Three Things that Online Instructors Need for Training

Instructors wishing to design and deliver web-based courses require certain skills which are different than skills needed for a traditional face-to-face course. By being aware of this, there are three important things that are overlooked by administrators creating training programs for prospective online instructors. Knowing the difference between traditional and nontraditional learners, time required to develop a course and the idea of providing prospective instructors training via the web.

Knowing the difference between traditional and nontraditional learners
Distance learning students are considered nontraditional students and approach learning differently than traditional students. The traditional student rely on an instructor led classroom (teacher to student), whereas nontraditional student learning is dialog based verses lecture based. Nontraditional learners need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it. This need suggests that the responsibility for learning be transferred from facilitator to learner (Andrological and Pedagogical Training Differences for Online Instructors, Gibbons & Wentworth, 2001(http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall43/gibbons_wentworth43.html)). The best way to create a productive dialog in your course is to use the Discussion Tool. A good model for productive discussions is to post a open ended question each week that relates to the module content that evokes a discussion that feeds in the experience of the nontraditional learners. Knowing the difference between a nontraditional learner and a traditional learning is the recipe for success in delivering a web-based course.

Time required to develop a course
It’s important to realize that the development of a web-based course requires considerable development time. Time is also required to integrate different teaching and learning styles, particularly collaborative, learner centered learning styles such as discussions that make the best use of web-based instructional technology. (Learn Online Staff: Grant MacEwan Collage (http://stats.macewan.ca/learn/staff/lit_comp.cfm)). Understanding what tools are available and how to effectively deploy these tools are essential skills required before undertaking a redesign from a traditional face-to-face to a web-based course. Before the content is revised and loaded into the course, the web-based instructor should have developed a syllabus which is reviewed by an experience web-based instructor or a mentor. After the prospective instructor has learned the tools, developed a syllabus and revised the content then the course can be constructed. All these phases in the development of a web-based course takes a considerable amount of time to accomplish.

Providing web-based training for prospective instructors
Training conducted online allows new facilitators to learn experientially under the same conditions as their future students (Andrological and Pedagogical Training Differences for Online Instructors, Gibbons & Wentworth, 2001(http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall43/gibbons_wentworth43.html)). This model of delivering web-based training to prospective web-based instructors is a win - win situation for educational institutions. Prospective instructors participate in a web-based course by accessing the content in the same manner as their students will access their content. Good design principles and ideas are picked up and later used by the prospective instructor. Also, the instructor experiences from a student standpoint the issues of working with the technology, navigating content and meeting deadlines. Another reason that institutions might consider this approach to training is that it reaches faculty that might not otherwise be able to attend the training due to scheduling conflicts.

Understanding these three factors and incorporating them into the educational institution’s training program will provide distance learning instructors with the skills needed to become effective online educators.