I have a problem with the college's Advanced eLearning Academy, the semester-long professional development program for veteran online instructors.

Really, it's been plaguing me all semester, like a low, dull migraine constantly pressing against the inside of my skull.

But the problem isn't the fault of the Advanced eLearning Academy, and it isn't the fault of the Center for Innovative Pedagogy (which hosts both the eLearning Academy for new instructors and the Advanced eLearning Academy for veteran instructors) and it isn't the fault of the college.

The fault is mine, all mine.

I have failed.

But, as I tell my students, failure is the greatest teacher.

What I've learned is that I failed for the same reasons many of our online students do—inappropriate expectations and failure to allot sufficient time to the task—and I'm sharing this failure in hopes it'll help other faculty learn from my mistake.

See, I had attended the first eLearning Academy about five years ago, but not because I was new to teaching online. I've been teaching online courses pretty much every single semester, including most summers, since 1998.

I participated in the introductory eLearning Academy a few years back because at the time it was a new approach by the college to facilitate training for new online instructors and I wanted to see what it was all about. As a long-time DE practitioner, a member of the college Distance Education Committee (DEC) since 2005 and a union officer since 2007, I wanted to experience it firsthand, compare it to other programs I'm familiar with and see how it aligned with the feedback and recommendations of DEC.

That was the first semester the eLearning Academy was offered at SCCC, so it was in pilot phase and the workload was quite manageable. I drove out to Ammerman on Fridays, participated in the instructional sessions in the morning, then spent hours on those afternoons applying what I had learned.

The Advanced eLearning Academy, on the other hand, is fully online. As a DEC member, I knew that well in advance. That wasn't the problem. The trouble was that based on my previous experience, I (arrogantly?) didn't structure my teaching schedule appropriately to make space for the Advanced eLearning Academy. In hindsight I should have not taken on any overload courses this semester.

Here's why.

As a compositionist, I assign writing in every single one of my courses, and I do not cancel classes during conference weeks. And this semester I was teaching ENG201 Advanced Expository Writing for our honors program for the first time, and those students have been revising their essays for publication submission to venues ranging from our campus newspaper to national undergraduate journals, which means they needed a lot of additional feedback.

As the secretary of the FA, I've been busy with our weekly officer meetings and monthly Executive Council meetings, co-chairing the sabbatical and faculty development & retraining committees, various events and activities and, of course, the three issues of The WORD this semester.

Also, as the mom of a fourth grader and a sixth grader, I'm the kids' school bus to and from school each day (their school is just 15 minutes from the Eastern Campus) and their afterschool and extracurricular activities and volunteering schedules add an extra layer of busyness to my life.

I know what you're thinking: We all have extensive work and family and other obligations that we're constantly juggling. I get that.

But the point is this: The material covered in the Advanced eLearning Academy is extensive—rightfully so—and applying this material to one of your own courses, a requirement of the program, takes a good deal of thought and reflection. And that takes time if you're going to do it well. There's no way around it.

The eLearning Academy covers topics such as the following:

• Quality Matters (QM)
• Course self-review using QM (applying backwards design)
• Course alignment map
• Synchronous activities
• Community of Inquiry framework
• ADA compliance
• Advanced Blackboard tools
• Creative Commons licensing
• Open Educational Resources

From the start of the course, just seeing the schedule of assignments in the syllabus, I knew that I was in trouble, that I had bitten off more than I could chew. I said as much in the discussion forums. I've long been familiar with the Quality Matters program, having completed an online summer training a while ago, and the labor involved in revising a course to meet the QM criteria is significant. Plus, conducting backwards design for a writing-based course takes a good deal of intellectual labor because it's all writing.

Again, none of this is criticism aimed at the Advanced eLearning Academy. The topics covered are important and necessary for even very experienced online faculty like me to learn and apply.

I strongly everyone who teaches online to enroll in the Advanced eLearning Academy. It's a good program, and it's important for faculty to refresh, revise and update our online courses.

But don't do so unless you structure your campus workload and/or external obligations in such a way that you have sufficient time to devote to this professional development opportunity.

It is important—but to do it well requires time and attention.

I, for one, will be very busy this wintersession.