A version of this article will appear in Educational Technology magazine, Summer 2008.

 

Preparing Engineering Faculty to Teach Online

 

Greg Kearsley

 

Abstract

 

Issues associated with the preparation of engineering faculty to teach online courses are examined. This includes: the nature of online teaching, engineering course materials, training faculty to teach online, use of online resources, course development, and evaluation of online courses. Selection of faculty and providing adequate support are important considerations for a successful program.

 

Introduction

 

This article describes the issues associated with preparing university faculty in engineering departments to teach online courses.  The article is based upon personal experience with two online graduate programs: the Masters in Engineering Professional Practice (MEPP) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (see http://epdweb.engr.wisc.edu) and the Masters in Marine Engineering (MME) offered by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (see http://www.usmma.edu/gradcourse). The conclusions are similar to those reported by others (e.g., Krishnamurthi, 2005; May & Brady, 2003).  This article is complementary to Kearsley (2004) which discusses the preparation of K-12 teachers for online teaching. Indeed, the issues associated with the preparation of any faculty to teach online are similar to those discussed herein. However, engineering poses some additional considerations that are not present in other disciplines, which is the focus of the article.

 

Online degree programs for graduate study continue to be a successful and growing aspect of distance education in the U.S. and worldwide (see Allen & Seaman. 2006). This is true for all disciplines including engineering. According to the annual survey conducted by U.S. News and World Report (see http://www.usnews.com/directories/e-learning), there were more than 50 U.S. institutions offering graduate programs in engineering during the 2006-2007 school year.[1] Table 1 lists some of these institutions, the reported enrollments, and whether faculty teaching in these programs were required to have training for online teaching. While most institutions do require that faculty receive training, a surprising number don’t (approximately 27% of this sample) including many of the larger programs. The data presented in Table 1 makes two points: there are many online engineering programs (and hence many faculty involved in them), and a substantial portion of faculty have no formal preparation for teaching online. Indeed, even those faculty who have participated in training may be ill-prepared – as discussed below.

 

Table 1: Online Graduate Engineering Programs in 2006-2007  (Source: U.S. News & World Report)

 

Institution

Number of programs

Enrollment

Faculty Training

Arizona State

6

343

Yes

Cal State, Northridge

1 (Engr Mgmt)

67

Yes

Clemson

2

20

No

Colorado State

4

26

-

Columbia

5

582

Yes

Drexel

6

135

Yes

Eastern Michigan

1 (Engr Mgmt)

107

Yes

Florida Inst Technology

2

46

Yes

Georgia Inst Technology

5

625

No

Iowa State

6

287

No

Kansas State

6

137

No

Mercer

1 (Syst Engr)

18

No

Michigan Tech

2

208

Yes

National

2

78

Yes

NJIT

2

510

Yes

NM State

1 (Ind Engr)

50

No

NC State

7

571

No

Norwich

1 (Civil Engr)

65

Yes

Ohio State

1 (Ind Engr)

21

Yes

Oklahoma State

3

205

Yes

Penn State

2

182

Yes

RIT

2

-

Yes

Stevens

5

526

Yes

Texas A&M

4

106

Yes

Texas Tech

3

73

No

U Arizona

6

34

Yes

U Colorado

3

17

No

U Florida

8

356

No

U Idaho

6

134

No

U Illinois

1 (Mech Engr)

120

Yes

U Maryland

2

68

Yes

U Michigan

5

343

Yes

U Minnesota

2

200

Yes

U Missouri

6

226

No

U Nebraska

1 (Engr)

25

Yes

USC

10

1301

No

U South Florida

4

193

No

U Tennessee

5

132

Yes

U Texas

9

-

Yes

U Washington

5

155

Yes

U Wisconsin

3

94

Yes

Virginia Tech

2

337

Yes

W. Virginia

1 (Syst Engr)

58

No

Worchester Polytech

2

90

No

 

 

The nature of online teaching

 

There is a large literature about online teaching, much of which reports relevant research findings (e.g., Anderson, 2003; Ko & Rossen, 2004; Palloff & Pratt, 2007; Salmon, 2004). The critical elements of effective online teaching are well-defined, namely:

