Immersion

The principle of Immersion speaks to the learning that most educators experienced in their novice teacher training and early instructional encounters: being "in the trenches," so to speak, with the students, experimenting with new practices and processes. It involved “learning by doing,” a trait especially consistent with adult learning theory, or andragogy (see, for example, Knowles; Galbraith; Galbraith and Zelenak; Apps). Therefore, our experience is that learning to teach online also requires immersion; in other words, "teaching online necessitates training online" (Hewett and Ehmann 11).

Among the characteristics of a training program that employs Immersion are:

• Sensitivity to adult learning characteristics. According to Malcolm Knowles (see especially 57-63), adult learning characteristics involve a sense of self-motivation and self-direction that typically is not found in children. Adult learners tend to make more conscious use of their past educational experiences, which enables them to articulate the kinds of activities that help them to achieve their goals. Their readiness for online learning in particular, while most likely connected to the exigencies of being a teacher in a changing digital world, also is connected to life goals and more internalized desires.
  
• A focus on providing all training online. Even when face-to-face interactions are possible in an institutional setting, we recommend conducting the majority -- or all when possible -- of training online. In our experience, such immersion stimulates deep critical thinking about the online teaching and learning processes (see also Apps). Further, even for hybrid courses where some of the instruction will occur in more traditional settings, it seems useful to practice the instruction online. Doing so addresses the possibility that otherwise unforeseen educational activities might need to occur in the online setting, thus providing novice online instructors with a greater sense of their own flexibility and capability to think quickly and respond to students online.
  
• Experiences that place the instructor-trainee in the position of student.  Instructor-trainees actually engage the role of student to the trainer's role of teacher, mentor, or coach. In any case, when one participant has the greater knowledge or experience, the roles are somewhat unbalanced in favor of the teacher-to-learner experience. In terms of simulating the student's online experience, we think that it is helpful to take advantage of such roles. In essence, immersing the training process fully in the online environment offers instructor-trainees the chance to "experience online instruction both from the perspective of genuine students [e.g., they are 'students' learning a new skill and new principles] and of model students [e.g., their simulation of the student experience will inform their understanding of online learning and practices toward their own future students]" (Hewett and Ehmann 12).
  
• Exercises that simulate, as closely as possible, the teaching settings and situations in which instructor-trainees will engage with their students. Our experience is that the training scenarios that instructor-trainees encounter should simulate their upcoming teaching settings as much as possible. Thus, we advocate orchestrating the learning through simulations that trainees can relate to their teaching and that teaches them "naturally, almost unconsciously" (Barkley and Bianco 13). The simulation itself, then, actually stimulates the kinds of thinking and behaviors that the online program seeks for its students. In effect, there is a reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning as an instructor-trainee and providing equally effective teaching for student learners.
  
• Attention to the ways that immersion can benefit the online program’s external responsibilities.  Program directors are always responsible to their institution's administrative structures. As such, we think it is helpful to mention the “"external" benefits of a training program that immerses its trainers and instructor-trainees into the institutional online setting. Such benefits include using one's budgeted resources (e.g., people, time, and money) wisely. Participants get immediate grounding in the work they will be doing, and learn quickly whether this setting is one in which they might thrive.  Less time is spent "explaining" and more is spent "doing." And, as with Craig's situation in Scenario A, fiscal resources are used in ways that may justify future budgetary allotments.