Abstract:

Drexel University is private university located in Philadelphia, Pa. Drexel has 13 colleges and schools that house more than 29,000 students in nearly 70 undergraduate majors and over 100 graduate majors. Known as a highly technological university, Drexel was one of the first U.S. universities to offer coursework online, with online enrollment in 2016-2017 exceeding 7,000 students. Like many universities, Drexel has struggled to create synergies in its online programming, with the various schools and colleges maintaining their own systems for key management functions such as the training of faculty to teach online and online instructional design. This paper/presentation will chronicle the development, delivery and results of a University initiative to educate and train faculty in online pedagogy and design.

Designed by a team of professors and instructional designers the pedagogy course titles “Essentials in Online Teaching” has been successfully piloted and launched across the university. The authors will discuss the key components of this course and present completion data, end of course evaluation data, and data outlining the long term impacts of the course on the participants’ approach to online teaching. The second course, titled “Advanced Pedagogy and Design” has been successfully piloted and is being prepared for a university-wide launch in 2018. The authors will also discuss the collaborative design process of the two courses and the challenges in launching a university-wide initiative within the culture of a decentralized university.

Keywords:

Lifelong Learning, Learning and Teaching Methodologies, Distance education, New Experiences for Curriculum Design, Training.