Online Teaching: Florida Online Reading Program

I worked on the Florida Online Reading Professional Development (FOR-PD) project, as a graduate assistant/instructional designer and as a member of the program evaluation team. The project was funded by the Florida Department of Education. This statewide project offers a free online class to Florida's teachers to assist them in improving reading instruction. To date, nearly 13,000 teachers have completed the course. The course has received high praise from many of the participants and national recognition.

The development team involved approximately two dozen subject matter experts, a graphic artist, several instructional designers, and two principal investigators. The course is 15 weeks long and is available for graduate credit from four universities in Florida or for professional development inservice points in all 67 of Florida's counties. Each section of the course is assigned a facilitator, most of whom were trained through the project.

In any project this large, it can be difficult to trace specific project pieces to a single individual. The original contribution is modified by the group until it scarcely resembles the original contribution. Acknowledging that fact, I offer the following contributions to the project that have, I believe, retained most of the original flavor of my work.

Developing the Facilitator Manual

FOR-PD staff recognized the course facilitators would play a vital role to the success of the project, providing the important "human element" to the participant experience. Course facilitators are located throughout the state and it was critical to meet the training challenge. One important element to support the facilitators has been a comprehensive facilitator's manual. Compiling this document was one of my early tasks on the project. In fact, I was tasked to work on this before I had facilitated my first online course. My novice status was beneficial because it caused me to ask many of the same questions project facilitators would ask. Fortunately, the office had several experienced online instructors available for my interviews. They were happy to share their best strategies and samples of messages they sent to participants for me to use in compiling this manual.