Carrianne Hayslett

Quality Control in Online Courses: Using a Social Constructivist Framework

SUMMARY There has recently been increased interest in the quality of online courses. Faculty from the School of Education at Marquette University suggest using social constructivist theories in the design and development of online courses and in the training and pedagogy of online instructors to ensure quality in online courses. Quality can be designed into online courses by focusing on complex tasks, using multiple perspectives, establishing a learning community, encouraging the social negotiation of meaning and providing assistance for learners at various levels. While good design can go a long way to ensure quality in online courses, the quality of the instructor is equally critical. Training instructors to establish a supportive climate, provide constructive feedback, and ask critical and probing questions leads to high quality online instruction.

Student Satisfaction and Performance in an Online Teacher Certification Program

D istance education continues to expand, from a reported 1.6 million students enrolled in distance education courses in 1998 (NCES, 1999) to 3.2 million in 2005 (Sloan Consortium, 2006) . As online education has come to dominate all types of courses taught at a distance, and constitutes a greater proportion of overall enrollment in higher education, researchers have increasingly investigated a host of questions regarding its viability as an alternative to traditional on-campus education. Consistently, this research has found online education equals or surpasses on-campus instruction in terms of student learning, student perceptions, and student satisfaction (Neuhauser, 2002; Thirunanrayanan &Perez-Prado, 2002; Russell, 2001; Arbaugh, 2000), thus supporting its viability and continued development. Online delivery of teacher education courses is well established, with practicing teachers taking courses online for faculty development, graduate degrees, and professional specializations, such as special education and the teaching of reading (Watson, 2006; Qian & Tao, 2005; Glenn & Lozar, 2001 ; Saunders, 2001; Turbill, 2001) . Caywood and Duckett (2003) and Neuhauser (2002) find online delivery effective for teacher education, with opportunities for online in-service programs proliferating. However, teacher education programs have been slower to provide online courses to pre-service teachers and slower still to develop teacher certification programs with coursework delivered entirely at a distance. This is despite online teacher preparation being a major funding area of the Preparing Tomorrows Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant program (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). Zirkle (2002) suggests that this lack of progress may be largely due to concerns about providing: