We have developed a system of routine and ongoing training for the faculty, staff and students at our institution.
The faculty complete a five-week training session for online course delivery before they receive any classroom assignments. They learn to set up their online classroom, conduct live sessions through the Avacast system, and manage their student body including the gradebook, discussion forum, attendance and student communications. The training is conducted by the manager of learning resources.
The staff members of the Registrar office and the Student Services staff learn how to monitor student activity, grades and student conduct. They receive on-the -job training from peer mentors.
The students are all given in-depth individual orientations by their student service advisors. This orientation provides the information students need to navigate their virtual classroom, attend live sessions, communicate with their faculty and submit their assignments.
Additionally, the manager of learning resources conducts trainings for administrative staff upon request.
Since we do not offer online courses in our Campus at the time I can only provide my opinion on the subject.
I would say that faculty, staff, admission officers, and students should all be trained. The person(s) designated to offer the online course(s) should be one with excellent communication skills, and highly motivated. This is the key to keeping students engaged and motivated and at the same time help them reach a rewarding experience with the course.
Currently we have individuals with high technology sills in our Campus. With very little training we could get the institution in the right path to implement online courses in the near future.
The Business Education Director along with the program directors in each field, and the computer teachers would be responsible for the implementation of the online courses and the necessary training.
Our institution implements training on our Online Delivery System for our students, faculty, content experts, our development managers, and retention experts.
Training includes use of the LMS in detail, how attendance is taken, how to conduct conversations online, and how the content will be delivered.
Specifically, our Online Development Department facilitates a detailed, hands-on Orientation for all new online students and all online faculty.
All faculty and administration should have some form of training in all departments. In the Online education world, all sectors of the institution are connected and knowing how your place is connected to all others is extremely beneficial. The more knowledgeable an employee is, the better they can serve the student population.
At my institution, there are several different departments and each department director is responsible for training. The Director of Education is responsible for training all new Program Coordinators. They in turn train all new online faculty. The Admissions Coordinators are trained by their Director and the same for Financial Aid and so on. I think it would be beneficial for my institution to implement cross-training with all departments. Even a high level view of the processes that each department handles would help other better understand the mission of the institution and how they can better improve the processes.
Only instructors are required to do training for on-line courses. The students prior to enrollment take a petite training course but it is more geared toward technology knowledge and not the specific LMS product.
I think it is a great idea to have the admissions staff be familiar with the LMS so they can intelligently discuss it with prospective students. I am going to suggest that our campus implements that training.
I absolutely agree with you in your recommendation that admissions people complete an online course. They are one group that is often neglected when it comes to training in the Online Learning Environment.
Training is a crucial part in the success of delivering online programs. In our institution, we provide training for our our faculty, content experts, instructional designers, retention specialists, academic advisers, program chairs, and admissions representatives. It's important that everyone understand the programs and courses of study we offer, as well as how they are developed and delivered via the online modality.
Our Online Department, headed by the Online Education Director is responsible for implementing the training.
We need continuing training in the changes in the LMS, as well as refresher courses to stay up to speed on the old ones. Computer learning atrophies very rapidly without use.
We need to develop an online Web portal which would present our institution's online learning environment and specific classes, certificate, or degree program offerings in a way that answers students' questions.
Institutions appear professional and promise quality online education by developing such an online information portal that includes specifics about the online learning environment and the different online programs. This online information interface makes a lot of sense because students want to study online.
There is an advantage at accessing answers to questions online because there's no need for students to make the extra step of requesting written information that will take some time to reach their homes. While waiting for the printed material, they already could have found another online program and institution that displayed their descriptions completely online.
Right now we have a courses coordinator in charge of doing all the necessary research. I'm sure many more poeple will be needed to assist in the project as we move along. So far his initial startup was not up to par due to technical difficulties, so he is mainly focusing in working out the bugs on that particular subject.
The Admissions department is currently Identifying guidelines for developing a plan to address training needs, while faculty, and IT department is identifying key components of effective coaching, as well as, sequencing the steps in this coaching process, overcoming communication barriers and establishing security issues.
