I'm not sure where this comment will show up on the blog, but I'm responding to the question at the end.

• Online learning will not decrease the need for faculty any more than the printing press did. It just changes our role -- forcing us (in my view, this means freeing us) to focus more on providing the individualized feedback students need to cultivate their intellectual skills and actively construct knowledge of the course material (so that it has enduring impact on their outlook), rather than passively absorbing "knowledge nuggets" to spit back on a test and forget later.
• But that sidesteps the more pressing question, which is whether higher education administrators (and the public at large) will understand this need. Those who view education as simply dumping content knowledge into empty vessels will continue to press for automated content delivery, and faculty are not needed for that. But that process -- which is, after all, what Gutenberg first "atomated" with the printed book -- should not be confused with education.

Tentative results from study

This blog has two purposes. First, I promised everyone (who was interested) to share my tentative results from my interviews with faculty who were teaching online and second, this is your opportunity to add to or comment on those results.





If you decide to post, you can choose a name that obscures your identity or not, as you so please. I've set the privacy settings so that no one but us can see or contribute to the blog (that is, if I've done everything correctly). I'm excited about trying this blogging as a way to seek your final input into the study. Here are my results:





How do experienced online instructors improve student learning productivity? Your examples can be chacterized into seven categories:





1. Increasing student access to content (be it websites, powerpoints, or other)


2. Increasing student access to faculty


3. Increasing student access to other students


4. Changing faculty roles


5. Emphasizing student effort (by experiential learning, group work, providing feedback, teaching students how to learn)


6. Providing real word experience, examples, applications


7. Managing student time, allowing students to learn at the best time for them, dealing with problems arising out of different concepts of work time (several of you mentioned how students expect 24x7 attention)





What are faculty motivations for teaching online?





Everyone mentioned a personal reason and eight provided professional reasons (so eight provided BOTH personal and professional reasons.





Does online learning influence faculty productivity?





For teaching productivity, the answer was mixed. Certainly, five faculty mentioned how much more time it took to develop an online course, but three others focused on how online courses freed up time for other activities. Also, some faculty chose to spend a lot of time online, and others designed the course and oversaw its operation on a more as-needed basis. Four of you emphasized the role of institutional -- not personal -- choices in increasing their teaching workload due to lots of enrollments, changes in teaching load, a policy to teach online within load or out of load.





For research productivity, three faculty credited the move to online with freeing up time for research and two other faculty with giving them a new focus to their research. Three faculty felt that their research productivity had declined, but these were either new faculty or senior faculty with obligations as department chair or program coordinator. In other words, the impact on research productivity in particular seems to be influenced by the stage of the facultyperson's career.





Unfortunately, I could go into lots of wonderful examples, but need to keep this short because you are all busy people. If you'd like to add something to this tentative set of findings, I'd welcome your input.





You might want to comment on this question from a colleague: Do you think that online learning will mean that faculty will be needed less?





Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed and to be a part of this study! Katrina