Distance Education: Getting Started

by Jo Gibson Adjunct faculty have a wide comfort zone: they prepare lectures, monitor classroom discussion, devise tests, assign grades--no problem! However, even for faculty with wide-ranging professional skills and experience, on-line teaching can be a hard sell. Consider Dr. David Dutton [pseud.], professor and department chair. Aggressively pursuing additional work to supplement his income, he is now an on-line adjunct faculty member at seven institutions of higher education. “The coursework on-line is just as rigorous,” he says, “and I’ve found ways to establish my professorial presence in the on-line classroom. The students need that, and they love on-line learning.” Even though his on-line teaching experience has been positive, he sounds wistful: “The ideal for me remains old-fashioned face-to-face teaching. That’s the real way.” Yet, undeniably, on-line learning is popular. “Sizing the Opportunity,” the Sloan Center’s 2003 survey of on-line learning, posts these figures:

• Over 1.6 million students took an on-line course in the Fall 2002 semester
• 81 percent of all universities and colleges in the United States offer on-line classes
• 34 percent of those institutions offer on-line degree programs
• Continued 20 percent growth rate is projected

As colleges and universities staff up their on-line teaching positions, and faced with a shortage of standing faculty with interest or skill, they look to adjunct faculty. Dr. Jeffrey Seaman, Chief Information Officer at the Sloan Center for On-line Education at Olin and Babson Colleges, acknowledges it’s tough to quantify the use of adjunct faculty in on-line teaching, yet finds, “[o]ur ‘convenient samples’ indicate that many of the faculty hired are adjuncts.” Additional market research provided by Dr. Mac Adkins, Dean of Distance Learning at Troy University in Montgomery, reveals that 60 percent of the institutions of higher education in the United States currently employ distant on-line faculty. “In my experience, and that includes both ‘brick’ and ‘click’ universities,” Dr. Adkins says, “a high percentage [of faculty] hired to teach on-line are part-time instructors.” Thus, from a marketing standpoint as well as for personal reasons, adjunct faculty would do well to expand their repertoire and gain experience in the burgeoning on-line teaching environment. Graduate teaching assistant at City University of New York, James Trimarco admits, “I felt like a mercenary. But when a New Jersey school offered me an on-line class, even though it wasn’t precisely my area of interest and I had no experience in teaching on-line, I took the job. I was looking ahead to my coming year of research in Albania. I need the money!” “It suits my personality.” Dr. Ruth Achterhof, whose adjunct faculty assignments at Jones International University, Davenport University, and Baker College constitute her full-time employment, is thriving. “There are so many pluses!” she says. “I work from home in my casual clothes; my hours are completely my own, so I can work in the morning today and at night tomorrow, as I need or want. I’m an introvert, too, and appreciate the isolation and lack of interruption. It suits my personality.” Whatever it is that tips the scales, the net result is in favor of on-line teaching for adjunct faculty. A quick heads-up: when you search for on-line employment, don’t be misled by the high visibility of the private for-profit institutions of higher education. The best place to look for an on-line assignment? State public institutions. (Over 90 percent offer at least one on-line course; private institutions, less than 50 percent.) Also, heed the words of Edward Leach, Vice President of Services for the League for Innovation: “Community colleges offer the best in on-line instruction,” he notes. “They need to be responsive to an underserved population, and have always been innovative, on the cutting edge.” To expand your search (remember, with on-line teaching you’ve got no geographic constraints), consult a guidebook to distance learning (e.g., Peterson’s or Bears’) and click on informative sites ( http://www.league.org, http://www.facultyfinder.com>, http://www.geteducated.com). The key ingredient to success as you segue from face-to-face to on-line teaching is good training. Virtually every institution of higher education that hires on-line instructors provides faculty guidance. Only after faculty have the process issues in hand—clerical and administrative detail—can they concentrate on teaching. Generally, expect training to be (1) required, (2) unpaid, (3) on-line and asynchronous, and (4) two to six weeks long. At a minimum, during your training, you learn about: Course Management Systems (CMS). Also referred to as “learning platforms,” CMS software is the cornerstone of the on-line teaching environment. Here, you’ll find management tools (how to track students and process grades), help with classroom activities (how to create a threaded discussion and learner profiles), and links to support services (registrar, bookstore, library). Blackboard and WebCT are two well-known CMS providers; some institutions employ proprietary CMS. In every case, the CMS are user-friendly, and you need not have any programming expertise. Course Development: You may translate your own course to the Web during your training period, using the CMS template and other suggested resources offered at the university. Sometimes, the course content will already have been developed (e.g., by a team of content experts, curriculum designers, and authorities in Web design) and your job is to customize the content. Dr. Nicholas Allen, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at University of Maryland University College (UMUC) speaks for many when he states: “We make no distinction in quality between on-line and face-to-face instruction. However, teaching on-line does demand rethinking the pedagogy. This is an asynchronous environment, and the course delivery system is different. It’s our job to give our on-line faculty the tools they need so that they can build community with their students and develop their own on-line persona.” At UMUC, the training program lasts five weeks and has a strong mentoring component. Students and faculty alike also receive wraparound 24/7 technical assistance. Here’s how it played out for two adjunct faculty: Kevin Adams, even with two Master’s degrees and a 25-year career in the U.S. Navy as Lieutenant Commander, was apprehensive about on-line teaching. During training, he took care with course design, building in conferences, dialogue, library work, and real-life case studies. Now, a seasoned on-line instructor at UMUC and Virginia Wesleyan University, when classes begin, he allows time early in the semester to post student biographies and create heterogeneous student work groups. He cautions, “Training is labor intensive, with a steep learning curve. But it works.” And he adds, “You know, I used to say, about my face-to-face teaching, ‘No one sleeps in my classroom!’ I wasn’t sure I could duplicate that on-line. But I can. It feels good to still be able to say that!” In Dr. Kathleen Sander’s UMUC Women’s History class, she used three textbooks as the core curriculum, posted two lectures and three class announcements weekly, held individual conferences, and devised questions for class discussion. “The dialogue, back and forth, all semester long, really draws the students closer. Sometimes, a student will look back at something they posted earlier in the semester, and they’ll say, ‘Now that I see the evolution of women’s activism after World War I, I’ve changed my mind about something I said and I want to talk about it.’ That semester, we had a female student-soldier in Iraq in our class. You can imagine the perspective that gave us!” It’s fair to say, and is implicit in the stories sketched here, that instructors appreciate the pedagogical differences between face-to-face and on-line teaching, and make adjustments. In a recent interview, Dr. Judith V. Boettcher, consultant in faculty uses of technology and lead author of Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web, pointed up the crucial difference: “While students need to do more independent reading, the instructor’s task is to set up good discussion questions … that is, less ‘yes/no’ and ‘right/wrong’ questions , and more questions that require reflection and analysis and invite peer-to-peer dialogue. Can you sense how the on-line role of the teacher shifts? There’s less ‘telling,’ and much more listening, clarifying, and shaping required.” Yes, on-line teaching may put us outside our comfort zone, but the advantages--both professional as well as personal--far outweigh any disadvantages.