al. (2009) note a kind of “reverse impact phenomenon” whereby teachers have experienced transferred skills improvements in face-to-face tuition by enhancing online teaching skills. While these authors based the outcomes around K-12 teachers, it is likely that the gains experienced by teachers (e.g., improved self-reflection on teaching and assessment methods; increased sensitivity toward student needs) would be similarly relevant to on-campus tertiary teachers. It is also important, however, to consider the environmental challenges posed by more intensive teaching timeframes. Instructors delivering content in shorter blocks of time have less time to reflect on, adapt and amend content before the next unit delivery, and thus unit re-design and content development can be more of a challenge in intensive online environments. Effective online instructors have a direct and important role in influencing the student experience, since instructors are often the “face” of an online course. Prior studies have emphasized instructor presence as among the most critical of factors related to student success online (Easton, 2003; Menchaca and Bekele, 2008; Kennette and Redd, 2015; Kim and Thayne, 2015). In the absence of the richness of interactions available to on-campus students, instructors become an even more important “ingredient” in helping to engage, retain, and graduate online students. Instructors also play a key role in motivating students throughout their online study (Bolliger and Martindale, 2004), since instructors may commonly be the only personalized point of contact provided to students at any one time. Instructor responsiveness and availability has been highlighted as a key predictor of online student satisfaction, in that lack of timely feedback or slow communication timeframes from instructors detract from student satisfaction online (Bolliger and Martindale, 2004). It is apparent that development of instructor training is a critical component of effective institutional preparation for wholly online courses, so that teachers can develop the range of skills required to teach online successfully. When considering the applicability of teacher competencies to an intensive online environment, it is reasonable to assume that the faster-paced nature of intensive learning may require greater competence with respect to certain instructor skills. The building of teacher competencies is a process that requires institutional planning and reflection when considering a move to more intensive online degree offerings, so that instructors are supported to flourish and students can benefit from quality instruction. The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model proposed by Mishra and Koehler (2006) (see Figure 1 below) provides a useful framework through which to view teacher competencies across multiple levels, and we can apply this model to consider teacher skills in intensive online environments. 17
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