Feedback on Michigan Tech’s Online Teaching Training

Michelle Jarvie-Eggart
Michelle Jarvie-Eggart

Michelle Jarvie-Eggart (EF), Thomas Freeman (CTL), Janet Staker Woerner of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, PhD student Mary Benjamin (environmental engineering) and MiCUP undergraduate researcher Luis Fernandez-Arcay of Grand Valley State University surveyed the faculty who completed Michigan Tech’s online teaching training from 2019 through 2021 to determine how that training changed their approach to the design of a course, a lesson and their teaching in general.

The group’s work, published in the Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, found that the training provided essential pedagogical and instructional design education absent in most PhD programs, resulting in self-reported improvements in both online and in-person instruction. Additionally, the experience of learning online increased faculty empathy for students.

Jarvie-Eggart, M., Freeman, T., Woerner, J. S., Benjamin, M., & Fernandez-Arcay, L. (2023). Learning to Teach Well in Any Format: Examining the Effects of Online Teachers’ Training on University Faculty Teaching. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 23(2). https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v23i2.5808