In order to produce and deliver successful online professional development, special consideration must be paid to the ways in which the online medium differs from traditional face-to-face instruction. The spectrum of issues that apply to online professional development aligns with those that apply to face-to-face professional development as well. However, the new medium requires that we shift our emphases in certain ways.

6.1 Guidelines for Effective OPD Workshop Design

The process of designing an effective OPD workshop is similar in many ways to designing effective in-person workshops, with the addition of some special considerations for maximizing the effectiveness, and minimizing the pitfalls, of the online environment and the asynchronous, text-based primary form of communication. In this set of guidelines, we discuss both the key considerations that are related to in-person workshops and those that are unique to our learning community approach to online workshops. We present these guidelines as a series of design recommendations. Many of the recommendations relate to the limitations of the online communication channels, and suggest steps that should be taken to make the learning experience effective within these constraints.

See Appendix H for COPE materials from a conference workshop we presented at NECC '99 that describe the OPD development process in more detail.

This principle is, of course, true of all teaching - the better one knows the interests, knowledge levels, learning styles, time availability, and other characteristics of the learners, the more effective one can be as a teacher. For OPD, it is also important to know what access to technology your participants will have, and how comfortable they are with it. Online workshops also raise some additional considerations in that the opportunities to get to know the participants, and the types and timing of feedback are achieved in different ways than in face-to-face workshops.

The implications of this principle vary in different situations. For example, if an online workshop is run as a follow-up to an in-person event, or if in-person meetings are integrated with online learning during the course of the workshop, the facilitators will be able to obtain direct information about the audience. However, if the workshop brings together people from many places without any in-person meetings, care should be taken to obtain information via pre-workshop surveys and initial online discussions, and feedback should be solicited, typically by email and perhaps by scheduled phone conversations, during the workshop. This principle is closely related to the following ones.

We have found that when the primary form of communication is limited to text-based asynchronous discussions, there is a great need to clearly define the goals of the workshop and to make sure that the goals directly address the needs of the participants. This works in two directions: defining goals that address the needs of likely participants, and communicating those goals very clearly to enable potential participants to determine whether the workshop will meet their needs. In recent workshops, we have provided potential participants with detailed descriptions of the workshop goals and requirements, and used pre-registration surveys to check that the potential participants’ interests matched the goals.

While this principle is important for any type of workshop, we have found that this guideline requires particular care in online workshops for several reasons: (1) There is limited feedback - you can’t see when participants look puzzled or uninterested, so it is difficult to make quick adjustments, e.g., to clarify, explain further, provide examples, or make connections more explicitly, in response to the participants’ needs; (2) The pacing of an online workshop content and discussion also reduces the opportunities for ongoing revisions; (3) Participants with different goals and interests can push the discussion in different directions; and (4) It is more challenging to keep participants engaged when there is no personal contact, and especially challenging to re-engage participants if their interest has waned during a session or two.

While online workshops provide flexibility in time and place for participation, active, ongoing participation is essential in order for a learning community approach to OPD to be successful. For each session, which typically lasts for one week, each participant needs to: (a) complete the assignment, which might involve readings, reviewing web sites, designing a lesson, or other activities; (b) contribute their thoughts in response to one or more discussion questions; and (c) read and respond to the messages posted by others. Therefore, participants need to agree to access the workshop web site at least three times per session, and to respond to other participants’ postings.

Online learning is characterized by the fact that each participant works at his or her own pace. This means that online discussions evolve over time, asynchronously, with participants and facilitators responding to each other at different times, and not always immediately. Therefore, it is crucial to frame sessions so that they can survive and even benefit from a lag in response time, and so that they accommodate participants working at their own paces, and being at different parts of assignments during the same time period.

However, if everyone works at their own pace without any scaffolding, then soon the online course will resemble a self-paced tutorial for each individual, and it will be very difficult to achieve meaningful discussions. One strategy for coping with the pacing challenge is to frame assignments in small, clear chunks, and to provide incremental due dates every couple of days, or at most every week. This way, participants can work at their own paces within a structured time frame, and discussions can be organized so that they build on participants’ readings and activities.

