Developing a course for online instruction requires content knowledge and understanding of the interactivity, technological requirements, and possibilities in the asynchronous environment. Using a case study method, the researchers investigated the development of an online humanities course by a team of faculty and instructional designers. Data were collected through observation of face-to-face planning meetings, document analysis of group postings at the online site, and interviews with the team members. Using Berge's typology of online facilitator roles and Stark and Luttuca's framework on academic plans, this study examined the roles assumed by team members and the curricular decisions.Distance education has emerged as an increasingly important component of higher education. A report by the National Center for Educational Statistics (1999) showed that a total of 1,680 institutions offered 54,000 college-level, credit-bearing distance education courses to 1.6 million distance students in 1997-1998. In the next 3 years, the number of institutions offering distance education grew by 38%; and more than half (56%) of all 2-year and 4-year degree granting institutions were involved in distance education. Over the same period, the number of students rose to more than three million participants in distance learning in all two-year and four-year institutions, a jump of 85% during the 3-year period (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2003). Although concrete data are not available, estimates suggest that most colleges and universities currently offer one or more courses online.
Four research studies of students and faculty engaged in fully online undergraduate courses are analyzed to generate best practices for teaching and learning online. These studies investigated the relationship of student background variables and online behaviors to student persistence and achievement in the online environment. Over 500 students enrolled in lower division, undergraduate courses offered online were included in the analyses. The courses were designed by faculty and instructional design experts and met standards of quality course design established by the offering colleges and universities. By combining the results of the study, guidelines for advising students and faculty for success in the online environment emerged.
Recently, I met with faculty members who are participating in a campus-based leadership development program. The participants were interested in preparation for leadership, the challenges in administration, and general advice. First, I unequivocally state that leadership of complex organizations is difficult, and my perspective is only a small window into the hundreds of books and thousands of articles on this topic. A classic among the books is Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice and leadership. Authors Bolman and Deal (2013) provide four frames or lenses through which decisions and activities can be considered or analyzed. In a nutshell, the structural frame is characterized by roles, formal relationships, teams, rules, policies, and procedures. The human resources frame is about people and their needs, skills, relationships, and attitudes. The political frame raises questions of power and conflict, competition for resources, and coalitions. The symbolic frame deals with purpose and meaning, institutional culture, rituals and symbols. An understanding of these lenses may indeed assist an administrator in the analysis of issues and in contemplating strategies for action. For example, colleges often adopt or imitate programs and procedures from another institution only to encounter vastly different results because transferability can be dramatically affected by differences in purpose and culture. Similarly, a propensity to view leadership as improved structure will bring about an intensity in revising policies, implementing new rules and regulations, and a focus on reorganization. The structural frame often seems to be paired with authoritative approaches to leadership and the exercise of power. In higher education, shared governance is an expectation of the faculty, and unilateral decision-making will erode support for goals and initiatives. Based on professional expertise, faculty members claim some right to make academic decisions about research and instruction, about who will be their peers, and the quality of their work and others. The new managerialism in higher education is really not so new. For the past decade, colleges have expanded administrative structures and added administrators throughout the multi-tiered structure in order to meet the escalating demands arising from federal and state governments and agencies, to satisfy the criteria and standards for accountability by accrediting bodies, and to meet the demands of students for a wide-range of academic support
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