On the train ride home, I debated about sharing my observations about train travel in the mid-Atlantic corridor or genuine Maryland crab cakes. Well…

Riding in the hotel elevators during the conference, I participated in and/or overheard numerous conversations about the best places to find the best crab cakes. Obviously, I am not the only one who realized that you can only experience the gold standard crab cake in Maryland. I even talked with a lady from North Carolina (or Michigan or some other distance place) who had the foresight to bring a cooler so that she could take some of those gems home with her. I actually fought the urge to stop at Lexington Market on my way to the train station to bring a supply back to share with my friends and co-workers, but Baltimore is still just a very comfortable day-trip on the train.

Last Innovations Conference highlights:

“The essential difference between a successful and not successful online class is the faculty member.”

“Student outcomes are strongly affected by the quality of the faculty.”

“A bad[ly designed] online course with a great instructor is better than a great course with a bad instructor.”

These are statements made by Susan G. James and David A. Binder, the co-presenters of one of the Innovations Conference forum sessions on Tuesday. These presenters, experienced online instructors and researchers from Walden University, talked about the importance of faculty development for online faculty and about the need to use principles of adult learning theories to design and deliver effective training to faculty. James and Binder strongly believe that faculty need training in pedagogy (andragogy), not just how to use the technology. This resonated with me because that same concern was included in comments from the SACS’ QEP evaluation team.

Faculty development is essential, so essential that this topic is a part of the last Virtual Conference 2010 Around the Water Cooler conversation that begins on Thursday. Please participate in the short poll and then join the conversation and share your views on whether we need faculty prerequisites for online courses. (A second thread is whether there should be gate-keeping prerequisites for students.)

Also on Thursday, watch C.J. Bracken’s presentation on Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools and then join him to discuss ways to use these tools to improve student success.