The fact that an online workshop extends over multiple weeks - about six-to-eight in a typical COPE workshop - provides the opportunity to make meaningful connections to participants’ classroom or administrative practices. Sometimes these connections are fortuitous. For example, in one COPE workshop, participants were reading about and discussing strategies for enforcing Internet acceptable use policies at the same time as one participant was dealing with a disciplinary issue in her school; not only did this connection help the one administrator, but as her experience unfolded over the weeks, it enriched the workshop discussions for the rest of the participants as well. Workshop designers should take advantage of the OPD pacing to mix off-line and online activities. For example, in longer workshops, teachers can learn about an online tool during the workshop by testing it out and discussing implementation strategies with other participants, and they can subsequently integrate this tool into a lesson they do with their students; after each teacher’s classroom experience, they can report back to each other in the workshop to discuss additional strategies and refinements.

The format of an online workshop is conducive to many forms of information sharing and pooling of resources. For example, participants can each research a different web site or teaching tool, and then report back to the group. Participants can also post drafts of new lesson plans for feedback from the group or from a specific peer-review partner.

The pace of an OPD workshop also has implications for the nature of the discussions. Participants can take the time to read others’ comments and carefully consider their own responses before posting a message. This pacing enables more contributions from more participants than in many in-person settings. For example, when mixing in-person classes with online discussions, we have found that many individuals contribute far more online than during a class meeting. There are many reasons for this, including: some students for whom English is not their native language feel more comfortable writing than speaking English; some students prefer to have time to reflect carefully before adding their ideas to a discussion, and find they cannot do so while listening to others in class; some find it difficult to get into the conversation in class and are hesitant to take up class time with their comments; and many continue to have ideas after a class, and like having a means to express them to the group.

The pace of an OPD workshop is therefore appropriate for multiple contributions from multiple participants, and provides time to link to off-line activities, to reflect upon the activities and others’ comments, and to have everyone get time and space to contribute what they have to say. However, the pace is not conducive to intense brainstorming sessions or other interactions that require quick interchanges that build immediately upon each other.

It is valuable to provide "we are all together" moments to segue from one assignment to the next. These help keep the workshop participants together, knowing what they have completed and what they are about to do. For example, facilitators can summarize the previous discussion and provide a transition to the next assignment and discussion topic. (More suggestions regarding session summaries and related facilitation strategies are provided in Section 6.2, under the heading "Guide participants through the curriculum".)

Various types of activities can be used to provide "we are all together" moments. For example, surveys can be used to compile participants’ thinking on a topic and display the group’s results. In addition, participants can engage in collaborative, consensus-building activities, or scheduled synchronous chat sessions.

Good web-based writing has some different characteristics than writing for print media. For example, it is best to limit the amount of information presented at one time, but to provide a clear overview with links to more details and examples that a reader can follow when they so choose. Visual organizers, which can include links for more information, are very valuable on the web.

Since many people prefer to read lengthy documents in hard copy rather than on-screen, any long articles or other readings should be formatted to accommodate easy printing.

Educators report that they are overwhelmed by the amount of information available on the web; they have difficulty knowing where to find appropriate, up-to-date, accurate information relevant to their professional needs. OPD resources and tasks can help address the "information overload". For example, workshops should present a set of carefully selected relevant resources. It is also helpful to have each workshop participant review a few of these resources and post their comments; the compiled set of everyone’s reviews provides a useful way for participants to determine which resources are most likely to meet their needs, while minimizing each person’s time spent looking at sites.

