From Online Learning Update , I found this article entitled “How Distance Learning Changes Faculty .” It’s a quick read. Based on the experiences of 6 faculty teaching online MBA courses, the author talks about ….
The author talks about how their teaching, skills, attitudes, scholarship and service changed. They found their face-to-face courses benefited from their increased skills with instructional technologies. Several of the faculty had strong attitude changes. To quote, one “realized that we need not have synchronicity in distance and time to be effective teachers.” One had perceived distance learning as “someone sits at the terminal answering multiple-choice questions, going from module to module.” The faculty enjoyed the flexibility of the schedule.
Concerns raised included the tenure and promotion issue — eteam caught that one too. It was also interesting that 4 of the 6 still preferred face-to-face because the student reactions and immediate gratification. This seems pretty typical to me. But there are clearly different kinds of faculty coming up that prefer the online mode and the benefits it has for personal flexibility.
Several of the references cited are the same ones the eteam used. It’s always nice to see those repeated.
Leave a Reply