Showing papers by "Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena published in 2017"

Implementing the First Cross-border Professional Development Online Course through International E-mentoring: Reflections and Perspectives

Abstract: This research paper discusses the accomplishments, issues, and challenges experienced by Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) academics when offering the first cross-border professional development online course to train online tutors and mentors. The course was delivered exclusively online and facilitated by OUSL academics and e-mentors from the USA. The course was comprised of 30 participants: 9 from Pakistan, 10 from Mauritius and 11 from Sri Lanka. This qualitative study is based on reflections of both faculty and participants. Data were collected using reflections and informal anecdotal records of the three OUSL academics and self-reflection instruments (pre, mid and final) administered to participants, and reflective journal entries made by participants. Participants’ views were triangulated with the reflections of the OUSL academics to validate the results. While there were many accomplishments in the design and delivery of the course, the findings revealed that there were many challenges in implementing the course: pedagogical, organizational and technological aspects in particular. The paper provides recommendations to address such challenges when offering cross-border online courses in the future.

Designing online interaction to address disciplinary competencies: A cross-country comparison of faculty perspectives

Abstract: This study was conducted at colleges in three countries (United States, Venezuela, and Spain) and across three academic disciplines (engineering, education, and business), to examine how experienced faculty define competencies for their discipline, and design instructional interaction for online courses. A qualitative research design employing in-depth interviews was selected. Results show that disciplinary knowledge takes precedence when faculty members select competencies to be developed in online courses for their respective professions. In all three disciplines, the design of interaction to correspond with disciplinary competencies was often influenced by contextual factors that modify faculty intention. Therefore, instructional design will vary across countries in the same discipline to address the local context, such as the needs and expectations of the learners, faculty perspectives, beliefs and values, and the needs of the institution, the community, and country. The three disciplines from the three countries agreed on the importance of the following competencies: knowledge of the field, higher order cognitive processes such as critical thinking, analysis, problem solving, transfer of knowledge, oral and written communication skills, team work, decision making, leadership and management skills, indicating far more similarities in competencies than differences between the three different applied disciplines. We found a lack of correspondence between faculty’s intent to develop collaborative learning skills and the actual development of them. Contextual factors such as faculty prior experience in design, student reluctance to engage in collaborative learning, and institutional assessment systems that focus on individual performance were some of these reasons.