Education Commons^™

Empowering Faculty Using Distance Learning Mentoring Programs, Nicole Luongo, Sara T. O'Brien

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

This article discusses the value of developing mentoring programs for the empowerment of distance learning faculty. The paper describes various ways mentoring relationships enhance the development and teaching of distance learning courses. Distance learning faculty mentoring programs consist of a process where a more experienced faculty member assists a newer faculty member in developing a distance learning course. By creating and supporting distance learning faculty mentoring programs, higher education institutions can provide an efficient and valuable way for new distance learning faculty to gain empowerment as well as the skills and knowledge they need to teach online. This article asserts …

And Finally... Engagement, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Engagement of a learner is defined as emotional and intellectual involvement or commitment—the participation in learning activities via interaction with others in meaningful ways. Engagement theory considers engagement as the process of involving learners in groups or teams working collaboratively on project-based and authentic activities.

And Finally... Doing It Wrong—Who Says?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

Several years ago there was considerable discussion among leaders of schools, colleges, universities, and organizations who wanted to offer instruction at a distance. In response, Distance Learning published a column titled “Designing the Perfect Online Program” hoping that the set of guidelines provided would assist organizations in their planning, and to reduce the likelihood that illconceived plans would be implemented.

And Finally … Let’S Go Deeply Digital?, Michael Simonson

Faculty Articles

Excerpt

The origination of the term “deeply digital” is widely credited to a Report to the President made in 2010 by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The core of this report was that technology, deeply digital technology, should not replace teachers but support them. Properly used, technology can extend the reach of teachers by giving them access to the best instructional and professional development tools that can create customized learning environments and assessments for students, and to capture rich information about individual performance. (p. 80)

Professional Knowledge Landscapes In Online Pre-Service Teacher Education: An Exploration Through Metaphor, Frances Quinn, Jennifer Charteris, Peter Fletcher, Mitchell Parkes, Vicente Reyes

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper explores metaphors as a process of professional learning, and as a research method to interrogate professional knowledge landscapes (PKLs) within the flexible space and time of online pre-service teacher education. The methodology comprised five pre-service teacher educators with different disciplinary areas of responsibility engaging in metaphorical analysis of our teaching work. We found that the metaphors that frame our e-pedagogy are multiple, reflecting a range of theoretical positions and objects of our teaching work, sometimes internally contradictory notions of education and e-learning, and the complexities of our individual and collective PKLs. We argue that it is crucial in …