasize content coverage than the acquisition of lifelong and life-wide skills….

[However] there is an impressive body of evidence on how teaching methods and curriculum design affects deep, autonomous, and reflective learning. Yet most faculty are largely ignorant of this scholarship, and instructional practices are dominated by tradition rather than research evidence.

This book has shown that we do not have to invent or discover what’s needed to teach well in a digital age. There is well-established literature and generally agreed best practices, yet, as Christensen Hughes and Mighty have pointed out, many if not a majority of teachers and instructors are unaware or continue to ignore these standards.