The document discusses roles and responsibilities in online education. It describes three main roles: 1) online course designers who develop instructional materials, 2) online teachers who present activities, manage pacing and student interactions, and conduct assessments, and 3) online facilitators who mentor and advocate for local students and proctor exams. It also discusses challenges like the lack of teacher training, high workload for online teachers, and need for more research on best practices.

1. Michael Barbour
Sacred Heart University

5. Full-Time Model

6. Virtual School Designer: Course Development
 design instructional materials
 works in team with teachers and a virtual school to construct
the online course, etc.
Virtual School Teacher: Pedagogy & Class Management
 presents activities, manages pacing, rigor, etc.
 interacts with students and their facilitators
 undertakes assessment, grading, etc.
Virtual School Site Facilitator: Mentoring & Advocating
 local mentor and advocate for student(s)
 proctors & records grades, etc.
Davis (2007)

7. Developed by team on behalf of the
online program
 a team of teachers, multimedia specialists,
instructional designers
 work for hire/contract
Developed by the online teacher
 hired to teach a non-existent course
 course developed throughout semester

8. Copyright
 who owns the content?
 what happens if teacher leaves?
Expertise/Training
 “more than 31% of teachers reported receiving no training in online
lesson design” (Rice & Dawley, 2007, p. 26)
 to create one hour of training it took 43 hours for instructor-led, 79
hours for basic e-learning, 184 hours for interactive e-learning, and
490 hours for advanced e-learning (Chapman Alliance, 2010)
Lack of Research to Guide Practice
 studies have focused on unreliable and invalid measures
 primary data has been teacher and developer perceptions
 no open access research-based standards

9. Similar to classroom-based teaching, with
differences
 time management, creation of materials,
understanding current technology and working
with a student one-on-one (Kearsley & Blomeyer,
2004)
 work differently to have positive communication
and assessments, using non-verbal
communication, time is needed for teachers to
become comfortable with technology, shift
occurring from teacher-centered to student-
centered learning (Easton, 2003)

10. Online teaching is more work
 CDLI class size limit (official & unofficial)
 asynchronous instruction in particular
Lack of reliable and valid empirical research
 most research is based on teacher perceptions
What is known about teacher training
 learn online in order to teach online
 works in team with teachers and a virtual school to construct
the online course, etc.

11. Critical to the success of students
 research has shown the presence of active facilitators increase
student performance (Roblyer, Freeman, Stabler, &
Schneidmiller, 2007)
 a trained facilitator also has a positive impact on student
performance (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Facilitator should
 monitor student activities
 support students soft learning skills
Facilitator should not
 provide regular tutoring
 provide significant or substantial technical assistance

12. Support for the facilitator
 the allocation of one teaching per school for
each 175 students to support the delivery of
CDLI courses (Shortall & Greene-Fraize, 2007)
 schools that had students participating in
supplemental distributed learning were
eligible to receive 0.125 of a full-time
equivalent for the local or school-based
support of their students engaged in
distributed learning (Barbour, 2011)

13. Role of the parent
 full-time environment
 parent is responsible for significant instruction
 Programs need to consider how to measure (Liu,
Black, Algina, Cavanaugh, & Dawson, 2010) and
foster it (Borup, Graham, & Davies, 2013; Halser
Waters, 2012; Klein, 2006)
 overall findings
 parental involvement tends to decrease as
student performance increases (Borup, Graham,
& Davies, 2013)

14. Lack of reliable and valid
empirical research
 Most of the research is based on teacher
perceptions (methodological limitations)
 most of the research is geographically or
contextually limited

15. Study Results Methodological Limitation
Online
Course
Design
Barbour
(2005,
2007)
7 Principles of effective
asynchronous course
design for adolescent
learners
Interviews with teachers and
course developers at a single
province-wide virtual school that
had a strong synchronous
delivery model. Beliefs were not
validated through observation or
student performance
Online
Teaching
DiPietro
et al.
(2008)
37 Best practice for
effective asynchronous
online instruction
Interviews with teachers at a
single, statewide virtual school
that were selected by virtual
school administrators. Online
teacher beliefs were not validated
through observation or student
performance.

16. Course developers should:
1. prior to beginning development of any of the web-based material,
plan out the course with ideas for the individual lessons and
specific items that they would like to include;
2. keep the navigation simple and to a minimum, but don’t present
the material the same way in every lesson;
3. provide a summary of the content from the required readings or
the synchronous lesson and include examples that are
personalized to the students’ own context;
4. ensure students are given clear instructions and model
expectations of the style and level that will be required for student
work;
5. refrain from using too much text and consider the use of visuals to
replace or supplement text when applicable;
6. only use multimedia that will enhances the content and not simply
because it is available; and
7. develop their content for the average or below average student.

18.  general characteristics – 12 practices
 classroom management strategies – 2 practices
 pedagogical strategies: assessment – 3 practices
 pedagogical strategies: engaging students with
content – 7 practices
 pedagogical strategies: making course meaningful
for students – 4 practices
 pedagogical strategies: providing support– 1
practice
 pedagogical strategies: communication &
community – 5 practices
 technology – 3 practices

19.  based on University of Florida’s
Virtual School Clearinghouse
initiative
 AT&T Foundation-funded project
from 2006-2009
 designed to provide K-12 online
learning programs, particularly
statewide supplemental programs,
with data analysis tools and metrics
for school improvement
 13 of those K-12 online programs
were outlined in a publication
entitled Lessons Learned for Virtual
Schools: Experiences and
Recommendations from the Field
Black, Ferdig, DiPietro (2008)

20.  design-based research approach
to first five years of VHS
 SRI International were external
evaluators
 identified seven goals and
focused all of their research and
evaluation
 resulted in:
 three annual evaluations
 one five-year evaluation
 two subject specific evaluations

21. Lack of professional development
 less than 40% of online teachers reported to
receiving any professional development before they
began teaching online (Rice & Dawley, 2007)
Lack of teacher preparation programs
 less than 2% of universities in the United States
provided any systematic training in their pre-
service or in-service teacher education programs
(Kennedy & Archambault, 2012)

23. Barbour, M. K. (2005). Perceptions of effective web-based design for secondary school students: A
narrative analysis of previously collected data. The Morning Watch, 32(3-4). Retrieved from
http://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/win05/Barbour.htm
Barbour, M. K. (2007). Principles of effective web-based content for secondary school students: Teacher
and developer perceptions. Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 93-114.
Black, E. W., Ferdig, R. E., DiPietro, M. (2008). An overview of evaluative instrumentation for virtual
high schools. American Journal of Distance Education, 22(1), 24-45.
Borup, J., Graham, C. R., & Davies, R. S. (2013). The nature of parental interactions in an online charter
school. American Journal of Distance Education, 27(1), 40-55.
Chaplain Alliance. (2010). How long does it take to create learning. Sandy, UT: Chapman Alliance LLC.
Retrieved from http://leanforward.com/cost-to-create-elearning/
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FIPSE Comprehensive Conference. Retrieved from
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DiPetro, M., Ferdig, R. E., Black, E. W., & Preston, M. (2008). Best practices in teaching K-12 online:
Lessons learned from Michigan Virtual School teachers. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 7(1).
Retrieved from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/7.1.2.pdf

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26. Director of Doctoral Studies
Sacred Heart University, USA
mkbarbour@gmail.com
http://www.michaelbarbour.com
http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com