Exploring approaches to professional development for online teaching in higher education: A case study of the graduate diploma in psychology

In online higher education, the relationship between student and teacher is an important determinant of student satisfaction, success and retention. Given the key role that teaching staff play, investing in high-quality staff training and development is an important component for the success of online programs. Different approaches to online staff development are reported in the literature. Looking across the research evidence, it is clear that local context is an important element when deciding how to design and implement an effective development program for online teachers in the university setting. In Australia, universities are now offering increasingly varied course structures that differ from the traditional 12-week semester format. At Monash University, the fully online Graduate Diploma in Psychology (GDP) is offered in 6-week Teaching Periods with 6 intakes per year. In this chapter, we explore what approach might be used to redesign the content in the current GDP staff training to incorporate evidence-based practices and improve the professional development experiences of our online educators.