The training that is required for our online course consisted of the faculty that are involved in course set up and maintenance, and the students involved in course participation. The initial training was the faculty participation in the the course and progrssion from one level to the next. The students are assisted in navigating through a practice course module, the course overview, the discussion board and sample assignments before they are enrolled and accountable for course work. The initial training for the faculty was conducted by the faculty support department of the product company and the student training is conducted by the faculty assigned to the set up and course configuration.
We have found this to be effective and gives the faculty insight into which students will need more supervision and direction, in this way there is less frustration and more productivity on the part of both the students and the faculty.
We currently do not offer any online courses at my institition but have begun looking at them as an option due to the demand from our student base. We are currently in a rural area and our students at traveling far distances to attend programs. In addition, a large majority of our student are dislocated workers who are looking to enter into another career field, and through the help with the Workforce Solutions and the WIA program they are gaining financial assistance to do so. With this all said the main resonse for our interest in developing an online program is to help reach these members of our community.
We are currently investigating offering online courses. Our training needs involve working with staff and faculty so they understand the online environment. Once that training has been conducted and understood then students will be added into the mix. We are considering working with an established company that offers online courses as well as a tutorial for students that choose to take online courses. We are also going to add online support both online and at our campus.
The needs were defined by faculty, staff, and students. This is an ongoing process and will be more defined as it is developed. Management will select an online education coordinator and the online department will be responsible for implementing the training needs.
Training faculty and student is a most in delivering online courses and programs. At our Institution we train faculty in the use of LMS, teaching online and how to develop an online course.
Student are train in the use of LMS, however, it is volunteer. This is one area we need to improve. Some students have failure in distance learning program because they do not know how to use the learning tools.
The training of faculty and student is a responsibility of each individual campus.
I took over a fledgling online program with several teachers that were teaching the same classes online as they were on ground.
After reviewing classes and the results of those classes, I realized we needed the following:
1. student training. Before a student is allowed to take online classes, he/she must complete an online orientation class (non-credit) which requires them to perform the tasks that they must complete in a regular online class. They are exposed to discussion boards, chat rooms, uploading assignments, testing, reading assignments, slide presentations and flash/animation presentations.
2. faculty training. I absolutely agree that being an SME (subject matter expert) is no guarantee that you can effectively teach a concept either on ground or online. My approach to hiring online teachers is to have them shadow a class for a module to see how current instructors conduct their classes. During this time they are also trained in our LMS system. Additionally, all online instructors have a minimum of 4 quarterly in service sessions. At the present time I do not hire any instructors that do not live in our city. This allows me more face to face training.
3. I absolutely love the idea of having admisisons reps take a sample class. That is way up on my priority list of things to do.
At our institution ,the programs,courses,and requirements,are the responsibility of our program director. We the teachers ,are given the materials to work with. As the semester progresses, test are performed and the results are evaluated in order to determine material reinforcement if needed and applied .
As corporate Training Director for many years , My staff and I developed a needs assessment document which was presented in person to all department heads. The responses were then taken back to our training conference area. they we listed in priority order, Teams were selected , course was developed , test run presentation given to Department heads , changes made and then rolled out to staff.
Correct, hiring is a key element, but continuing education is just as vital.
We find our trainers need all updated certifications with area of instruction (IT training) We find that over qualifications is always important to stay ahead of the IT knowledge battle.
Our rule of thumb, if the trainers want the training, it is wise to provide.
FCC's training needs were first, the staff, and then afterwards the students. The staff was trained by eCollege trainers that came out and did a on-site training. The teachers then learned the stystem by practicing at home. Our first platform that they used was an eCompanion solution that is a supplement to the ground classroom. eCompanion allowed our teachers to get ready for the online classroom while they were teaching on-site. We have also trained teachers through a online course that is facilitated by eCollege, lasts one week and is required by each new teacher to the eCollege platform.
Our students get trained in an on-site class that they take at orientation. Because FCC's program is hybrid, we are able to train our students on-site.
Hi Alysha,
Yes, but keep in mind that the better LMS systems are very intuitive and the training effort should not be too much of a struggle. If it is, then that might be a clue that your school may be using the wrong LMS.
Best of luck with your implementation.
Train the faculty and those devloping the courses then train the students on how to by using sample courses or online tutorials.
