Graduation Year

2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ed.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Adult, Career and Higher Education

Major Professor

Elizabeth Shaunessy-Dedrick, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Howard Johnston, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Sanghoon Park, Ph.D.

Keywords

Adjuncts, Quality, Instructor, Support

Abstract

With a rapid increase in higher education online course offerings, many institutions are hiring part-time faculty to meet the demand of online learning. However, a lack of professional development in online course facilitation has proven to limit the effectiveness of facilitation and hinder the foundational quality standards the courses were built upon. An evaluative pilot study was conducted on a professional development framework provided to a group of online course facilitators that were hired to teach the course but did not participate in the online course developments. Since many course facilitators are not online faculty developers, they have limited knowledge of the online pedagogy the course was structured around. By implementing a professional development framework, I was able to determine whether or not professional development for online course facilitators positively affected the delivery of their online courses. Data was collected using a mixed-methods approach and illustrated that professional development support is imperative to the success of our part-time faculty members and how they facilitate online courses.

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