I had a call yesterday from a fellow faculty development professional who was concerned about a new online program being developed at her institution. The program is intended to provide training for an underserved population (great), was conceived of in the past couple of weeks (fine), and will start in about a month (WHAT?). The infrastructure for providing the training is not in place, the courses have not been developed, and the instructors have no training whatsoever in distance learning.
This is a recipe for disaster. While it may be possible to develop a new face-to-face course in a short amount of time, that development is based on experience regarding what works in the classroom. Teaching at a distance is different. It requires planning, planning, and more planning. That is, making certain the infrastructure is in place, faculty understand best practices for teaching online, and a support system is in place for both faculty and students. Can it all be done in a month's time? I doubt it. Will they do it anyway? Yep.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I'm not sure how I would feel as a guinea pig student in this course...
ReplyDeleteO wow, it would be interesting to hear feedback from the Instructor after the first round of classes. One month is a short short time(yikes)
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks since the original post, and I've heard nothing more about the project. Hopefully that means they've reconsidered.
ReplyDelete>>sac
I dont know much about distance learning, but that sure doesnt seem like much time to plan! Just this morning I was in someone's office who was having trouble negotiating a location with proper technology- just those details could take 2 weeks, much less actually planning the course!
ReplyDelete