Assessment: On-line Instructor Training
This week I reviewed the Sloan Consortium Report, Learning on Demand: On Line Education in the United States, 2009. by I.Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman. My immediate reaction was to go back and compare the statistics from The Perfect E-Storm (2004) by Curtis Bonk relating to on-line training for educators.
According to Bonk, most teachers of on-line programs and courses had never received much formal training. When educators, administrators, and course designers were surveyed in 2003 about where typical online instructors in 2010 would be trained to teach on-line, greater than 50% responded that extensive internal training would be provided. 19% of those surveyed predicted no training would be provided.
Fast forward to the fall of 2009 Sloan Consortium Report of on-line education. Chief academic officers at all Unites States institutions of higher education open to the public were surveyed about type of training for faculty teaching on-line. 59% use informal mentoring and 65% use internally run training courses. Some schools use a combination of mentoring and internal training. According to the 2009 survey, 19% of the schools provided no training in the fall of 2009.
So it turns out that those surveyed by Bonk in 2003 were fairly accurate in their predictions about what would happen in 2010. I can not imagine teaching on-line in 2010 without some training and / or mentoring. It might be that the 19% of schools that don't offer the training rely on educators that received formal training and are experienced in teaching on-line.