Strategies to recruit, train instructors to use technology
By Stephanie Bulger, Published March 11, 2010

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the book Reinventing the Open Door: Transformational Strategies for Community Colleges, published by the American Association of Community Colleges.

As community college leaders consider the costs of restructuring the academic curriculum and student services to incorporate technology in ways that meet the learning needs and desires of diverse students, they must also consider the recruitment and development of instructors.

Several factors have influenced the need to reconsider approaches to recruitment and development. First, in the case of online course and program development, a collaborative approach often works best. Instructors might not be the sole designers but might be co-creators in the curriculum development process. Instructors, instructional designers and multimedia specialists might be members of a program development team.

Second, the number of instructors trained to teach using technology constitutes a small part of the whole. Instructor recruits can be quickly exhausted in a given college community. Strategies for developing new instructors with skills in using technology and teaching distance learning courses might need to expand beyond the typical advertisement in the local newspaper and periodic recruitment events.

Third, instructors who teach online or via videoconferencing require special training and should be able to demonstrate that they are prepared to teach in these modalities.  Standards of quality should be available to instructors, and training strategies should also be developed.

Fourth, today’s students communicate by e-mail and mobile devices. In-person office hours are less critical for them, as is immediate or reasonable access to their instructors within, say, 24 hours.

Fifth, traditional instructor hiring processes involve an evaluation of credentials for the appropriate education and experience, and they might include a demonstration component of a lecture. Today’s hiring requirements might also include an evaluation of an instructor’s use of technology to encourage higher levels of participation in students in multiple arenas (e.g., the face-to-face classroom, online, videoconferencing and smart classrooms).

One strategy is to develop in-house training for online instructors. Online teaching uses different and new pedagogies. Therefore, it requires a process that assesses the candidate’s current skills and experience using technology, as well as a comprehensive development and training program.

As an example, in 2004, the Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD) in Michigan established a certification program that was designed to help instructors build technological skills and understand how to effectively incorporate these skills into their online pedagogical and classroom management practices. This program has three parts:

• Blackboard basics. This four-hour in-person workshop covering the tools in Blackboard, a proprietary online course management system, concludes with an assessment, during which instructors demonstrate their proficiency in using Blackboard tools. Instructors might need to retake this assessment before completing their training to teach online.

• Pedagogy and online instructor training. During this three-week online experience facilitated by a trainer, instructors review principles of online course design, pedagogy and classroom management. They complete assignments and meet deadlines, including constructing an online course in an environment that also simulates an online course.

• Course shadowing. During this seven-week experience, candidates for online instructor certification are paired with experienced online instructors. Candidates are required to complete and submit a weekly report on their experience.

A second strategy is to integrate external resources into a college’s existing processes. One such effort is Quality Matters, an organization that promotes a peer-review system designed to certify the quality of online courses by evaluating course design. Coordinated by a set of partner institutions and state consortia, this organization offers subscriptions that include training for course peer reviews.

A third strategy is to develop a college-sponsored, comprehensive organizational development program for instructors, administrators and staff. What began as a series of workshops for midlevel administrators at WCCCD has evolved into a comprehensive Organizational Development Institute that is designed to increase skills, build culture and support the college mission.

Offered for eight months of the academic year, the institute consists of five tracks—instruction, distance learning, banner training, managing and leading, and skills enrichment. The institute’s workshops are enhanced by an orientation course, an annual district conference day and an annual conference on great leadership.

Through these efforts, WCCCD seeks to support the district’s commitment to student success, community outreach and economic development. In addition, the district has a grow-your-own strategy that strives to prepare employees to assume additional responsibilities to meet the education needs of students, increased demands for financial accountability and the need to demonstrate instructional quality, excellence and successful education outcomes.

Given the costs associated with assigning additional courses to the load of full-time faculty members, community colleges can explore the viability of using adjunct or part-time instructors to meet the increased demand for instructors resulting from increased seat capacity. On the other hand, some argue that adjunct instructors do not provide the same high-level quality of instruction as do their full-time counterparts. An effective training and certification program for delivery of online instruction can answer those concerns by assigning instructors to oversee distance learning courses.

Similarly, relevant and comprehensive student and faculty evaluations of those courses and their delivery will enable community colleges to ensure that they are delivering adequate quality and content in their remote courses and technological offerings.

Bulger is vice chancellor of educational affairs at the Wayne County Community College District.

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