  • interacting regularly with students, both individually and as a group via email and discussion postings, as well as live conference sessions (if feasible)
  • providing timely feedback on all assignments, tests, and inquiries
  • creating opportunities for collaboration among students
  • designing meaningful activities that engage and motivate students to participate fully in the course
  • using technology to its fullest extent for effective teaching

 

Unfortunately a large percentage of faculty fail to satisfy these criteria and hence are not successful as online teachers. This is particularly true for faculty who have a lot of experience with traditional college teaching and are used to giving 1-2 lectures to a class each week. In a good online course, students and instructors typical interact on a daily basis. In fact, many distance learning institutions require a response (or at least an acknowledgement) to student questions within 24-48 hours. On the other hand, faculty who have experience participating in online research communities will be well prepared for online teaching since the nature of the interaction required is similar.

 

Collaborative learning is an aspect that most faculty have little experience with and hence do not know how to create or manage it in an online course. In traditional classes, almost all student work is individual in nature. However, online learning systems afford opportunities for group work in the context of discussions forums, shared files, or web conferencing. It is easy for students to work as partners or teams for assignments or projects. However, this takes some preparation on the part of the instructor to formulate suitable tasks and assign groups. The resulting work efforts are also more difficult to grade, although use of peer evaluation (i.e., students evaluate each other’s work) is usually a good strategy.

 

These issues are particularly salient for engineering faculty, most of whom have a very limited conception of teaching methods. Homework in engineering classes typically consists of quantitative problems to be solved with a single numerical answer…something not very conductive to collaborative approaches. Engineering faculty do not usually ask students to discuss the underlying assumptions of a problem, compare alternative solutions, consider the limitations of the results, or comment on the cost/benefits of a solution – all of which make for interesting discussions and open up collaborative possibilities. Ironically, these are the kinds of issues that are very important in real engineering applications.

 

Engineering course materials

 

There are two aspects of the course materials used in engineering that tend to be different from other curriculum areas: drawings and equations. Engineering drawings are often detailed schematics and may be quite large in size. This means that drawings may need to be enlarged and divided up into separate components in order to be viewed on the screen. Trying to display some drawings as graphics in slides may not work. Instead they need to be provided as files for students to download and view offline.

 

Much of the content presented in an engineering course, as well as homework assignments, is likely to involve equations with mathematical notation. Most learning systems cannot fully display or process such notation. Instead documents can be produced using the equation editor of MS Word and uploaded/downloaded as files. Alternatively, faculty and students can use a document scanner (a capability of most multipurpose printers) to convert handwritten documents into PDF files that can then be uploaded/downloaded. For live sessions, faculty can use a graphics table to write equations on the conference whiteboard.

 

The need to use detailed drawings and equations often renders the quiz/exam functions of learning systems unusable for engineering courses. Instead, tests and answers will need to be handled as files to be uploaded/downloaded. Time limits can be placed on when and how long the files are available. However, grading and grade entry must be done manually which increases the workload for the instructor and introduces more potential for variability and errors.

 

Most areas of engineering make extensive use of software tools and many online courses include the use of such tools (e.g., MatLab, MathCad, Maple, TKSolver, etc.). Students are typically expected to figure out how to use these programs on their own in a short timeframe at the beginning of a course. While most commercial software comes with good documentation, demos, and technical support, learning how to use the programs quickly can be frustrating for students. It is very helpful if faculty provide detailed tutorials with lots of screen illustrations for initial homework assignments.[2] Even better is to review sample problems in live web conference sessions. Alas, most faculty do not provide any additional help to students when they use software tools; the typical attitude is  “engineers are used to figuring things out.”

 

One aspect of engineering education that is somewhat problematic for online courses is the need for physical laboratory experiences. Most online programs have addressed this by scheduling one or more on-campus sessions. However, the travel required for such sessions is not popular with many students who may live a considerable distance from the institution (e.g., on the other side of the country or world). This issue is being addressed by the development of remote laboratories that allow equipment control via the internet (e.g., Ammari, & Ben Hadj Slama, 2006).

