Continuing with my interest in online teaching/learning and community colleges I found an article entitled Online Education in Community Colleges: Conversations With the Field by Robert Threlkeld, Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, 2006 at http://www.league.org/publication/whitepapers/1006.pdf My community college has an enrollment of over 5000 students with approximately 200 full-time faculty and of course a tremendous amount of adjunct faculty as well. Currently we offer about 5% of our offered courses as either online or hybrid courses. My department, the nursing department, has but one, and it is a hybrid module in pharmacology. From an earlier section that peaked my interest, I'm reviewing the statistics to see which students are performing better in drug calculations and pharmacology - those that took a hybrid class or those who were in a f2f class. I will have more info on this by the end of this semester.
Anyway the article discusses trends in community college towards online courses. What is interesting are the factors that influence online education in these colleges. Of course, finances and resources are an important factor, but the article mentions other obstacles such as the institutional leadeership, policies and procedures, faculty culture and support of course creation.
At my institution, it starts with faculty having an interest and an idea. Once that instructor has created the objectives and course content, it must be presented and accepted by the curriculum committee. There is minimal instuctional design support and even more minimal technological support. However our leadership is supportive of faculty creativity. There is also contractual guidelines for renumeration for creating course, workload, and the number of students per course. I'm getting excited to put units of my fundamentals of nursing curriculum online. After we are finished with this program - I'm hoping to know how to do it.
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Interesting post Beryl. It sounds like the faculty support at your institution leaves something to be desired. I understand the financial issues surrounding adding Instructional and Technical Support. The argument must be made that it is a cruial need that effects the bottom line.
We have really stepped up our focus at WKU in the Instructional Design and Technical Support areas. Our experience is that if we can help our faculty get started off with a well designed course and then assist with technology training and student support the instructor has a more enjoyable teaching experience and that translates to a meaningful experience for the students. It also leads to more interest and excitement from the faculty to develop more courses and online programs. Interesting how course design, instruction, support, and satisfaction are all intrigally linked together in the online world.
Beryl,
As a "past" nurse, your entries always interest me. I have not doubts that after this course, you will be writing curriculum and course for online instruction. It is a positive aspect that you now know the rigorous process of having a course accepted at your institution. The motivation behind your ideals for a course and content of your courses will be exceptional. Once a course is completed, think of the sense of accomplishment and then the excitement of teaching or facilitating your own online course.
Patty
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