Mentoring Professors: A Model for Developing Quality
Online Instructors and Courses in Higher Education
Casimir BarCzyk, Janet BuCkenmeyer, and Lori FeLdman
Purdue University Calumet, USA
barczyk@calumet.purdue.edu
buckenme@calumet.purdue.edu
feldman@calumet.purdue.edu
this article presents a four-stage model for mentoring facul-
ty in higher education to deliver high quality online instruc-
tion. it provides a timeline that shows the stages of program
implementation. known as the distance education mentor-
ing Program, its major outcomes include certified instructors,
student achievement, and the attainment of a competitive
advantage in the tight student market for higher education.
the program's benefits to the mentor, protégé, and the orga-
nization are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
this article describes a midwestern public university’s program to train
and develop seasoned professors in the delivery of online instruction. it is a
how-to and outcomes article that can best be characterized as the scholarship
of application (Boyer, 1990). as the growth in the number of students learn-
ing online has increased dramatically (allen & seaman, 2005), and the sys-
tematic assessment of learning outcomes has become more common in
many fields, the need to ensure quality teaching in this format has become
very important. thus the mentoring approach developed by Purdue univer-
sity Calumet was a strategic response aimed at ensuring the academic
integrity of distance education by aligning the conditions for optimal learn-
ing with the best technology for online delivery.
the distance education mentoring Program described in this article is
based on an andragogical approach to learning (Holmes & abington-Coop-
er, 2002). the program focuses on mentoring, a technique used to educate
adults. But what is an andragogical approach? it is a way of sharing knowl-
edge that can be traced back to the 1833 German teacher, alexander kapp,
International Jl. on E-Learning (2010) 9 (1), 7-26