Applying theories of adult learning in developing online programs in gerontology

Abstract

The Department of Aging and Geriatric Research at the University of Florida College of Medicine has established online education programs to provide healthcare professionals with advanced training in the field of gerontology to establish proficiency in providing quality care to older individuals. A major barrier to creating our online education programs was the challenge of transitioning our faculty from a traditional face-to-face learning environment to an online platform. A current trend in this type of professional development is to treat the faculty themselves as adult learners. Meyer has made several recommendations for professional faculty development specific to online education based on an extensive literature review. Here we present a reflection on how we addressed these various recommendations in the professional development of our faculty. We focus on our team’s ability to mentor the faculty through the course creation process by piloting an adult learning/transformative theory approach to instruct the faculty to think as online educators. Our intent is to inform other educators creating similar programs so they may learn from our experiences and use our methods for creating their own online education programs, especially with a “lean team.”