Don’t assume that what works on your computer and with your Internet connection will work for everyone else. Conduct pre-workshop surveys to assess the type (PC versus Macintosh) and sophistication of the computers that your participants will be using, as well as the speeds of their Internet connections. Make sure that all your activities and all components of the workshop web site are feasible given these parameters. If you plan to include high-bandwidth components, such as audio or video clips, make sure that you also provide lower-bandwidth alternatives, such as text and simple images. Try to test everything from the types of computers that your participants will be using, and above all, provide quality technical support to your participants throughout the workshop. Technical support should include opportunities for face-to-face help as needed.

Teachers and administrators have many day-to-day professional demands, and have extensive expertise in meeting these demands. Asking for examples from participants’ own work and providing opportunities for participants to bring their own experiences into the discussions lead to good engagement and sharing of ideas. Teachers and administrators find tremendous value in learning about their colleagues’ strategies for approaching issues and challenges that they all face. Good online workshops provide many opportunities for participants to share their own expertise and experiences during online discussions and workshop activities.

A key advantage of OPD is that it enables educators to experience using the technology as learners, giving them first-hand experiences that can inform their decisions about using technology with students. It is therefore valuable to provide experiences in which participants function as learners themselves, not simply as reviewers of learning materials for their students.

Effective workshops enable participants to learn key concepts that they can apply to new materials. This requires that participants have opportunities to explore specific examples along with readings and discussions that help them connect the specific examples to understand key concepts that can be applied broadly. For example, in our workshop on connecting the Internet with curriculum standards, we used the Library of Congress American Memory materials as an example. However, we focused the discussion on the potential advantages and challenges of using web-based primary historical resources with students, with American Memory as one example, rather than focusing on just the potential uses of this one set of materials.

Active engagement in discussions by many participants is critical for a successful workshop. Choosing materials, activities, and provocative questions to stimulate discussions is a critical part of workshop design. Finding areas in which there will be different views, controversy, relevant experiences, and current needs among the participants leads to good online interactions.

Teaching cases, role-playing, "fishbowl" discussions, small-group activities, debates, compare-and-contrast activities, and other techniques used in face-to-face workshops can be used in the online environment, but require careful consideration about the flow of information, the nature of the interactions, and the other requirements of the activity in order to design appropriate online versions.

A defined end-product can take many forms, as long as it is useful and authentic for the participant. Having a defined end-product, e.g., a technology-enhanced lesson, analyses of web sites, a plan for selecting specific technology to use with students, organizes the work throughout the sessions. It also provides products for participants to share and discuss at the end of the workshop, and to apply to their own professional practice. When needed, these end-products can also serve as a means for participant evaluation.

6.2 Guidelines for Effective OPD Workshop Facilitation

Online course facilitators, like classroom teachers, play a variety of roles. In the online medium, it is possible to divide the roles among several people. Whether or not there will be one or more people responsible for the online course, it is helpful to consider the various roles and strategies that go into successful online facilitation. The following recommendations are addressed to current or future OPD facilitators.

6.3 Implementation Strategies

In addition to the specific design and facilitation guidelines outlined above, there are also implementation issues that must be considered in order to ensure effective online workshops. In our experience so far, the following factors were essential to the success of districts’ online professional development experiences.

It is important to make teachers aware of the online professional development activities that will be available to them. Districts have done this by advertising their OPD offerings in their printed professional development catalogs, and/or on their district web sites. Many districts mail professional development catalogs to teachers during the summer before the upcoming academic year. This allows teachers to plan ahead, scheduling time to participate, assuring that they have appropriate hardware and Internet access available, and allowing them time to acquire or practice any prerequisite technical skills that may be required. Advance advertising also ensures that the workshops will have adequate enrollments.

If your teachers will be participating in online workshops facilitated by another organization, then this is not an issue. However, if your district is participating in a capacity-building program, in which local staff are learning how to become OPD facilitators, then it is important to carefully select these staff. In general, we have found that districts benefit from selecting a team of people to serve as OPD facilitators, rather than a single individual. You should select this team with several criteria in mind: leadership, professional development and technical skills, content knowledge relevant to the OPD courses that will be offered, time availability, and interest in online learning and teaching. Time availability is particularly crucial, since OPD facilitation is not something that can be successfully accomplished around the margins of an otherwise full schedule. Districts that have had successful experiences have selected professional development specialists, lead teachers, library media specialists, curriculum coordinators, and others whose schedules can be planned to allow time for the facilitation of an online course.

