Professional development for online teaching practices

Julia Hallas
Centre for Educational and Professional Development
AUT University

This study found that early adopters perceive professional development activities, which promote the sharing of experiences and examples of practice, as the most useful ways of developing knowledge about online teaching practices. Early adopters see the development of practical skills, in particular technical and pedagogical, as key in developing online teaching practices.

The professional development activities that early adopters identified as the most useful in developing these practical skills were discussion between peers, face-to-face workshops, one-on-one consultation and mentoring. In contrast, the findings suggest that early adopters found it less useful to attend conferences, read journal articles or books, gain online qualifications or visit websites to learn about online teaching practices.

This paper recommends that more research be undertaken to determine how the less useful professional development activities identified in this study, in particular conferences and websites, could better meet lecturers’ needs.
 
Keywords: early adopters, professional development, online teaching practice