Jason Rhode

Preparing Faculty to Teach Online: Recommendations for Developing Self-Paced Training

As the popularity of online education increases and institutions seek to grow their online offerings to meet student demand, more faculty need to be trained to teach online. Campus offices such as Faculty Development centers are often tasked with training faculty for teaching online, many of whom my be adjuncts who cannot attend in-person training or commit to a specific timeframe for participation. In this paper, a flexible and customizable self-paced training model for preparing faculty to teach online is described and suggestions shared for institutions seeking to offer self-paced online professional development training opportunities for faculty.

Measuring digital professional development: analytics for the use of web and social media

Purpose – As faculty professional development increasingly occurs online and through social media, it becomes challenging to assess the quality of learning and effectiveness of programs and resources, yet it is important to evaluate such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how one faculty development center experimented with using analytics to answer questions about the use and effectiveness of its web and social media resources. Design/methodology/approach – The case study was based on direct observation of the center’s practice and review of selected data generated by the analytic tools. Findings – Unfortunately, while some analytics are available from a variety of sources, they are often distributed across tools and services. The center developed an analytics strategy to use data from Google Analytics and social media reporting tools to assess the use of online and social professional development resources. Initial results show that the center’s online and social professional developme...

From Frameworks to Practice: Selecting Technology Tools for Instructional Integration

As technology continues to advance, higher education faculty are presented with an overwhelming array of choices for implementing instructional technology tools and the emerging pedagogical practices that they afford. Theoretical frameworks have been established for integrating technology into instruction, but they often fall short of providing pragmatic guidance for faculty seeking to select technology tools for their teaching. In this paper, an overview of prominent frameworks for instructional technology integration is provided along with a set of practical steps that higher education faculty can take to select the best technology tools for their teaching.

Considerations for institutional instructional technology decision-making

Instructional technologies have become mission critical elements of higher education institutional infrastructure. Faculty not only are presented with many choices when selecting instructional technologies for their individual courses, but are also sought to give input into institutional decisions regarding instructional technology selection, adoption, implementation, and retention. In this paper, an overview of current emerging instructional technologies on the horizon is provided along with a set of practical considerations and recommendations for higher education faculty who have opportunity to guide the instructional technology decision making process at their institution.

Building a Sustainable Quality MattersTM Community of Practice Through Social Network Analysis

ABSTRACT The growth of distance education has necessitated strong evidence of quality for institutions of higher education, and numerous standards and principles of quality have been developed, such as Quality Matters™ (Quality Matters). These systems are often considered only at the course level to guide design and improve student outcomes, but they can also help to pull the institution together and galvanize advancement in online development. Adopting online quality standards can be a complex process that requires changes to institutional culture. This article describes how the use of the Community of Practice (CoP) framework engaged a campus-wide network of individuals in adoption of the Quality Matters training, rubric, and review process to advance distance education support and online course development. Using Social Network Analysis, researchers were able to identify the strengths and weakness of the CoP during the early adoption phase of Quality Matters to quantitatively measure the connections among members of the community. Based on a survey administered to every participant who attended the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric™ (APPQMR) workshop, researchers analyzed connections across the Quality Matters™ (Quality Matters) Community of Practice (CoP). This analysis indicated strong cohesion of the network based on work related to distance education but low density for connections based on Quality Matters. Furthermore, it demonstrated that significant connections existed between members prior to the adoption of Quality Matters and identified key influencers within the network. The results also indicated that the Quality Matters leadership team at the institution is highly central to the Quality Matters CoP network. The results can be used to identify strategies to further adoption of Quality Matters at the institution by strengthening the CoP.