Engaging the Online Learner
RM Conrad & JA Donaldson
John Wiley & Sons, 2004
Instructor Competencies: Standards for Face-to-Face, Online, and Blended Settings
JD Klein, JM Spector, B Grabowski, L de la Teja
Information Age Publishing, CT, 2004.
These are two titles I use in my workshop on Instructor Competencies. Engaging the Online Learner is loaded with great examples of online activities instructors can include in their courses. One of the authors is a nurse educator, so many of the examples provided are appropriate for academic medical centers like Jefferson.
Part one briefly summarizes Constructivist learning principles, the dynamics of forming instructional groups and using rubrics to measure successful learning. The authors have done a great job in distilling these topics down to roughly thirty pages and providing references for those new to the topic or interested in learning more.
Part two provides a large number of examples online instructors can use to meet different learning objectives. Each of the seven chapters in part two provides a summary of the objective (such as reflection), provides a table that helps instructors evaluate how successful a particular activity is in meeting that objective, and includes a few examples of real activities the authors or their colleagues have used.
It is rare to find a book that is an interesting short read suitable for those new to teaching online and can also give new ideas to experienced online faculty. Engaging the Online Learner is one I can recommend for anyone teaching in either a fully online course or a blended course environment.
Instructor Competencies: Standards for Face-to-Face, Online, and Blended Setting is useful for teachers in any setting as well as those who hire or evaluate teaching performance. Several chapters in this book can be skipped by most--unless you're interested in why there is a need for this type of book and what process they used to identify the 18 competencies. My guess is that, like me, you're more interested in what they decided were competencies and learning how to evaluate performance of those.
In chapter three the 18 competencies are grouped into five general categories:
- Professional Foundations (including communication skills, topic knowledge, ethical & legal standards and credibility)
- Planning and Preparation
- Instructional Methods and Strategies
- Assessment and Evaluation
- Management
Chapter four then provides a detailed description of each competency and a rubric for evaluating someone's performance of the competency. The rubric includes very specific performance-based objectives that can be used to evaluate an instructor. Having a set of competencies like this is a good thing despite what some instructors might initially think.
First, those hiring new instructors can look for these skills in candidates applying for teaching positions. If these competencies are not documented in the application or portfolio, then the candidate should be asked about them. For instructors, this list serves as a rubric for self-evaluation and improvement. It will help with peer evaluation by providing a checklist of competencies and clear descriptions of measurable performance standards. The competencies also give department chairs and managers clear metrics for performance evaluation of instructors, rather than trying to guess what skills current instructors possess based on unknown criteria.
Engaging the Online Learner is available from the Scott Memorial Library and the Jefferson Bookstore. Instructor Competencies is available for order by the Jefferson Bookstore.
Related Links:
