Armstrong State University Case Study

Greetings! I would like to request your consideration for the position as Director of the Center of Online and Blended Learning at Armstrong State University. Although online course creation and delivery has exploded exponentially during the past decade, as you know, that fact alone does not mean that all online learning is alike. Due to the fact that many “for profit” corporations involved in providing online programs have been chided for mishandling funds and making promises to students they could not keep, public and private universities are feeling the pressure to fill the gap left by many of these multimillion dollar corporations. The greatest mistake Armstrong could make would be to rush our online and blended learning course offerings …show more content…
Not only do I have a vision for what it should look like, but I have also given a great deal of thought to how we can attain these goals to make Armstrong State University a leader in online and blended learning, and not just another one of the many institutions that offers online courses and programs. We cannot continue to think that the status quo is acceptable. As a Faculty member, I push my students to think outside the box and to discover new ways of doing things – not merely because they are new, but because they may provide a better way of doing things. It is important to educate our Faculty on the differences between online and face-to-face course design and delivery, as well as to make sure we are keeping up with the needs of 21st Century Learners. In my position as Assistant Professor of Educational Technology, I have seen first-hand the ways that our students use technology in all parts of their lives. It is important for Armstrong’s Center of Online and Blended Learning that we push the envelope and provide the learning experiences students crave. This means that we have to look at learning and teaching with a different lens than in the past. We have to make sure we are looking …show more content…
One-on-one relationship building is much less threatening to individuals who are already experiencing anxiety because of the thought of doing something new and different. In the interest of discovering where some of the resistance and fear of online learning and teaching are originating, I have developed a research project to gather information from students and faculty members across campus to discern their perceptions of online learning, the barriers they have run into, and their thoughts on the support they need to overcome these obstacles. I am mentoring two Graduate Assistants in the research process so they will be able to conduct the needs assessment and analyze the