I confess to disappointment in my recent reading of research on online teaching.
There are many articles now expounding the benefits of faculty being assisted (whether they like it or not) by instructional designers. Many of these are written by people getting degrees in instructional design or PhDs in vague areas of Education. In addition, theses like this one (1) claim that faculty who design their own courses cannot articulate design concepts (or “instructional development processes”), and therefore need serious help. Another study claims that competencies should be based on the many roles online instructors must undertake: developer/designer, educational expert, evaluator, facilitator, scientist of their discipline, lifelong learner, organiser/manager, social director, technologist. (2) It’s a wonder anyone wants to teach online at all with a job description like that.
Of course, the fact that such “competencies” have been invented along with the whole field of online instructional design, may be part of the issue. And few acknowledge that the field itself contains serious conflicts of ideas and may be based on techno-utopianism. (3)
One paper (4) does indicate that some of the problems we see in asynchronous online education may be the result of students who do not have the skills to succeed in classes coming to online classes in increasing numbers. But in general, the blame for any problems in online classes falls on the instructors, through the argument that they lack proper training.
Faculty teach. Some cannot articulate educational principles as taught in schools of Education, because they are experts in their field rather than Education. Can quality online classes be developed by people who do not have degrees in education, instructional design, or educational technology? Yes, indeed – I have seen many. The major requirements seem to be passion for ones discipline, passion for the online learning space, and a willingness to learn new skills to create the desired learning experiences for students.
But the pattern in the literature shows a desire to “professionalize” online teaching, via
1. the development of a body of “research” (in this case primarily through the proliferation of doctoral theses based on small sample sizes),
2. the advancement of fields originally focused on supporting educators, but now claiming to be leading educational reform,
3. the creation of “best practices” and “competencies” (designed to ferret out “worse practices” and create standardization), and
4. the promotion of the idea that current online faculty are desperately in need of assistance.
Cui bono? Well, those earning degrees in instructional design and educational technology, particularly those who want jobs in educational administration. For-profit online universities also benefit because they can more easily justify standardized courses taught by poorly-paid staff. So do public and private universities expanding their Ed D programs, online and on-site, to bring in those grad school dollars. The proliferation of journals and associations benefits publishers (many of them closed presses). And those who already have jobs in educational administration have more ammunition to reduce the influence of independent faculty, and limit creativity in the name of accountability.
(1) Raul Mendez, Instructional Development Skills and Competencies for Post-Secondary Faculty-Designers Developing Online Courses (Capella PhD, October 2014)
(2) Diogo Casanova, Antonio Moreira & Nilza Costa, Key competencies to become an e-Learning successful instructor (Santiago Univ, Portugal, n.d.)
(3) Julian Thornton, “We will fix the deficit”: deficit theories in the literature of educational technology adoption (asccilite2014, New Zealand)
(4)Jason Stulo, Asynchronous Distance Education: The Challenge of Teaching Across Time and Space (M Sc, University of Wisconsin-Stout, March 2012)
Lisa, thoughtful post. I have to first confess to pre-dating the field of online instructional design…though I have been teaching online for 20 years. We have seen a lot of changes (and improvements) in those 20 years as to both affordances of the web and thoughtful pedagogy for its use. I personally think that the growth of the field and the scrutiny that comes with it has been mostly positive. One could suggest that face-to-face faculty have as many challenges as online faculty, and that application of the learning sciences would benefit both. Are we moving to a point where the differentiation between “online” faculty and “on campus” faculty is becoming artificial as the web becomes increasingly a part of instruction?
You ask good questions … but I would not want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Hi Britt! Thanks for coming by.
I think there’s a huge difference between using instructional design and ed tech to inform practice, and having these fields become the judge, jury and executioner of online teaching. ID in the service of online pedagogy can be enormously useful, and solve a lot of problems. But the creation of evaluative “best practices” is hurting creativity.
On-campus classes have always had issues, of course, and many of these overlap. I’d say about 80% of all teaching issues occur in both online and on-site classes. But the 20% is so much easier to focus on because the data is easier to gather. This alone has caused some of the problems I comment on here.