 

Training to teach online

 

Most institutions that offer online programs provide some sort of training for faculty before they teach their first online course. This training varies considerably in nature across institutions. It is commonplace to offer such training via on-campus seminars. While such training sessions may be better than nothing at all, they are very limited in value. Effective training needs to be “hands-on”, i.e., conducted as an online course. This ensures that they become familiar with the learning system(s) being used. It also ensures that faculty experience online learning first-hand and hence understand what it is like to be an online learner. It is important that the online training take place over a long enough time period to simulate the ongoing nature of an online course.

 

Table 2 outlines a typical training course that I have conducted for faculty in different programs over the years. These courses run 3-6 weeks and use the same learning system that will be used for their online teaching. Reading materials include a suitable text on online teaching as well an Instructors Guide prepared specifically for the program. The selection of assignments is intended to model various strategies as well as develop insights about teaching online. However, the most important aspect of the class is that faculty grasp how an online class works. Note that I prefer to use both asynchronous and synchronous (i.e.., live web conferences) formats, even if the delivery system to be used only uses one. I think it is important that faculty be aware of both types, plus I believe that the course is more effective using both.

 

Table 2. Sample Faculty Online Training Course (4 week version)

 

Week 1

Understanding the Delivery System
  1. Post your experience (if any) with online learning/teaching. What do you feel are the strengths/weaknesses. Comment on the posting of your assigned partner
  2. Prepare a single slide outline of a course you intend to teach online. Upload as a file and be prepared to discuss during the live session.

Week 2

Nature of Online Learning
  1. What are the learning issues that students will have to deal with in your course. How can you address these issues? Critique  the postings of the other members of your assigned group.
  2. Prepare a question or problem to be researched online (library or web) by your students. Upload as a file and be prepared to discuss during the live session.

Week 3

Online Teaching Strategies
  1. Describe the strategies you plan to use to create a high degree of interaction and participation in your course. Critique the postings of the other members of your assigned group.
  2. Prepare a description of a group activity in your course. Upload as a file and be prepared to discuss during the live session.

Week 4

Evaluating Online Learning
  1. Post your grading scheme for the course and describe how you intend to implement it. Critique the postings of the other members of your assigned group.
  2. Discuss how you will deal with cheating in your course. Upload as a file and be prepared to discuss during the live session.

 

It’s worth noting that online training courses are a good indicator of whether a faculty member will be a successful online teacher. Faculty who fail to participate fully are not likely to be good online teachers. Ideally, faculty who do poorly in an online training course would be discouraged from teaching online; however, this is unlikely to be politically acceptable. Instead, these instructors should be flagged as needing additional assistance from the program team.

 

Online training courses for engineering faculty do not need to differ in any way than those intended for other faculty, apart from addressing the considerations associated with graphics and equations noted earlier. Of course, engineers will perceive the training as more relevant if they get to work with other engineers in the class.

 

Use of online resources

 

One aspect of online teaching that should be exciting for both faculty and students is the use of online resources for course materials. This includes current and historical articles from online periodicals, standards and guidelines, as well as curriculum materials that have already been created (e.g., the MIT open courseware initiative at http://ocw.mit.edu, or the World Lecture Hall at http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh ). Many companies that provide engineering software and equipment make technical specifications, reports and examples available on their web sites. Most engineering organizations make the proceedings of their conferences and seminars available online.

 

Despite this wealth of material, relatively few faculty make the effort to incorporate such online resources in their courses. This seems somewhat incongruous since many faculty make extensive use of such online resources in their research and professional activities. There is no doubt that reviewing and evaluating such materials for use in teaching requires more effort than assigning chapters from a textbook…and faculty often choose the least effort route to course preparation.  Faculty are sometimes concerned about copyright issues associated with using material from online sources, although there are usually none if the web site is public and the use is strictly for teaching.

 

A strategy that does seem to work is to have students find their own online resources. It is easy to set up a homework assignment that requires each student to locate and describe an online resource relevant to a given problem or issue. When the results are posted in a discussion forum, students can benefit from reading the results of each other’s findings.

