The Future of Education

This study was implemented following recent court cases that alleged universities violated antidiscrimination laws by failing to provide closed captioning in their online courses (Lewin, 2015).  We examined faculty perceptions of their participation in a year-long program designed to increase their knowledge of teaching online, with a primary focus on accessibility of web content for students with disabilities.

Eight full-time faculty at our university agreed to participate in training that included the completion of three web-based workshops on best practice for online teaching (provided by the Online Learning Consortium).  After completing all workshops, participants planned and hosted a “brown bag panel discussion” available to all university faculty  In addition, program participants committed to serve as peer mentors to colleagues who teach online courses. 

After the conclusion of the panel presentation, individual interviews with program faculty about the impact of the program on their online instruction were conducted.  The eight faculty responded to the following questions:  (1) What changes do you plan to make to your online courses to support accessibility? To promote student engagement?; (2)  How do you think those changes might affect students' learning outcomes?; (3)  In what ways do you think this training will make you a more effective online instructor?; (4)  How can the University continue to support you in teaching online courses? (5) How has the training changed your awareness of the educational needs of students with disabilities?; (6) Which aspects of this training were new to you; and (7)  What, if anything, would you like to learn more about in terms of planning and conducting online courses?

Responses were audio recorded and will be transcribed verbatim.  Data will be analyzed using a constant comparison method (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014) to identify common themes and threads running throughout the data.  Sample narrative illustrating emerging themes will be provided.  In addition to the findings, the role of training in preparing faculty to meet the instructional needs of students with disabilities in online learning environments will be discussed.

References

Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldana, J. (2014).  Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (3rd ed.).  London:  Sage.