Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Award-Winning Faculty Online Teaching Practices: Roles and Competencies

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

My first reaction was to roll my eyes when I read the title of this paper, because the designation of 'award winning' professors is unscientific at best. I remained sceptical on reading about the "five different roles: facilitator, course designer, content manager, subject matter expert, and mentor," because I know there's a lot more than that. But persisting with it paid off as it turns out to be an interesting and thorough article. There's a good (though not comprehensive) list of competencies (table 4) and an emphasis on the need for quality online instructors to be strong online learners themselves. The authors write, "Our study emphasizes the need for instructors to maintain a strong willingness to learn and grow in their pedagogical and technology skills. This requires seeing oneself as a lifelong learner, allotting time to learn about online teaching and learning, staying abreast of the latest research, theories, and techniques of teaching online, experimenting with technologies, making mistakes and learning from them." Too true.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Dec 16, 2024 09:45 a.m.

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