ERIC Number: EJ1294448
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Apr
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2165-2554
EISSN: N/A
All Aboard! Getting Faculty Mobilized for Emergency Online Teaching
Lach, Patrick A.; Russell, Lisa M.; Morgan, Robin K.
Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, v10 p142-152 Apr 2021
The 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic forced faculty members at institutions of higher learning across the world into teaching online in about 2 weeks. This reflective essay describes steps taken by business school faculty in a U.S. Midwestern midsized regional university to assist other faculty in the school in making this rapid transition to 100% online teaching. These steps include the development of an online course template within the university's course management system, made available to all faculty with tips and video tutorials specifically tailored to business courses. Many tenure-track professors and full-time instructors, who were required to complete extensive training prior to teaching online courses, were relatively well prepared. Despite this training, some felt overwhelmed when the pandemic forced an immediate transition online, and adjunct instructors and some junior faculty were particularly affected. Consistent with the conservation of resources theory, which suggests that individuals conserve their limited resources (e.g., time, money, etc.) to ensure availability when they are most needed, many instructors, particularly adjunct and junior faculty, were constrained by competing demands and less likely to have the resources to attend the requisite training for online teaching. Adjunct instructors often teach a small number of courses while maintaining full-time employment in their respective fields, and junior faculty must also expend resources on service and publishing demands. The availability of a special online course helped these vulnerable faculty members make the rapid transition to emergency online teaching. This reflective essay also describes the results of a survey about this transition among both faculty and the university's center for teaching and learning (CTL) staff. Last, we recommend strategies for CTLs and academic departments to prepare for future crises, for example, "deputizing" power users in each academic unit to redistribute workloads during emergencies and sharing tips and tricks customized for their departments. Creating annual online training modules is another strategy to allow seamless transition to unexpected online teaching.
Descriptors: College Faculty, Web Based Instruction, COVID-19, Pandemics, Emergency Programs, Faculty Development, Adjunct Faculty, Integrated Learning Systems, Educational Environment, Educational Technology
Indiana University. 107 South Indiana Avenue, Bryan Hall 203B, Bloomington, IN 47405. Tel: 317-274-5647; Fax: 317-278-2360; e-mail: josotl@iu.edu; Web site: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jotlt
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A

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