Team Models in Online Course Development: A Unit-Specific Approach

This article profiles an educational technology assistance program titled Digital Language and Literacy, linking technologically literate graduate students in English with faculty developing online courses for the first time. Our reporting and assessment process includes the narrative evidence of two faculty and two graduate student instructional designers, chronicling the possibilities and constraints of implementing a team-development model for online course design and offering guidelines for academic units wishing to adopt similar models. Such models not only help with online course design but also help to establish technological and pedagogical learning communities among current and future faculty. Because these models have also been successful in business organizations through both reverse mentoring and communities of practice, we outline how they can positively impact faculty and graduate students within academic structures that are highly hierarchical and protective of instructional expertise and authority.