Well, it is Wednesday and day two (and the final day) of the conference for me. Right now I’m sitting in the following session.
Teaching Online: Meeting the Challenge with Emerging Strategies for Effective Professional Development
Room: 4 Wed, Nov. 19 11:15 AM-11:35 AM
Authors: Kerry Rice, Boise State University, USA Donna Vakili-Hutchison, Idaho Digital Learning Academy, USA
Abstract: The growth of online courses, programs and schools, has resulted in increased demand for online teachers. Who are those teachers and how are they learning to teach online? What frameworks and expectations do online programs bring to preparing their faculties – and what rubrics do they use to evaluate? Hear findings from Boise State University’s major research project on the status of K-12 online professional development, and see how a state-led K-12 online program integrates emerging best practices into their innovative teacher training programs.
Kerry Rice is describing the findings from the GOING VIRTUAL! Unique Needs And Challenges Of K-12 Online Teachers that I blogged about a few weeks back. I won’t bother to re-describe those findings here, as I’d rather encourage you to read Kerry and Lisa’s report (as it is worth the time). Then Donna began to speak more specifically about what the IDLA is doing in this regard. She began by talking about the reasons why students take online courses. In order they were:
- scheduling conflict
- course not offered
- credit recovery
- can’t attend traditional school
- being bullied
- others I couldn’t see because the room was full and I had to sit on the floor
The IDLA grew approximately 80% last year. IDLA requires professional development with their teachers – six months of training (both face-to-face and online) before they begin teaching, starting in the Spring (unpaid, but teachers don’t have to pay either). Use it as a screening tool. The professional development begins online and then the prospective teachers attend the face-to-face summer professional development meetings. They they have to complete a 40 hour online course – which the students can pay and get graduate level credit for – and if they are successful along the way they go into the prospective pool (i.e., no guarantee of a job). Anyone hired is also required to complete fifteen hours of online professional development throughout the school year. The IDLA uses their principals to monitor the current teachers and evaluate them using a rubric. The rubric has minimum requirements and what is considered exceptional behaviour, and their scores on this rubric is used for merit pay purposes. Some of the items include:
- substantive feedback
- regular and detailed announcements
- use of multiple and frequent means of asynchronous and synchronous communication
- completion of required professional development
- completion rate (and the steps teachers take to increase them – even if they are unsuccessful)
- student evaluations
And that was about it for this presentation. I’ll have to contact Donna and get a copy of the rubric that they use with the IDLA.
