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Temple University Center for Research
in Human Development and Education |
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Meeting Professional
Development Goals Through Online Educational Technology Courses
125
by
Pat Sine, Amy Gordon, Jeff Fahnoe
University of Delaware
Research suggests that technology that incorporates higher
order thinking skills is more likely to result in increased test scores (Wenglinsky,
1998). Teachers often report that the missing ingredient they need to accomplish
this task is quality professional development aimed at helping them effectively
integrate technology into their classes (Smerdon et al., 2000). In order to
obtain the needed training, teachers must balance overloaded schedules and
competing demands. A promising development in responding to this problem is the
explosion of asynchronous online courses that offer participants the opportunity
to work anytime and anyplace. But how does an individual teacher identify the
best online courses to meet her particular needs? This problem is the target of
the MAR*TEC Online Professional Development Catalog (www.oet.udel.edu/martec).
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Staff Development Standards
Over the past decade, the National Staff Development Council
(NSDC) has done much work on understanding and publicizing
what makes any type of professional development a quality
offering, including development of the Standards for Staff
Development (NSDC, 2001). In 2001, NSDC collaborated with the
National Institute for Community Innovations to create
guidelines "to assist staff development leaders to become
savvy consumers of the products and services available today
and those that will emerge" (NSDC, 2001). They concluded that,
"In order to be as effective as face-to-face staff development
in deepening understanding and improving performance of both
educators and their students, e-learning for educators must
meet the same high standards as those for face-to-face
professional learning" (NSDC, 2001).
The guidelines
stress several domains: the context necessary to support adult
learning, the processes by which adults learn, and the content
educators need to increase student achievement. In short, the
quality of each domain must be the same in e-learning as in
face-to-face staff development, although there will be special
implications for e-learning. These implications are summarized
in Table 1 below for each of the major standards.
Table
1
Guidelines for Professional Development Courses
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Implications for e-learning |
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Context Standards |
Technology infrastructure must address
hardware and software needs, high-speed connectivity,
regular maintenance, and planned upgrades.
Courses
should be taught by specially prepared faculty with an
appropriate student–instructor ratio |
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Process Standards |
Active
engagement should incorporate strategies such as ongoing
teamwork, discussions, product and project development,
research, demonstrations, and modeling. |
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Content Standards |
Selection of programs and services that align with the
intended results must be even more vigorous because of
the wealth of content that technology makes available.
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What Makes
an Effective Online Course?
Building on the NSDC standards and other work, the Distance
Learning Resource Network (DLRN) has designed a rubric to
help identify the major elements of quality online
professional development (DLRN, 2000). According to this
rubric, a high-ranking online course has the following
traits:
 Goals
and objectives are clearly stated and aligned with pertinent
content and technology standards.
Student support is readily available throughout the
course.
The course makes use of a variety of media as appropriate.
Assignments are structured to support both self-direction
and collaboration.
The instructor is both a content expert and an
enthusiastic supporter of the students (DLRN, 2000).
To meet the needs of teachers who are taking the offering to
fulfill professional development requirements, issues of
credit (how much, what kind, etc.) should be clearly
evident. Of course, costs and system requirements should
always be obvious. Teacher time should be focused on
improving skills and knowledge, not wasted searching for the
right course or squandered in a course that does not fill a
teacher's needs.
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