Learning and Leading - February 2009

How to Become an Online Educator

initially, most students flock to online learning programs because of the flexible schedules. But once they try a class or two, many also find that the online learning environment provides deeper interactions with peers and teachers than face-to-face classes.

that may be why online student enrollment grew 19.7% annually between 2002 and 2007, whereas the total higher education student enrollment grew only 1.6% during that period, according to a sloan consortium national survey ( www.sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/ staying_the_course.pdf).

this growth and demand among students for online instruction is drawing educators to the profession of teaching online, as well. here are some tips for becoming an online educator:

Be a student first. Enroll in an online class to experience online learning firsthand. this will help you determine if you would enjoy being an online teacher and prepare you to better relate to your future students.

Leverage your professional experience. Although educational institutions have various requirements for academic credentials, they’re looking for adjunct faculty who can bring real-world experience into the virtual classroom. the combination of a master’s degree and tenure in a profession is highly regarded for an online teaching professional.

Create a curriculum vita (CV). resumes don’t work well in academia. A Google search will turn up several examples of cVs, including online courses to help you develop your own.

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Network. participate in online teaching discussion forums to find out who is hiring. one popular choice is Yahoo’s onlineteachingJobs group (http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/online_Adjuncts).

—Chad McAllister, PhD, is an online educator, product development consultant, and instructor for UC Irvine Extension. He is one of the original developers of the university’s first online teaching certificate program, The Business of Teaching Online.

The discussion board is the heart of your course’s online learning community.

K– 12 Classroom, she could have simply asked students to regurgitate an assigned article’s main points. Instead, she phrased the question like this: “After reading article 1, what concepts did you learn that will help you when incorporating digital photography into your teaching situation? Explain.”

Once the dialogue is established, don’t be afraid to use the discussion board to motivate the class. Teachable moments often occur in the midst of an online discussion, so be prepared to seize the agenda to take advantage of the situation, just as you would in a regular classroom.

The discussion board is generally a graded portion of the class, so make sure you provide a detailed scoring rubric so students have some sense of their obligations and realize that written responses should consist of complete thoughts. (See “Evaluation Rubric for Participation” on page 21.)

Chat sessions, in contrast, generally have less stringent response criteria but seldom yield the same quality of results. Chats are best for collaboration within work groups rather than for whole-class discussions, as coordinating 20 students’ login times and making sense of a chat that size would be difficult. If your CMS allows chat sessions to be archived, you can review them later.