Impact of Reflective Practice on Online Teaching Performance in Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to assess the effective online instructional practices in higher education at Grand Canyon University/GCU. The GCU College of Education created a formative evaluation instrument for online faculty—Five by Five—based on current recommended best practices in online instruction. The instrument is used by online faculty to reflect on their performance using the following five criteria: communication, engagement, expertise , and use of quality instruction techniques. The instrument designers used these criteria with the intent of aligning the PREK-12 best practices with higher education practices. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with an availability sample of fifty online instructors. The sample was split into equal experimental and control groups. The participants in the experimental were assigned to do a self-evaluation and reflection on their online instruction capabilities using the Five by Five instrument. The researchers analyzed classroom data in terms of the five criteria featured in the Five by Five instrument and compared the performance of the experimental and control groups. The results showed statistically significant positive effects of the utilization of Five by Five by online faculty in terms of their participation in the discussion forums and their use of quality instructional techniques.

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