Michigan Leading the Way?
This week Michigan's governor signed a new law that requires all students to take a least one "online learning course" or participate in an "online learning experience" in order to graduate. While Michigan's Board of Education struggles to define these experiences, the rest of us need to begin to ask ourselves what new teacher training experiences may be required in the future. Will new teachers need a course in pedagogy for online instruction? Will they be required to prove competency in teaching online? If the K-12 students get their online experience from a local college, will those professors be required (as are certified teachers) to take human development and/or education courses?
As I struggle to write our own distance learning policies and procedures, which will include a requirement of online professors to prove they meet certain competencies in the online environment, I face a great deal of opposition. Instructors believe that faculty needs to take responsibility for writing and policing competencies. Our accrediting body, however, requires one person be responsible for the ensuring the quality of our distance learning programs, and that one person is me. If I do not set policy, if I am not allowed to approve courses and instructors, how can I quarantee quality. It is my job to answer to the state.
College professors have never been required to take courses in pedagogy before--at least professors who taught anything other than education courses. They wonder why it is necessary now. They see this as an intrusion by administration. I guess I can understand why they would think so, but we all sit in classrooms from the time we are 4 or 5 years old. We are immersed in that learning environment, and we learn something from it, but the online environment is new and many of our professors are not comfortable with communicating via this new technology, let alone teach. The online environment requires skills that few of the professors teaching today, picked up from their professors.
The face of education is changing rapidly. As we move more and more to an online delivery system, courses will need to be developed and assessed by curriculum and instruction experts--whether that be training required of teaching professors, or course designers. The age of "the sage on the stage" is rapidly becoming ancient history, and we are finding ourselves moving into a new era.
As I struggle to write our own distance learning policies and procedures, which will include a requirement of online professors to prove they meet certain competencies in the online environment, I face a great deal of opposition. Instructors believe that faculty needs to take responsibility for writing and policing competencies. Our accrediting body, however, requires one person be responsible for the ensuring the quality of our distance learning programs, and that one person is me. If I do not set policy, if I am not allowed to approve courses and instructors, how can I quarantee quality. It is my job to answer to the state.
College professors have never been required to take courses in pedagogy before--at least professors who taught anything other than education courses. They wonder why it is necessary now. They see this as an intrusion by administration. I guess I can understand why they would think so, but we all sit in classrooms from the time we are 4 or 5 years old. We are immersed in that learning environment, and we learn something from it, but the online environment is new and many of our professors are not comfortable with communicating via this new technology, let alone teach. The online environment requires skills that few of the professors teaching today, picked up from their professors.
The face of education is changing rapidly. As we move more and more to an online delivery system, courses will need to be developed and assessed by curriculum and instruction experts--whether that be training required of teaching professors, or course designers. The age of "the sage on the stage" is rapidly becoming ancient history, and we are finding ourselves moving into a new era.
