Trio selected as fellows for national online learning leadership program

Shanna Coles, Florence Martin and Heather McCullough have been selected as 2016 fellows for the Institute of Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL), a leadership development program sponsored by the UNC Online Learning Consortium and Penn State University.

This program, which is in its eighth year, will enable fellows to work with colleagues from around the world and join a growing network of higher education leaders. IELOL fellows are selected through an application process and sponsored by their home institution.

The five-month fellows program spans July through November and includes a week-long immersion experience. IELOL is cohort-based and requires the 55 fellows to participate in a variety of individual, group and team projects, including a team-based case study. The blended program explores aspects of personal, local and global leadership challenges in online learning. Fellows will interact with national and international leaders in the fields of higher and online education. The program culminates with the IELOL Masters Class at the annual Online Learning Consortium conference.

Coles, who is a senior program manager in the Office of Distance Education and Summer School and the Quality Matters (QM) coordinator for UNC Charlotte, is responsible for coordinating the approval and accreditation process for online and distance programs and supporting the course development process. Working closely with colleagues in the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), Coles helps guide faculty members through the various options for QM training and for eventual QM course certification. She has developed and delivered multiple online courses around innovation and technology for the American Studies program.

Martin, associate professor and program director of the Instructional Systems Technology program in the College of Education, teaches 100 percent asynchronously online. She won the Crystal Award from Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) in 2015 for her innovative distance education course titled “Design and Development of Online Learning Systems.” Also, she has five of her courses Quality Matters certified, which is the most any UNC Charlotte faculty has received so far. Martin has collaborated with CTL to host the “Teaching Online” webinar series. Her research focuses on designing and integrating online learning environments to improve learner motivation and engagement to achieve effectiveness in learning. She is incoming president-elect for AECT’s Division of Distance Learning.

McCullough, CTL’s associate director of instructional programs, leads the instructional programs staff and implements the major instructional programs, large-scale instructional projects and new initiatives offered by the center. Her recent collaborations with the Office of Distance Education have included offering programming to guide faculty in the development and delivery of hybrid and online courses and support for Quality Matters, a faculty-centered, peer review process that is designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses.

CTL director Garvey Pyke is an alumnus of the IELOL program.