 

Another good strategy is to have students take advantage of library staff for online searches (if the institution has such staff available). Most large university libraries include engineering databases in their collection and these can be accessed remotely by online students. Library research staff will usually assist students (and faculty) to locate relevant documents on topics of interest.

 

Course development

 

One of the most difficult aspects of preparing an online course is getting faculty to understand the need to start development of a course well in advance (months) of its start date. For traditional classes, most faculty seem content to prepare each class the week before they teach it. Alas, this “just-in-time” model doesn’t work well for online classes for a number of reasons. First of all, if the course involves a physical textbook (as most still do), adequate time must be allowed for the books to be purchased and delivered to students. Some course materials may need copyright clearance which can take weeks. Any lesson notes developed by the instructor need to be checked over by an editor or instructional designer for completeness and accuracy. It is common to find incorrect references, errors in equations, ambiguous assignment instructions, and missing information that will confuse and frustrate students (and result in a flurry of emails to the instructor for clarification). And the course must be created in the learning system, including loading any files needed, setting up assignments and discussion forums, as well as establishing the gradebook according to the grading scheme. Course set up is usually done by an instructional designer, although some faculty prefer to do this themselves.

 

Ideally course development will begin the semester before the course is to be taught (see Table 3). However, this requires that faculty make the time to work on the course during this timeframe. This is unlikely to happen unless faculty have been given released time from their teaching load, and/or provided with a stipend for this purpose. Even so, most faculty will need a lot of encouragement to stick to a development schedule and not leave all the effort till a few weeks before the course begins (the default model). One strategy that can be used is to have faculty participate in the online training course (discussed above) the semester before they teach and have assignments tied to course preparation.

 

Table 3. Major course development activities.

 

3 months

before

Prepare course outline that specifies course materials needed (texts, software), course objectives/goals, weekly lesson topics, grading scheme, and pre-requisites

1-3 months before

Prepare lesson outline that specifies reading assignments and activities/exercises for each week/module

1 month before

Prepare lesson notes that provide any supplemental explanation needed. This may take the form of PowerPoint slides to be shown in live sessions.

1-2 weeks  before

Set up course in learning system will all files, assignments, discussion forums, quizzes/tests, gradebook.

 

One aspect of online course development that is a little unsettling to faculty is the need to work with a number of individuals, such as an instructional designer, editor, IT support staff, and a program director. Preparation of traditional courses tends to be a solitary affair and involves little, if any, interaction with others. Faculty often find working with a course development team to be a little confusing and overwhelming. Consequently, one member of the team should be designated as the primary point of contact for faculty who channels all other interactions.

 

Evaluating online courses

 

Because there are many ways that online programs can go wrong, it is important to conduct extensive evaluation activities to detect and correct problems. In addition, online programs tend to invite a lot of scrutiny since they are different from the status quo (i.e., conventional classroom instruction) and it’s valuable to have data that attests to the effectiveness of the courses.

 

As a general rule, it is not realistic to expect faculty to initiate or conduct any type of evaluation activities (beyond what is specified in their grading schemes). So evaluation activities will need to be developed and implemented by another member of the program team, usually the instructional designer or the program director.

 

The core evaluation activity should be the end of course evaluation survey that all students complete after all course activities are finished. Usually the survey function of the learning system can be used to deliver and score the evaluation. Table 4 lists some of the items that are typically included  in the course evaluation.[3] Some institutions may have a standardized course evaluation instrument that all instructors are required to use. However, these evaluation surveys are often in printed form (since they are intended to be handed out in classrooms) and they do not usually address many of the issues that need to be assessed in an online course. Therefore it may be necessary to ask students to complete two evaluations.

 

Table 4. Typical items included in an online course evaluation

 

Discussion forums were valuable (if applicable)

Live sessions were valuable (if applicable)

Software used in course was valuable (if applicable)

Course was well organized

Timely and adequate feedback was provided on homework

Textbook/readings were worthwhile

Course/lesson notes were helpful

Homework assignments contributed to understanding the material

Quizzes/tests were fair assessments

Course workload was about right

Course difficulty was about right

Pace of the course was about right

Amount of material covered was about right