Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Online Training Spiral

In "The Online Training Spiral", the first chapter of the book Preparing Educators for Online Writing Instruction: Principles and Processes, the authors evaluate five pedagogical principles used to train educators to teach online. Investigation, immersion, individualization, association, and reflection are highlighted in an effort to showcase the ways these principles can shape a "learner-centered framework". The chapter also provides trainers and directors with management strategies for utilizing these principles.

When addressing the immersion principle, the authors suggest that "teaching online necessitates training online," (11) and as such it is imperative that an online training program for educators should include an online component. While a simple assertion, the writers fully outline a series of useful strategies to achieve trainee immersion even when faced with trainee resistance to online tools. "Moreover, given the practical exigencies of employment requirements, budgets, and timelines, immersion helps to initiate new instructors with optimal efficiency" (12).

Reflection is the last principle addressed by the writers, in this chapter, and they suggest that it is important to "address demonstrable competencies" (23). As trainees come with a wide range of experiences and as they improve their skills it is important for them to receive feedback and be given time to "consider, question, and synthesize that feedback." "Such external and internal examination also is vital in the online teaching venue, not least because individuals are making sense, firsthand, of the distinctive nature of online learning" (20-21).

The authors offer the notion that "rigorously examining teaching and learning processes as they occur in naturalistic settings is essential to advancing any education-related program" (6) and suggest that a training program should build into its framework a way for the trainee and the program itself to conduct ongoing research and development. Any teacher orientation to online instruction should be fluid allowing for tweaks and evolution. "This stance is invaluable, given the collective need to rethink and theorize about broader education goals in the online environment - both beyond the particulars of specific platforms, and influenced by the potential instructional media that each new platform suggests" (25).

While this chapter is best suited for trainers and administrators, it does provide higher education instructors, in any subject area, with tools to orient student learners in the online environment. In addition, it effectively highlights the nuances of the adult-learner and best practices for facilitating learning in the online sphere.


Hewett, Beth L., Christa Ehmann. Preparing Educators for Online Writing Instruction: Principles and Processes. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2004.

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