Abstract:

Whether transitioning from teaching in a live classroom or starting as a new instructor, the transition over to the virtual (online) learning environment can be a daunting experience for some individuals. However, many universities are finding that there is a need for additional instruction or mentoring of these individuals to help ensure a stronger chance of succeeding as an online instructor. On the other hand, the role and function of a mentor may be loosely defined to perhaps very structured, but this depends on the objectives of the academic institution and how much interest they want to extend to both the mentor and mentee. In order to help set the tone and explain how mentoring has changed from the live educational classroom to the virtual one, this presentation will focus on how on several educational institutions have approached this need.
While many new virtual instructors are learning how to operate in the virtual learning environment in terms of learning the learning management system (LMS), as well as learning new policies and procedures for virtual teaching, they have other needs. For some online instructors who are new to this different type of teaching, they may just need someone to help reinforce principles, procedures, processes, and/or regulations. Since online teacher training varies from each educational system, the same key needs exists – teachers need to know that there is someone that they can rely upon for certain answers to current and potential teaching needs. Knowles (1980) noted that “adult [learners] see education as a process of developing increased competence to achieve their full potential in life. They want to be able to apply whatever knowledge and skill they gain today to life more effective tomorrow.” Further, this raises the question of whether our educational institutions are offering enough learning opportunities to help satisfy the needs of the online instructor. In order to address this learning need, and working as a positive reinforcement mechanism, many academic institutions are offering some form of mentoring or coaching. This presentation will focus on how several U.S. educational institutions have created such online mentor or coaching mechanisms to help new or transitioning instructors who are entering the field of online (virtual) teaching.

Keywords:

Virtual learning, mentoring, coaching, on-line learning, on-line instructor, teacher training.