Faculty Training
In January 2007, Dr. Adrianne Hunt began training 20 faculty members how to deliver instruction through the Internet. The training schedule lasted 14 weeks and took place primarily through a Blackboard site set up on a McNeese server. The initial training session took place face-to-face AND through compressed video. Ten faculty members from McNeese were in a computer lab with Dr. Hunt, while their ten Nicholls’ classmates observed from Thibodaux through video conferencing technology and laptops of their own.
Dr. Hunt put the faculty members in the unfamiliar role of students for the semester with the outcome being a newly designed online course for the project. This resulted in at least 20-new online courses that were developed between these two universities. Some teachers used their newly formed knowledge to develop multiple courses. Some of the new courses varied in discipline such as Allied Health Sciences, Education, History, Management, General Studies, English, and Health & PE.
With the addition of the new courses, Nicholls State University is able to state that students can now receive a completely online degree, Associate’s Degree in General Studies. This would allow students to get a degree through Nicholls without having to set foot on campus. It also puts a lot of the general education courses online in case a disaster requires the closing of school for any period of time.
