Distance Education and the Evolution of Online Learning in the United States

Online education is no longer a trend, rather it is mainstream. In the Fall of 2012, 69.1% of chief academic leaders indicated online learning was critical to their long-term strategy and of the 20.6 million students enrolled in higher education, 6.7 million were enrolled in an online course (Allen & Seaman, 2013; United States Department of Education, 2013). The advent of online education and its rapid growth has forced academic institutions and faculty to question the current styles and techniques for teaching and learning. As developments in educational technology continue to advance, the ways in which we deliver and receive knowledge in both the traditional and online classrooms will further evolve. It is necessary to investigate and understand the progression and advancements in educational technology and the variety of methods used to deliver knowledge to improve the quality of education we provide today and motivate, inspire, and educate the students of the 21st century. This paper explores the atioevolution of distance education beginning with correspondence and the use of parcel post, to radio, then to television, and finally to online education.

Development of The Readiness To Teach Online Scale

Despite the growing importance of online education, faculty acceptance has remained unchanged. Training programs developed for faculty to teach online have often focused on assessing their cognitive rather than affective and behavioral outcomes. The Readiness To Teach Online scale was developed as part of a multiphase mixed method research project to measure faculty perceptions and motivations toward teaching online. Items in the subcategory Teaching and Learning measured perceptions of technology and online teaching, and motivations regarding resources and other external factors. Items in the subcategories Social and Student Engagement, Faculty and Technology Support, Course Development and Instructional Design, and Evaluation and Assessment collected baseline data for current practices. The pilot study of this scale demonstrated strong internal consistency reliability estimates and support for validity, showing moderately to highly correlated significant relationships between faculty perceptions and motivation to teach online; both perception and motivation constructs were moderately to highly correlated with Social and Student Engagement.