In online teaching and learning, incentive and accountability go hand-in-hand. It is important to balance the need for holding participants accountable for their work and providing compensation for their time spent either facilitating or participating in online professional development activities. Our research has found that workshop facilitators and participants who received incentives from their districts showed increased motivation and participation, and successfully completed workshop end products. Many districts have arranged to provide PDPs or CEUs for both workshop facilitators and participants based on the number of hours spent taking and/or facilitating courses. Additionally, some districts have provided their local facilitators and participants with stipends and/or computer hardware or software for classroom use. In situations where districts could not afford these types of incentives, they awarded Certificates of Completion and other forms of recognition, which were appreciated by facilitators and participants.

Districts that have included face-to-face meetings at the beginning, middle, and/or end of an OPD workshop have found that these meetings are very helpful for introducing the online discussion software, creating and sustaining enthusiasm, building a sense of a learning community, answering participants’ questions, recognizing participants’ accomplishments, and sharing their work.

It is crucial to establish a working relationship and clear lines of communication between those involved in online professional development and the district’s information technology department. Those in charge of the district’s networking and technical infrastructure should be made aware of the OPD activities, so that they can be prepared to make any necessary adjustments to firewalls or proxy servers, and so that they will inform OPD personnel of any upcoming maintenance or infrastructure changes that would affect their ability to participate in online courses.

The quality of participants’ OPD experiences often depends on the availability of timely local technical support. A lack of support can lead to frustration, whereas timely support can enable productive OPD experiences (participants may also learn a lot about computers from their interactions with helpful technical support staff). Technical support may need to cover a wide range of issues, such as: ensuring that participants have up-to-date web browsers, determining whether a problem accessing the Internet is due to the particular computer being used, a district network problem, or a problem elsewhere on the Internet; helping participants adjust their browser configurations to enable java or to accept cookies; answering participants’ questions about the functionality of the OPD web site; and general troubleshooting. Since there is incredible diversity in the types of computers, software configurations, and individual knowledge, technical support is best accomplished locally. There should also be clear communication between local technical support personnel and the managers of the OPD course environment, to resolve any issues that may be due to the course site design and functionality.

6.4 Assessment Strategies

Just as with any professional development activity, it is important to assess the impact of the learning experience on participants. In addition, since the online professional development medium is very new, it is helpful to collect feedback that can be used to refine the online environment and the nature of the OPD experience. The following suggestions are based on our initial assessments of our online workshops.

To measure whether you have reached your stated goals, it is useful to repeat questions from a pre-workshop survey on the post-workshop survey (e.g., questions regarding participants’ level of knowledge about a particular topic, comfort with target technologies, and any changes in attitudes, ideas, resources, and strategies.) Participants will also benefit from reviewing their pre-workshop responses and comparing them to their post-workshop responses. It is convenient to use web-based survey forms to collect this information. (Sample pre- and post-workshop surveys are provided in Appendices D and E.)

On the post-workshop survey, it is helpful to include questions to assess the success of workshop design components and facilitation strategies. This information can inform the design of future workshops.

Follow-up inquiries of your participants can investigate whether there have been any changes in behavior, attitude, usage, and practice. Email is a convenient method for doing this from a distance.

Since the text of all discussion messages from the workshop are automatically archived, it can be helpful to analyze them to track the nature of the discussions, what common themes emerged, how participants related to each other and to the course content, etc. Quantitative information, such as the number of messages posted by individuals, frequency of participation, and number of levels of responses within particular discussions can also be analyzed.

In the last week of the workshop, invite participants to post messages reflecting on their experiences in the course and what they have learned, and to discuss what they plan to do next.

Back to Top
Back to Table of Contents
Previous Section | Next Section