Creating Successful Professional Development Activities for Online Faculty: A Reorganized Framework
In the online environment, faculty engagement in the form of professional development takes on a new significance. Online programs hold strategic importance and growth opportunities for institutions, and therefore universities need faculty members who are engaged and effectively teaching in the online environment (Allen & Seaman, 2013, 2016; Dennis, 2013). Faculty professional development provides a vital component to overall faculty engagement and student success in the online environment. Extant research shows that when faculty members are active within the university, they are also likely to be engaged in the classroom (Drew & Klopper, 2014; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005.) Effective professional development specifically offered for online faculty needs to provide additional layers of support to help foster community, support faculty use of technologies, and meet university requirements (Meyer & Murrell, 2014). This paper presents a reorganized, more systematic professional development framework for online faculty that enhances virtual opportunities and support within the domains of personal considerations and interpersonal relationships (Caffarella & Zinn, 1999; Cervero & Daley, 2016). The approach developed in this paper reorients and extends an existing conceptual construct by placing greater emphasis on the development of a community of learning in order to help faculty develop strong pedagogical practice in teaching in order to both meet university requirements and foster increased student success.
