Abstract:
Closed campuses, working remotely, and physical distancing have changed the way we work, teach, learn, shop, attend conferences, and interact with family and friends. But the Covid-19 pandemic has not changed what we know about creating high-end online education. Two decades of research has shown that online education often fails to fulfill its promise, and the emergency shift to remote instruction has, for many, justified their distrust and dislike of online learning. Low interactivity remains a widely recognized short-coming of current online offerings. Low interactivity results, in part, from many faculty not feeling comfortable being themselves online. The long-advocated for era of authentic assessments is needed now more than ever. Finally, greater support is needed for both underrepresented students and for faculty to move beyond basic online instruction to create a strong continuum of care between the teaching and learning environment and the student support infrastructure. For those who have been long-term champions of online education, it has never been more important to confront the three biggest challenges that continue to haunt online education – interactivity, authenticity, and support. Only by confronting these challenges squarely can instructors, educational developers, and their institutions take huge steps towards better online instruction in the midst of a pandemic and make widespread, high-quality online education permanently part of the “new normal.”
Abstract
Online learning is growing at a rapid rate across the United States (Durrington, Berryhill & Swafford, 2006; Tabatabaei, Schrottner, & Reichgelt, 2006). However, course evaluation systems have not kept up with these changes and are often inadequate for evaluating the unique expectations and demands faced by online instructors. Typically, online instructors are evaluated using instruments designed for face-to-face classroom instruction (Mandernach, Donnelli, Dailey, Schulte, (2005). As a result, important indicators of effective teaching in an online format are not evaluated by students. Key competencies for online instruction can include instructor response rate and availability, frequency and quality of instructor presence, community building, assessment, and overall management of the course (Luck, 2001; Firch & Montambeau, 2000). Evaluation specific to online instructors is beneficial in informing online instructors of how their specific behaviors are viewed by students, providing data to administrators for faculty evaluation purposes (Tobin, 2004), and useful for planning and providing professional development opportunities (Mandernach, Donnelli, Dailey, Schulte, (2005).
This study describes the comparison of two faculty evaluations. The traditional evaluation required by the university in all classes regardless of the type of delivery (face-to-face, hybrid, online) is compared to an evaluation (Online Instructor Evaluation) designed specifically to evaluate online teaching competencies. Subjects identified the Online Instructor Evaluation as providing the most useful and relevant feedback for evaluating online instructors.