Developing Faculty Learning Communities to Facilitate Migration of Courses from Classroom to Web

Ray Guydosh      ray.guydosh@plattsburgh.edu
School of Business & Economics SUNY - Plattsburgh 

Mark Gultek      mark.gultek@plattsburgh.edu
Hotel, Restaurant, Tourism Management SUNY - Plattsburgh 

John Parmelee      john.parmelee@plattsburgh.edu
Hotel, Restaurant, Tourism Management SUNY - Plattsburgh

Karen Volkman      karen.volkman@plattsburgh.edu
Division of Library and Information Sciences SUNY - Plattsburgh

CIT 2003,  May 2003,  Potsdam NY

The panel discusses how faculty learning communities can facilitate the effective migration of courses from traditional to online environments.

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Click Here For Guydosh Abstract

 Faculty often feel pressured to integrate technology into their campus teaching.  In response, many faculty simply scan in or convert syllabi, assignments, and notes from traditional classes directly into web format for course management systems.  This kind of conversion is based on a misconception that all one need do to move a face-to-face course to a course management system environment is to mount existing materials online. Those faculty with greater experience know that migration of a course requires considerable rethinking of objectives, methods, and course design.

 The four panelists teach in the SUNY Learning Network (SLN) asynchronous course management system. From their experiences, the panel recommends creating informal learning community work groups to guide the process of migrating courses from the traditional classroom to a web-based course management environment.  The collaboration entailed in a learning community provides migration support for first time faculty considering an online environment and to more experienced online professors looking for pedagogical problem solving ideas.  This type of collaboration has the advantage that it need not be discipline specific, since issues such as online behavior and participation, are common to all instructors.  

 The first panelist, who is designing his first online course, considers how preconceptions of online teaching can affect initial course design.  Common misconceptions such as the facile notion of simply converting syllabi and assignments will be outlined.

 A second panelist discusses how issues discovered by first experiencing an online course as a student facilitated the design of her own online course.  During the course she observed issues problematic to online instruction such as: course flow, detail in assignment description, and student interaction, and could give her instructor feedback on student perceptions.

  A third panelist reflects on pragmatic student behavioral issues (such as adding a course late, "class absenteeism", lack of class participation, or inappropriate class behavior) and considers how to manage them in the online environment.  These issues manifest themselves very differently in the online environment and collaboration between experienced faculty and new online faculty is crucial for first-time course success.

 A final panelist will discuss the advantages of team teaching, pairing new faculty with more experienced faculty in teaching an online course.  New faculty bring innovative ideas to the course, yet may be hindered by their lack of familiarity with online pedagogy and class behavior.  Collaboration benefits both members of the teaching team.

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