GCU TODAY • 1 9
are based at GCU offices to foster daily
collaboration on course development.
“I’ve worked as an online adjunct before,
where you’re mostly reacting to problems,”
DeCosta added. “(At GCU) we can pinpoint
the problems and address them before they
become major issues.”
Online full-time faculty add another
dimension to teaching first-year students, as
GCU’s freshmen include both teens and adult
working professionals who may not have been
in a classroom for years. With key courses, that
dynamic is essential to provide students with
the critical feedback they need to progress
through their degrees and encounter a variety
of instructors with different teaching styles.
GCU’s provost, Dr. Hank Radda, said
the University aims to provide a more
comprehensive online learning experience than
the “distance learning” model of the past, which
required balancing its online adjunct ranks with
more full-time professors based at GCU to avoid
the faceless, rigid communication of digital
classrooms of the past.
“They create a professional learning
community here, so they’re not at a distance,”
Radda said. “What’s really interesting is you
get into a number of levels of conversations (in
online classrooms). People still think you post
to a message board and wait several days for
responses.”
Kelly Sanderson, GCU’s vice president for
academic operations, shared details of the
University’s online academic growth at an
April conference of the Sloan Consortium’s
International Symposium of Emerging
Technologies for Online Learning. She was
stunned at the response from many university
leaders whose online programs appeared to be
years behind GCU’s.
“The scale is often overwhelming but it also
gives credence to our research because we have
huge population sizes,” Sanderson said. “When
(other universities are) doing studies, they’re
looking at maybe two semesters’ worth of classes,
but we’re looking at 99,000 lines of data.”
Sanderson, GCU President/CEO Brian
Mueller and Jean Mandernach of GCU’s
Center for Innovation in Research and
Teaching (see box) used GCU data to explore
the varying impact of adjunct and full-time
faculty in online classrooms in an article in
the September 2013 edition of the Journal
of Online Learning and Teaching. The
article revealed that “while integration and
utilization of an increasing number of full-time
online faculty may be desirable, the reality
for most universities is that economic and
administrative constraints mandate ongoing
reliance on adjunct online faculty.”
While GCU prides itself on cultivating
experienced online adjunct faculty from
dozens of professional disciplines, the authors
noted that students who study under full-time
online faculty are more likely to successfully
complete their courses, earn better grades and
provide more positive reviews of their online
experiences. The University aims for a mix of
full-time faculty based at “unified teaching
centers,” where they’re surrounded daily by
peers, and adjuncts who often juggle teaching
assignments with their full-time jobs. There
are benefits to learning from either group,
although full-time online faculty can certainly
manage larger groups of students more directly
than adjuncts plugging in from their homes or
offices around the country.
Academic teams such as Dr. Mike
Richardson’s from GCU’s College of Theology
appear to be ahead of the curve. The former
pastor teaches as many as 500 students
each year for the undergraduate Christian
Worldview course and other online courses.
“Having that many students to interact
with on the materials gives you a tremendous
opportunity to think through the issues in
the online classroom,” said Richardson, who
collaborates daily with fellow full-time online
theology faculty based at GCU’s Peoria office.
“You can always do some tweaking and
revising,” he said. “If someone has a need, an
issue, a question about a student problem — we
talk about it and try to figure out how to do it
better.”
MICHAEL FERRARESI
CIRT Reviews
Online Ed
Trends
By 2013, GCU’s enrollment had increased
to 52,300 students. With more than
85 percent of those enrolled in online
programs, the University continues to refine
how it evaluates and improves the online
learning experience.
The Center for Innovation in Research and
Teaching serves as a hub for that discussion.
Led by director and research professor
Jean Mandernach, the center provides
teaching tips, research resources, forums
for faculty to share ideas, and searchable
journal articles related to online education.
To learn more, visit
Teamwork is part of the daily routine for
GCU faculty manager Dr. Meredith Rae
DeCosta (center) and her full-time online
English professors. DeCosta said their
shared space at GCU’s Tempe office allows
them to quickly address classroom or
curriculum issues.
photo by darryl webb
