Presentation made to Instructional Technology Council's eLearning 2010 conference. The presentation discusses how distributing the faculty development training throughout a term has a positive impact on faculty development as opposed to only training faculty once at the start of a term.

1. How the Distribution of New Faculty
Training Can Affect Participation and
Engagement Online
Scott Dinho
Coordinator of Educational Technology
Savannah College of Art and Design
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

2. Presentation Overview
• SCAD eLearning
• Training Gap
• Intervention
• Current Results
• Lessons Learned
• Questions
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

3. SCAD eLearning
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

4. Organization
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Vice President
– administrates eLearning and interacts with
other college administrators
Instructional Design
– ensures instructional quality
– creates master courses
Educational Technology
– trains and supports faculty
– manages and maintains live courses
eCampus
– student support and services

5. SCAD eLearning Courses
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
A SCAD-eLearning “course”:
– represents 10-weeks (50 hours) of
instruction
– operates “asynchronously”
– consists of “lectures,” discussions,
assessments, and hands-on project work
– meets accreditation requirements for
student/student and student/professor
interaction
– uses rich media to support a variety of
learning styles.

6. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Live Course
Section 1
Master Course
Live Course
Section 2
Live Course
Section 3

7. SCAD eLearning—Then
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Summer 2003:
– ARTH 764: Rock Art: Legacy of Lascaux
Fall 2003:
– 5 courses
– 26 total course “seats” filled

8. SCAD eLearning—Now
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
One of three SCAD campuses:
– Savannah
– Atlanta
– eLearning
Fourth campus in Fall 2010
– Hong Kong

9. SCAD eLearning—Now
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Fully Online Degree Programs
– 5 Bachelor of Arts
– 11 Master of Arts
– 3 Master of Fine Arts
Non-credit Program
– English as a Second Language

10. SCAD eLearning—Now
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Winter 2010 Quarter Classes
– 171 individual class sections
– 129 different courses
– 18 departments

11. SCAD eLearning—Now
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Winter 2010 Quarter Students
– 757 at Savannah campus
– 486 at eLearning campus
– 257 at Atlanta campus
– 5 at Lacoste, France location
– 2,095 individual students
– 2,296 total class “seats” filled

12. Courses Offered
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

13. Fully Online Enrollments
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

14. SCAD eLearning—Now
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Winter 2010 Professors
– 113 Professors Overall
– 32 Professors eLearning Only
– 20 First-time eLearning

15. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

16. SCAD eLearning Provides
• Fully developed course materials
• Online-Teaching Workshop
• eLearning Specialists
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

17. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Training Gap

18. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

19. Online-Teaching Workshop
Online Content
– Lives on Blackboard
– All fully online professors enrolled
– HTML content
• Overview of SCAD eLearning courses
• Benefits of online learning
• Blackboard training
– Links to articles and resources
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

20. Online-Teaching Workshop
Online-Teaching Guidebook
– Physical document
– PDF version accessible through
Blackboard
– Contents
• Fully online teaching requirements and
expectations
• Blackboard skills
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

21. Online-Teaching Workshop
Before Term Online-Teaching Workshop Session
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

22. Results
Online Materials Ignored
Face-to-Face Session Forgotten
Online-Teaching Manual and Online
Materials Often Out of Date
Use of Course Communication Tools What are those?
New Faculty Engagement with
Students Inconsistent and Generally Low
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

23. Results
Online Materials
Face-to-Face Session
Online-Teaching Manual and
Online Materials
Use of Course
Communication Tools
New Faculty Engagement
with Students
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Ignored
Forgotten
Out of Date
What are those?
Inconsistent and
Generally Poor

24. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
Intervention

25. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

26. Online-Teaching Guidebook
Fully incorporated into online materials
– No longer available as PDF download
– Blackboard skills removed
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

27. Online Materials and Resources
Revised for relevance and ease of maintenance
– Less focus on general benefits of online learning
– More focus on skills, requirements, and
expectations specific to SCAD eLearning
– Removal of redundant information, links, and
documents
– Removal of Blackboard skills content in favor of
links to specific Blackboard manual topics
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

28. ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

29. Current Results
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

30. Spring 2009 Pilot
•Only change was addition
of follow-up sessions with
weekly reminder
message related to each
session
•Six new fully online
professors
– 4 Savannah campus
– 1 Atlanta campus
– 1 eLearning campus
only
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design
•Varied subject areas
– Art History
– Electronic Design
– English
– Painting
– Photography
– Sequential Art

31. Spring 2009 Pilot
Overall improvement in observable professor
engagement compared to previous quarters
– more announcement posts
– more professor discussion posts
– more student discussion posts
– fewer days without login
– all made some use of available synchronous
communication tools
– all reporting a positive experience and desire
to teach again at the eLearning campus
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

32. Spring 2009 Pilot
Discussions during sessions
– were lively with little need for prompting
activity
– showed unseen holes in training
• Basic new faculty training gaps
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

33. Lessons Learned
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

34. Lessons Learned
• Professor engagement in the courses can be
improved when we improve our engagement
with them
• Online professors are willing to attend training
session during the term and off of the regular
day schedule
• Trainers learned as much as the trainees
• We must cultivate an ongoing community of
practice so that these early gains are not lost.
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

35. Future Plans
Communities of Practice
– Q&A sessions for online faculty
– Encourage and promote discourse among fully
online professors
• Adobe Connect sessions
• asynchronous discussion forums
• incorporating success stories into online training
materials
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

36. On-going Question
How to create and sustain a fully online
community of practice without
– stifling interaction by moderation
– promoting the spread of “worst practices”
by lack of moderation
– turning a beneficial supplement into a
burdensome requirement
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design

37. Questions, Comments, and/or
Suggestions?
Scott Dinho
Coordinator of Educational Technology
Savannah College of Art and Design
sdinho@scad.edu
912-525-8028
ITC eLearning 2010
February 21, 2010
© 2010 Savannah College of Art and Design