According to Armstrong, there are eight replicable strategies to increase faculty participation and retention in online and blended learning programs, using data, collaboration, support, and ongoing assessment:
1. Increase faculty involvement: “Faculty members need to be engaged in the conversations about what the institution wants to achieve with online and blended education and how it can achieve the goals. Being partners in the building of the plan increases ownership of the process and its outcomes,” says Armstrong.
2. Know the barriers to participation: Armstrong notes that this is an ongoing process as technology continues to evolve and faculty needs and concerns change.
3. Understand demands on faculty time: Faculty members need time to attend training for both the technology and the pedagogy, explains Armstrong. Also, faculty members need either release time or summer teaching grants to develop content for their distance education courses.
4. Provide access to adequate technologies, training and support: Instructional designers and technology specialists need to work with faculty to identify their technology needs, both for infrastructure and pedagogy, and institutions need to provide ongoing technical support for faculty.
5. Focus on faculty expertise: “It is important to recognize that faculty expertise is the content of the discipline,” says Armstrong. “An institution needs to acknowledge that a faculty member may not be an expert in the area of web instructional design. Faculty members need to be supported by instructional designers who can assist them in presenting the content they have developed effectively in the online environment as well as actively engage students in learning and assessment.”
6. Ensure quality by example: According to the University, institutions need to demonstrate what high quality online learning looks like, and faculty need to be able to showcase their work to their colleagues in order to provide a framework for quality course reviews.
7. Support campus collaboration: “Offices that provide training or services related to teaching, learning, assessment, academic support, and technology need to work together to reduce redundancy in training and conflicting schedules” explains Armstrong.
8. Implement ongoing evaluation: “Formative and summative evaluation is needed so administrators can proactively, not reactively, support faculty throughout the year,” notes the University. For example, from 2011 to 2014, Armstrong’s Office of Online & Blended Learning was engaged in 18 research initiatives including: climate assessment; pre/post enrollment evaluations for faculty development initiatives; focus groups; interviews; market segment analyses; an institutional survey; annual faculty development needs assessments; and more. The collected data has been used for decisions related to new initiatives, modifications in training programs, and expanding faculty support.
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