Standards Based Practices of Online Teacher Professional Development

[摘要] STANDARDS BASED PRACTICES OF ONLINE TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTSugandha VermaUniversity of Pittsburgh, 2013Online teaching and learning is evolving with technology as a new area of research; it is less than a quarter century old, and new terminology is constantly being added. Online teaching and learning is exponentially growing globally, especially in higher education. There is a strong need for research in all areas of online teaching and learning to deeply understand and connect ideas from the existing literature to practice.The purpose of this study was to consider my own practices of asynchronous online teaching and align them with established standards to learn appropriate standards based practices of teacher professional development (PD) to mentor new online teachers. It is important to instill good practices in future online instructors to set the trend and tradition of standards based practices. The research, both literature and survey based, also aids in filling some gaps related to good practices of teaching online.The standards for online teaching, courses, programs, and institutions were created by the International North American Council of Online Learning (iNACOL) in 2007, last updated in 2011. Constant updating of standards is needed to keep up with technological growth.As a part of the methodology, I have integrated the iNACOL standards of online teaching with the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) standards for PD to establish criteria as a basis for survey items. Participants of an online course were surveyed with an online surveysystem. The data were gathered and analyzed for standards based practices, cross tabulation of items of interest, and emerging themes from open-ended (OE) items.Strengths and weaknesses of standards based practices are discussed. The themes from the OE items elucidated from the data were interaction, independent and self-disciplined learning, and enjoyment of online learning. The research concluded that online learning involves independent learning, which takes place in a discussion based socio-constructive online environment. This research will ideally help in establishing good practices of teaching and mentoring the first generation of online instructors, who will in turn set the trend and traditions for the future.

[发布机构] the University of Pittsburgh