The Department of Educational Technology and Literacy invites the university community to a dissertation defense for La Tonya Denise Dyer on November 20, 2018 from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm in HH 110.
Dissertation title: Professional development for online faculty: Supporting conceptual change through conceptual conflict activities
Committee members: Dr. Liyan Song (chair), Dr. William Sadera, Dr. Scot NcNary, and Dr. Deborah Nolan
Abstract: Despite the increasing demand for online courses, skepticism by faculty and administration regarding the legitimacy of online education continues to exist (Allen & Seaman, 2016). To address these concerns institutions have turned to professional developers and faculty development centers. Unfortunately, the provided professional development activities tend to focus on the development of skills, especially technical skills (Howell, Saba, Lindsay, & Williams, 2004) instead of addressing directly the shift in faculty conceptual views and beliefs that would address the causes of their skepticism. For faculty to facilitate instruction successfully within an online course, the professional development offered must support the conceptual change process by providing opportunities for faculty to reflect on their beliefs, declare their areas of concern, and identify plausible solutions to address them.
This qualitative multi-case study explored five faculty members’ progression through conceptual conflict inspired professional development activities. The study used as a framework Posner, Strike, Hewson, and Gertzog (1982) conceptual change process and Nussbaum and Novick’s (1982) conceptual conflict instructional strategy as a guide for the development of the module activities. The study examined the impact of a conceptual conflict inspired module of professional development activities focused on faculty’s conceptual change experiences regarding online instruction. Data were collected through the activities of concept maps, discussion forums, the journal, and the semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using the triangulation and categorization strategies, concept map analysis table (Figure 1) and criterion-based guidelines (Hay 2007)
The findings revealed that the participants’ completion of the What’s on Your Mind? module resulted in them experiencing the conceptual change process. The participants were able to declare their beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes, reveal their areas of concern, and identify plausible solutions to address them. This research bridges a gap in the current literature by introducing a professional development module designed to afford participants an opportunity to experience the conceptual change process. As a result of completing the activities, participants
(a) acknowledged their current conceptual beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions regarding teaching and learning within the online environment;
(b) identified areas of dissatisfaction within their beliefs; and
(c) identified plausible solutions to address their areas of dissatisfaction
