Dorette Sugg Welk, PhD, RN
Faculty Online, University of Phoenix , Phoenix , Arizona
and Faculty Emeritus, Bloomsburg University , Bloomsburg , PA
Faculty members require training when they first learn how to teach in a specific online format. Such training introduces them to the technical features that will allow an exchange of information, discussions, and course materials and to how to use these features to advance student learning. Since online education can be defined and approached in numerous ways, several terms require definition to set the context for this paper.
«Online» education can mean asynchronous or no real-time interactions, synchronous or live simultaneous interactions, or a combination. Messages that students post independently at any hour of the day or night in response to discussion questions or topics are asynchronous; posts done in a Chat-Room in real-time with class members or the class as a cohort are synchronous. While typically used in live classroom situations, the term «interaction» can apply to both types of online formats because the response author writes with an intended reader in mind (faculty and classmates) where words are also meant to engage the reader in thinking and return response activities.
The term «faculty facilitator» denotes a faculty role for promoting learning in a student-centered environment; the faculty facilitator is responsible for sufficient course design and structure to help the student meet the objectives but there is less of a dominant teacher emphasis. A faculty facilitator is expected to address each student’s learning needs and level of knowledge, attitudes, or skills consistent with the course objectives and promote learning through typed responses. A faculty facilitator might be viewed more as a «guide on the side» than as a «sage on the stage» (King, 1993). The administrator at the institution delivering the online education hires trainers with background and experience in the system to train such faculty facilitators in its use. The trainer is in essence the first leg of a relay of information from the trainer to the facilitator to the students that facilitator will eventually teach. In this paper, the trainer is presented only as training a group of prospective faculty facilitators in the asynchronous type of online learning. (leer más…)
Fuente: [westga.edu]
tags: e-learning
, aprendizaje, web2.0, zdp, web 2.0
era-ser, haikus 