Week 2 Article 1

Title:

Frequency and Time Investment of Instructors’ Participation in Threaded Discussion in the Online Classroom

Bibliography:

Mandernach, Jean, Dailey-Herbert, Amber, & Donnelli-Sallee, Emily Frequency and Time Investment of Instructors' Participation in Threaded Discussion in the Online Classroom. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 6, Retrieved April 14, 2007, from www.ncolr.org/jiol.

Summary:

By conducting this study, the researchers examined frequency and time investment of an online instructor’s participation in course-specific threaded discussions in order to provide a more accurate picture of the faculty investment in the ongoing facilitation of an online course, independent of course development. In this paper, they report that “research suggests that online teaching requires more time and effort than face-to-face teaching.” They also discussed the difference between planning and instructing. Also, they noted the disparity in time spent teaching by faculty new to teaching online versus experienced online faculty. The following passage really spelled out for me how difficult the transition from face-to-face to online instruction can be:

Additionally, the online instructor must gain assurance and proficiency in using the Web as the primary communication between teacher-student, learn to successfully teach without the use of body language, and evolve from the role of content-provider to content-facilitator (Williams & Peters, 1997) . When one considers the number of new instructional skills that must be mastered, it is no surprise that many faculty report a greater time investment for the initial switch to teaching in an online environment.

There also seemed to be more time required for faculty members teaching a course for the first time online versus faculty members teaching a course that had already been established as an online course. This made logical sense! The authors also discussed concerns around the 24/7 online environment and how students can easily feel that faculty member should be available whenever the student is online. This may lead to increased frustration for both the instructor and students. Furthermore, students reported that the need to be concise in electronic communication (e.g. discussion boards and emails) rather than having open, oral discussion is very limited and thus a weakness of online classes.

The study consisted of ten randomly selected courses to determine the mean number of days per week of faculty interaction, the mean number of faculty posts per threaded discussion, and the mean faculty time spent on discussion activities.

Reaction:

I found the study very interesting. It provided me with much food for thought. I had not thought about the difference in time spent by new faculty versus the time “seasoned” faculty spend teaching a specific online class. I had thought about the enhanced skill set online faculty would need, but the authors of this article really spelled those out for the readers.

I thought it was interesting how they established their sample, and their method seemed to be well thought out. They even went so far as to identify areas of their data that might be skewed. i.e. the time instructors spend on the threaded discussions couldn’t be clearly defined as the system simply tracks the amount of time the instructor is logged into the system not specifically how long they spend on the discussion board. The system also does not track idle time. That is time the instructor was logged on but not actively engaged in the class site.