Human Costs of Inadequate Training

Because online course enrollment is expected to rise (Allen and Seaman 5-9), it is easy to see how the costs of preparing instructors inadequately for online settings create obvious financial and programmatic problems (e.g., inability to staff a course as needed). Another cost is less easily measured, but can be illuminated by research into faculty attitudes (see, for example, Ehmann Powers 2005): that cost involves the loss of a potential online instructor -- and possibly other colleagues -- who perceives the training as unhelpful.

For example, we recently spoke with Barbara*, a colleague at a medium-sized southern university who was interested in learning to teach online for very pragmatic reasons: more courses at her institution are being offered online, and she wanted the opportunity to choose among them. But, she told us, the online training workshops she attended were taught orally and she needed more directive hands-on guidance, individualized feedback, and specific outcomes. She also needed more guided practice time to translate her teaching skills and behaviors from the traditional environment in which she has been teaching for twenty-five years to the online environment. These supportive measures were not available through her institution despite its clearly stated goals of getting more English instructors to teach using the online educational technology that the school had leased.

She expressed frustration and a sense of being hopelessly computer-deficient and behind-the-times. Although she knew she was passing up opportunities for some key course assignments, she decided that she would remain with the traditional teaching and leave online instruction to other, "more able" instructors. The possibility exists, of course, that her decision was the right one; like some students who may thrive in traditional settings, some educators simply are better instructors in traditional settings than in online ones. But it is equally likely that with systematic training grounded in key educational principles, she would have become a competent, even excellent, online writing instructor. More to the point, however, she may never find out because she was not provided adequate training that addressed her needs as a learner. Unfortunately, this cost extends beyond Barbara to her online program director and the students who might have benefited from her instructional knowledge and skills.

*Name has been changed for privacy.