Hi Jennifer,

I love your thoughts on teaching circles.  I teach as a full time online faculty member and the times that I was able to get together with other faculty members and share thoughts and best practices for specific areas in each of our classes, it was very beneficial.  It is a little different in my setting because I can meet with at team of people in person.  I think that for the adjunct environment, any type of access to thoughts and techniques from teachers is very beneficial.  It helps the person to continue to grow and learn and to serve the student in a more effective manner.  Take care and keep up the great efforts. 

Jennifer,

I have often focused on the subject of isolation for students in distance education classes.  Your subject of combatting the isolation that the instructor feels as well is one of important research. 

Thanks for the "must-read" for online adjuncts, such as myself.

Jennifer, I was really interested in your study and think it is very necessary. Thanks for the work you put in. I did find several grammatical errors in your paper that could use some editing. For example, in the first paragraph one sentence contains the phrase, "in order to allow for participate in discussion forums." Also in the Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Studies there is a sentence that contains the phrase, "there are some disadvantages were discovered." These are a couple of examples. I thought the pre and post surveys were well done and the suggestion about the live chat feature was a good one. I will be curious to see where this study leads and would love to see a teaching circle in the area of mathematics. It seems to me that the less isolated a faculty member feels, the less isolated his/her students will be made to feel as well. Thanks again for the work on this topic. I will be looking for more!

Good paper ideas Jennifer, hope more read this paper! The points raised here are good ones. The teaching circles are a great idea for online faculty and even for faculty on the ground. The idea of having a place where faculty can swap ideas, share, and find support is wonderful. It seems one of the only times online faculty have support in many schools is when there is some type of intervention. Monitoring for reviews and assessment are typically not an occasion faculty feel supported or look for support, nor are openly monitored or lead forums where discussion and learning are lead, and topics are curtailed. Faculty circles really appear to be a sharing area that faculty can gain learning as well as assistance when needed. This might be a good place to host meetings and support sessions too. Feeling connected helps the faculty excel in their work personally and be a part of work too. Good point, if online faculty believe they are part of the larger community, their positive inspirations will only transfer to the larger community- students and general public. Pay it forward! Happy faculty and well versed faculty are not only good for the university, but are retained. I look forward to reading more on the topic. Good ideas!

Great topic!

First, the formatting of this submission is inviting!  While I prefer 12-point, Times New Roman font, however, the structure of the submission is wonderful!

As someone who left public education, due to an injury, to work from home, I find it interesting that educator isolation is an issue with online instructing.  The challenge in public schools, over my 22 years in the field, was to get educators to collaborate!  Many teachers still close their doors and do their own thing!  It would stand to reason that the online experience would appeal to such educators.

As an administrator, I spent hours upon hours encouraging educators to collaborate, share, and replicate best practices.  Your research is somewhat consistent with my experiences.

I would be interested in future studies related to this topic.  Thank you!

Rae Thompson

Comment from Gary Piercy, Ph.D:

Your research is of interest to me as I am both an online adjunct faculty member and currently serve as a lead faculty member in the College of Doctoral Studies (CODS) at GCU.  These positions seem in line with your research interest.  When I first began at GCU, I felt the isolation to which you referred.  In fact, I came up with a word that I called "websolation" to identify the sense of isolation I felt because of facilitating courses in a virtual classroom.  The teaching circles you describe reflect what I knew as faculty discussion forums, which were asynchronous forums that faculty could discuss various problems.  In these forums, I was able to build positive relationships with several faculty members at GCU.

In 2011, CODS asked me to serve as a lead faculty for LDR 802.  I saw this as an opportunity to build a team of faculty members to facilitate the course.  My idea was to share information with those faculty members with whom I worked and to work with them to create repositories' of information from which we could all draw in an effort to reduce redundancy among faculty, share best-practices, and help to eliminate websolation by creating relationships similar to those faculty have in an on campus environment.  Through monthly webinars, frequent emails, and occasional telephone conversations, we have moved beyond the asynchronous discussions to real-time relationships.  Thus far, our efforts have been fruitful especially in building a sense of community and creating a link to the University as the lead faculty represents one that those teaching LDR 802 can turn to when questions or needs arise. 

Regarding guidance for your research problem, you wrote, "The problem is online adjunct professors are working virtually from home computers and are lacking a direct line of communication when questions in regards to curriculum and student issues arise, or when instructors are in need of additional materials."  This may be a problem for adjuncts, but a research problem must stem from research literature (Ellis & Levy, 2008).  Thus, it is important to link the problem to existing research and identify a gap in the research literature.  This is reflected the Deficiencies in the Evidence section in which you wrote,

            From reviewing the literature, there is a limited amount of research available in             regards to the level of faculty interaction, how the level of faculty performance             impacts student retention and performance, as well as the relationship between a                         faculty member's feeling of connectedness to the university and how this connection      impacts the faculty member's performance. In addition, further research needs to be      conducted in order to provide existing online faculty members with the opportunity     to participate in professional development and access to new strategies to better   serve their student's needs.

Your statements point to gaps in the literature, which is the problem.  Thus, research should aim to fill the gap in the literature by contributing to knowledge and practice.  Additionally, you wrote, "from reviewing the literature…."  I suggest that you cite the literature to which you refer so that readers can review the sources for themselves should they desire to do so. 

Further, in the Procedures section, you wrote in future tense (as though the research was in the future); however, in the Data Analysis section, you wrote in past tense.  Since the research has already taken place, the procedures should also reflect past tense.  Additionally, assuming you are following APA formatting, review the titles on the reference page, citation errors, and quotation mark errors.

I trust my comments are helpful

Thank you for your work.

Dr Gary Piercy

Reference

Ellis, T. J. & Levy, Y. (2008).  Framework of problem-based research:  A guide for novice researchers on the development of a research-worthy problem.  Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline 11, 17-33.

Jennifer

As an adjunct, I frequently feel a disconnect from the full time faculty just because I am not present.  The idea of the circle is great and certainly performing reasearch determines the use of it and notifies staff it is there.  So, congratulations for a great idea!

I do have some concerns about  the APA and grammar throughout the paper.  For example, numbers  one through nine are still written out, as well as in the beginning of a sentence (Publication manual of the american psychological association, 6th ed, 2010, p. 112). Also, another exampleof grammar or spelling is to be careful of posessiveness, such a s University's vs universities.   

Beyond the Background and Justification portion of the paper, there are limited citations to support your information.  It would also be helpful to describe the use of Wikis, chats,  and discussions or how they were used in the research in more detail.

Again, good luck on a good idea, I look forward to following your progress. Reference

Publication manuel of the american psychological association, 6th ed. (2010). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Cindy Yascavage

Jennifer,

After being an adjunct online instructor for years and now an full time online faculty member, it would have been very nice to have these types of professional learning circles would definitely help. There is a sense of isolationism in working in your own home without any interaction with your peers. Perhaps there could be Skype or some other multimedia tool used for learning circles once a month or something like that. I am thinking that the universities that have online faculty members could also show accreditation committees that they are continuing to maintain a certain level of professional development for their staff as well.