The Excellent Online Instructor: Strategies for Professional Development Strategies for Professional Development

The Excellent Online Instructor is a guide for new and seasoned faculty who teach online, those responsible for training and developing online instructors, and administrators who must evaluate online faculty performance. This comprehensive resource describes the qualities of and explains how one can become an excellent online instructor. Written by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt--noted experts in online instruction--the book
* Includes models based in adult learning principles and best practices
* Offers guidelines to test instructors' readiness to teach online
* Contains ideas for overcoming faculty resistance
* Reveals how to develop an effective mentoring program
* Shows how to establish a long-term faculty development effort

Praise for The Excellent Online Instructor

"Palloff and Pratt have a profound understanding of the online educational milieu, its complexities and challenges as well as the potential it opens up to serious educators dedicated to exploiting its full value. Practical and down-to-earth strategies are at the core of what the authors offer the reader in this engaging book."
--Michael J. Canuel, CEO, LEARN Quebec

"This book examines best practices for effective online teaching and instructor engagement and provides a concise plan for faculty development and effective training methods. Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt have provided another essential resource for the field of online teaching and learning that is a must-read for anyone working with faculty or teaching online in either higher education or K-12."
--Kaye Shelton, dean, Online Education, Dallas Baptist University

"Whether you are guiding departmental faculty or looking to improve your own online skills, Palloff and Pratt provide practical steps, tools to organize your processes, best practices to emulate, and valuable resources to help you achieve excellence online."
--Lynn Olson, dean, Graduate and Professional Studies, St. Joseph's College Online

Because research evidence suggests that a good instructor is the key to student persistence in online courses, the hiring, training, and evaluation of good online instructors has become high priority for most online institutions.  With increasing scale of online delivery, however, comes the need to recruit and hire faculty who may not have the experience or skills coming into an online course or program that they need.  Consequently, providing good training and also providing incentives for keeping good faculty have become critical concerns. This book will explore these concerns and approaches by helping readers: Know what it takes to develop a new instructor in order to promote excellent online teaching Describe the qualities of a good online instructor and how to evaluate good teaching online Develop good models of faculty training for online teaching based on adult learning principles and best practices in faculty training Use a newly-developed assessment of faculty readiness for online teaching Learn methods and processes that have shown to be successful in training and motivating online instructors Identify means by which technology can be used to facilitate and enhance the training process Learn best practices that exemplify excellence in online teaching Engage in their own self-training and development to supplement what is being offered by their institutions or replace it if none is offered