The annual report of the Sloan Consortium found that during the fall of 2008, over 4.5 million U.S. students at degree-granting institutions were taking at least one course with most of its content delivered online (Allen & Seaman, 2010), an 18% increase over the previous year, and double the number just three years earlier. The research about the effectiveness of online programs vis-à-vis brick and mortar programs is inconclusive (Nora & Snyder, 2008; Russell, 2004), with some studies finding greater gains among students in online programs and others finding no difference. These studies often treat instruction as a constant, when anecdotal experience suggests that students experience tremendous variation in the quality of online instructors, as do students in traditional programs. Just as few faculty receive formal instruction in teaching once they assume a higher education post, few online faculty receive instruction in how to teach online. As technology advances, the online classroom is indeed becoming much like the traditional classroom with its ability to deliver synchronous, interactive, discussion-based classes. However, teaching in an online environment requires adaptations, as we learned from the subject of our presentation, a case study of 40 faculty who taught the same curriculum on line and in a brick and mortar program beginning Fall, 2009. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from interviews of 40 faculty about their transition from the traditional classroom to using synchronous group video discussions. The data suggest that while the live format resembles a traditional classroom, the instructional strategies needed to vary in ways not anticipated by the research on either teaching in classrooms or online. Themes focusing on classroom environment (and the monitoring of, effectively, one "classroom" for each student), orientation to time, one's persona on camera, and student engagement will be addressed. The research about preparing faculty to teach online has addressed topics such as faculty unfamiliarity with technology (Shepherd, Alpert & Koeller, 2008), adaptation to the lack of face-to-face interaction with students (Cunningham, 1996), and the isolation of the online environment (Blair, 2002). When research looks at the experience of teaching online, it struggles to keep pace with the changing nature of online instruction. The most current research (Keebler, 2009; Haughton & Romero, 2009) explores instruction using synchronous chat. Recently, online learning management systems (LMS) have advanced to include synchronous, face-to-face discussion and synchronous small group breakout sessions, like brick-and-mortar classrooms. Faculty can work live with an entire class, seeing their faces and expressions, and engaging them in discussions. Under these conditions, the students can also see each other and the faculty member, as well as view the PowerPoint or white board materials, engage in live text-based chat with other students or the professor, and view and comment on video together. The instructor can also break the class into small groups, and move from group to group to observe or interact. On the surface, these instructional practices resemble those in the brick and mortar classroom; however the online context is different from the traditional classroom. At a minimum, the faculty member is granting each student admission into the "classroom," monitoring the chat "pod," facilitating a discussion and monitoring individual student engagement. No research yet addresses these new capabilities of online instruction (synchronous video feed); if the instruction seems to resemble that of the face-to-face classroom, can the experience of teaching be much different? To what extent are the earlier noted limitations of online teaching (i.e., isolation, lack of engagement and community with students) ameliorated by this new capability? Exploring the transition for faculty from the traditional classroom to teaching using this new LMS is the focus of this presentation. This paper presents the findings about learning to teach online from interviews with full and part time faculty teaching online in a school of education at a large research university. Sixty faculty who teach in a new online degree program through a Learning Management System (LMS) that uses state-of-the-art synchronous and asynchronous instructional modalities were invited to participate in 30 minute interviews about their experience teaching online. The findings provide the basis for recommendations for those interested in preparing faculty to teach online, including how faculty have had to change the way they structure classes, their orientation to time, the way they think about classroom climate and how they build community within their courses. Participants in this session will (a) learn about the next wave of online instructional possibilities by seeing the studied LMS demonstrated (to provide a context for the study); (b) learn about the outcomes of the study, and discuss the contributions and limitations of the work; (c) understand the ways in which teaching online using synchronous live video differs, from an instructional perspective, from teaching in a traditional classroom; and (d) imagine ways we might prepare future teachers to work with these advances in online capability. Resources: Allen, I.E. & Seaman, J. (2010). Learning on demand: Online education in the United States 2009. Babson Survey Research Group and the Sloan Consortium. Blair, J. (2002). The virtual teaching life. Education Week, 21(35), 1-6. Cunningham, D. (1996). From distance mode to the classroom. Primary Educator 2(6), 1-4. Haughton, N., & Romero, L. (2009). The Online Educator: Instructional Strategies for Effective Practice. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 5(3), 570-576. Keebler, D. (2009). Online Teaching strategy: A position paper. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 5(3), 546-549. Nora, A. & Snyder, B.P. (2008). Technology and Higher Education: The Impact of E- Learning Approaches on Student Academic Achievement, Perceptions and Persistence. Journal of College Student Retention, 10(1), 3-19. Russell, T.L., (2001). The No Significant Difference Phenomenon. IDECC, 5th. Edition. Shepherd, C., Alpert, M., and Koeller, M. (2008). Increasing the efficacy of educators teaching online. International Journal of Social Sciences, 2(3), 173 - 179.
