Faculty Online Certification Program

The Faculty Online Certification Program prepares faculty to design a fully online course and is offered completely online. This program is co-facilitated by Cindy Hay, Instructional Designer in the Instructional Technologies, and Dr. Megan Bradley, Associate Professor in Psychology.

Two Online Certification Programs are scheduled:

• January 2, 2011 - February 17, 2012
• March 5, 2012 - April 20, 2012 (registration is now closed)

This program is offered three times a year: Intersession, Spring, and Fall semesters.  The specific dates for the Fall 2012 semester are forthcoming.The program is entirely online; however, the option for synchronous meetings will be discussed once the program begins.  If  you plan to teach in the Intersession, Spring, or Summer 2012 semesters, choose one of these sessions.

Our vision for the Faculty Online Certification Program is to provide faculty with the opportunity to acquire the needed knowledge and skills to design and develop an online course, while also offering flexibility to participate from anywhere there is a computer and Internet access. To achieve this vision, we will use several teaching strategies and technologies to facilitate learning.

Faculty will be immersed in the online environment where they have first hand experience as a 'student' in an online course. This student perspective is invaluable as you design and develop your course for your students.

In this course:
 

• You will become familiar with FSU's policies and procedures for online learning.
• You will experience the online course from student's perspective.
• You will assess your new role as an online course instructor.
• You will develop several pedagogical aspects of your online course.
• You will recognize and identify essential elements of a course that meet quality assurance standards (using the Quality Matters™ rubric).
• You will develop strategies to ensure effective interactions in the online environment.
• Upon successful completion, you will have met the professional development requirements to teach online at FSU (Note: You still need to have your department chair and provosts' approval).

In this program, you will be developing a course you currently teach f2f or a course you want to develop to teach online. You will be provided with a new Blackboard 'course shell' with in which you will develop your course. In this way, we can easily assess the activities relevant to our program and all course members can access and review your course.

How to prepare yourself:

For this program, already acquired Blackboard skills are essential. While we do provide brief instructions about Blackboard, we primarily emphasize pedagogy and online learning.

We will be using several aspects of Blackboard to include: Blackboard Basics, Discussion Board, Assignments, Learning Units, Testing, and Groups. If you are not familiar with these aspects of Blackboard, please consider these options to best prepare you for the Program:

• Enroll in the scheduled Blackboard sessions offered this semester. To register for upcoming Blackboard workshops, click here and then on 'Information Technology'.
• Review the Blackboard tutorials posted on the Blackboard Support site. Note: In addition to the tutorials posted on this site, an 'Instructor Manual' is also available for download. Please cotact ACIT at x7090 if you would like a hard copy of this manual.
• Contact ACIT at acit@frostburg.edu and request assistance.

Register for one of the following sessions:

Registering for this program is a two-step process.

Step 1: Complete the Blackboard Questionnaire. Click the link below (Please remember, this program is not designed to teach you how to use Blackboard; if you find yourself in need of Blackboard skills prior to the program, please enroll in the Blackboard training sessions mentioned earlier).

BLACKBOARD QUESTIONNAIRE

Step 2: Complete the registration form. Click the link below.

REGISTRATION

About the Program Leaders:

	Cindy Hay Cindy is the Instructional Designer in the Office of Academic Computing & Instructional Technologies as well as an adjunct faculty member of FSU's Psychology Department.
	Dr. Megan Bradley Megan is a Professor in the Psychology Department at Frostburg State University. View her web site here.