More students to benefit from online instruction at Illinois Virtual High School

eCollege’s online course prepares and certifies teachers for online instruction

To ensure that Illinois Virtual High School (IVHS) students receive the highest quality online instruction, IVHS has partnered with eCollege. Together, IVHS and eCollege are certifying applicants for teaching online through a five-week course, titled Teaching Online Courses, offered through eCollege’s eTeaching Institute . This rigorously designed course places potential teachers into the students’ learning environment—providing first-hand knowledge of future students’ experience before instructing online. Additionally, IVHS administrators monitor and assess the applicants’ progress through the online course.

This approach to teacher preparation has been proven to enhance the students’ online experience. At Michigan Virtual High School, for example, greater virtual learning success resulted when teachers’ “skill development was focused on successfully learning how to navigate in the [learning] environment” (Davis, 2003, p. 80). Recognizing this, IVHS and eCollege have created a partnership that addresses this vital need.

CMS teacher challenges and solutions

A course management system (CMS) is the most critical piece of technology to any virtual school (Freedman, 2005). Knowing this, IVHS selected the eCollege solution to support their online learning programs. As Ansorge and Bendus (2003) stated, “CMSs provide a course environment that has the potential of influencing the way instructors teach.” Since the beginning of virtual schooling, many have argued that teachers need to experience online learning themselves to fully appreciate the challenges their students will face (Zucker & Komza, 2003).

Because IVHS is dedicated to the success of its programs, the virtual school requires any teacher who wants to instruct online to successfully complete two training initiatives. The first is the TechPoint Proficiency Assessment (www.techpt.org/index.php), which assures that the teaching applicants’ literacy with technology meets the National Educational Technology Standards. The second initiative is attaining a Certificate in Online Teaching through the eCollege course.

EDU 101: Teaching Online Courses

The five-week, instructor led online course, EDU 101B: Teaching Online Courses, prepares teachers to teach in an online environment. Teaching Online Courses and many other courses are available to eCollege Educational Partners through the eTeaching Institute. The course covers a variety of topics, including:

• Roles and responsibilities of the online instructor
• Teaching using the eCollege system
• Using communication tools
• Incorporating interactivity within online courses
• Assessing students
• Managing online courses
• Personalizing online courses

The course is led by a member of eCollege’s Academic Trainer and Consultant team with IVHS administrators enrolled as observers. IVHS personnel usually respond to IVHS-specific questions, typically dealing with the school’s procedures.

Teaching applicants to teach

During this course, the IVHS applicant can practice teaching online in a sample course (called a course shell). Applicants can complete optional activities in this course shell as though they were preparing to teach their own IVHS course. These optional activities are consistent with Elbaum, McIntyre and Smith (2002), who described providing a comprehensive set of informational materials as an essential element in online course design. Many online students and teachers may have limited or no experience online. The optional activities allow the IVHS applicants to create introductory material that helps students understand course expectations and the structure of online courses.

As a final exercise in the course, applicants are asked to personalize their course shell as if they were teaching with it. This prepares applicants for designing their own courses. Additionally, completion of this optional exercise is viewed as a measure of the applicant’s desire to teach with IVHS.

IVHS and teacher benefits

Because IVHS feels Teaching Online Courses is vital to student success, the school covers the tuition costs. The fact that IVHS pays for all of its applicants to complete this certificate is important, given that Rice and Dawley (2007) found that less than 40% of all online teachers reported receiving professional development prior to actually teaching online.

To pass the eCollege course successfully, the IVHS applicant must score 83% or higher on all of the graded activities. Applicants are awarded an eCollege Certificate in Online Teaching for successfully completing this course.

In the IVHS model, completing the eCollege course qualifies the applicant for a final round of professional development before the school makes a hiring decision. Once the certification has been awarded, the applicant must attend a three-day, face-to-face summer meeting held in Springfield, IL.

Michael K. Barbour – Wayne State University
Jim Kinsella – Illinois Virtual High School
Matthew Wicks – Illinois Virtual High School

Bibliography
Ansorge, C. J., & Bendus, O. (2003). The pedagogical impact of course management systems on faculty,
     students, and institution. In R. Bruning, C. A. Horn, & L. M. PytlikZillig (Eds),
     Web-based learning: What do we know? Where do we go? (pp. 169-190).
     Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Davis, N. M. (2003). Creating a learning community in the virtual classroom. In D. R. Walling (Ed.),
     Virtual schooling: Issues in the development of e-learning policy (pp. 77-83).
     Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.
Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential Elements: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online
     Course. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.
Freedman, G. (2005). Virtual schools: Technology and transformation. In Z. L. Berge & T. Clark (Eds.),
     Virtual schools: Planning for success (pp. 35-45). New York: Teachers College Press.
Zucker, A., & Kozma, R. (2003). The Virtual High School: Teaching generation V.
     New York, NY: Teachers College Press.