Thrive Online: A New Approach to Building Expertise and Confidence as an Online Educator

Research shows that online education, when designed and facilitated well, is as effective as traditional campus-based instruction. Despite the evidence, many faculty perceive online education as inferior to traditional instruction―and are often quite vocal in their skepticism. Simultaneously, however, more and more students are seeking online courses and degree programs.

Thrive Online: A New Approach to Building Expertise and Confidence as an Online Educator is an invitation for the rising tide of online educators who are relatively new to teaching online, and also for those more experienced instructors who are increasingly frustrated by the dominant bias against online education.

Readers will find:
•An approach that empowers online educators to thrive professionally using a set of specific agentic behaviors
•Strategies for approaching conversations about online learning in new ways that inform the skeptics and critics
•Strategies that celebrate the additional skills and proficiencies developed by successful online educators
•Guidance for educators who want to feel natural and fluent in the online learning environment
•Guidance for enhancing the user-centered nature of online spaces to create student-centered learning environments
•Encouragement for online educators to pursue leadership opportunities

The internet is changing how people communicate and learn. Thrive Online: A New Approach to Building Expertise and Confidence as an Online Educator offers guidance, inspiration and strategies required to adapt and lead higher education through this change. This book is for higher education instructors who are seeking community, a sense of belonging, and the professional respect they deserve. Thriving is not a reaction to our environment, but rather a state of being we can create intentionally for ourselves.

The time has come to change the conversation about online education. Add your voice – join the community and #ThriveOnline.

Shannon Riggs has worked in a variety of highereducation roles since 2001 and currently serves in an executive leadershipposition in the distance education division of a large, public, R1 land grantuniversity. Riggs is active nationally in the field of online education and isknown for her commitment to quality and passion for supporting faculty. Riggsregularly presents at conferences and has written for publication about onlinecourse development, faculty development, leadership, and innovation. She iscurrently serving a three-year elected position for the Quality Matters (QM)Instructional Design Association, a three-year elected position for the QMAcademic Advisory Committee, and a three-year elected position on the WesternInterstate Commission for Higher Education Cooperative for Educational Technologies(WCET) Steering Committee.

Dr. Katie Linder is currently the executive director for program development at Kansas State University Global Campus. Previously, she directed the award-winning Ecampus Research Unit at Oregon State University. Katie is also a Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation. 

Katie is an avid writer and researcher with a passion for process and peeking behind the scenes at what it takes to be a successful academic. For the past several years, her work has focused on blended course design best practices, institutional supports for accessible online learning, and research literacy for scholarship of teaching and learning practitioners and distance education stakeholders. She speaks on topics related to writing and publication; creativity and productivity; self-promotion and personal branding; and teaching and learning with technology.

Her latest works include Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (Stylus, 2020; co-authored with Kevin Kelly and Tom Tobin), Managing Your Professional Identity Online: A Guide for Faculty, Staff, and Administrators (Stylus, 2018), High-Impact Practices in Online Education (Stylus, 2018), and The Business of Innovating Online (Stylus, 2019). She is also the author of The Blended Course Design Workbook: A Practical Guide (Stylus, 2016). 

Katie earned her BA in English Literature from Whitworth University in Spokane, WA, and her MA and PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from The Ohio State University.

Visit her personal website at: https://drkatielinder.com

 

Penny Ralston-Berg is a SeniorInstructional Designer at Pennsylvania State University World Campus.