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Higher Ed Dive
Did colleges' quick move online ready faculty for a long-term shift?
You can't "unexpand what people now know," one instructor said. But
logistics, cost and burnout are likely barriers to permanent virtual
expansion.
Hallie Busta
Students weren't the only ones disrupted when the pandemic forced
colleges and universities to shutter their campuses and move activities
online.
Faculty also had their work upended, with no indication of when, or if, the status quo would return.
They weren't entirely without a safety net, however. As spring turned
to summer and the realities of the pandemic crystallized, several
colleges shifted professional development efforts into a higher gear.
That support ranged from informal consultations to multiday workshops
about how to teach online. In more than a few cases, compensation and
credentials were offered.
Eight in 10 college instructors participated in some form of
professional development for digital learning to prepare to teach
online this fall, according to an August survey of 3,641 faculty
members across 1,532 two- and four-year colleges by investment bank and
consulting firm Tyton Partners. Respondents said their schools offered
more help for online instruction compared to the spring.
Faculty development experts are hopeful the effects will be lasting.
Faculty have been "so much on a learning curve themselves that it's
like, there's no way you can unexpand what people now know and use in
education," said Kathy Fernandes, academic technology officer at
California State University, Chico.
But as colleges seek to grow their online offerings more broadly, how
schools and instructors adjust to the pandemic-induced shift can
illuminate the support needed for a permanent transition.
Much of the focus has been on improving the learner experience, said
Terah Crews, vice president of learning solutions at Guild Education,
which partners colleges and corporations to provide education benefits.
"The next step is to bring that forward and go, 'How do we improve the
faculty’s experience?'"
Five days of Zoom
Faculty members participating in CSU Chico's online learning summer
institutes got a taste of what it's like to be a college student in
2020: five nonconsecutive, seven-plus-hour days of synchronous video
instruction.
If it sounds onerous, that's the point. It "was invaluable for faculty
to be on the other end of Zoom for such long periods of time. That
informed them," said Fernandes, who developed and oversaw the
three-week programs, which included nine days of asynchronous
activities.
The experience featured presentations from faculty and subject-matter
experts as well as a discussion with students. Faculty mentors also
helped participants talk through what they learned in smaller groups.
Those mentors allowed Fernandes' small team to help more instructors
than they would have otherwise been able.
In all, 310 faculty members participated, along with 20 mentors.
Participants had to complete several tasks: Set up a course in the
learning management system for two weeks into the semester, post the
syllabus, develop a two-page course plan, and create a video reflecting
on the experience and sharing plans for that course.
Programs at other institutions also included ways to show instructors understood how to teach remotely.
Xavier University of Louisiana switched LMS providers a couple of years ago and many faculty had yet to fully transition.
"That obviously proved to be a pretty big problem in the spring when we
switched to remote learning kind of at the last minute," said Jason
Todd, an English professor and associate director for programming at
the university's faculty development center.
To help faculty get up to speed, the center developed an asynchronous
course called #LearnEverywhereXULA, which took participants about 12
hours to complete. After working through eight course modules, they had
to finish creating a course in the LMS and submit it to Todd's team for
feedback. In exchange, they could earn a certificate and $2,000, Todd
said.
It's not the only campus to pay instructors. CSU Chico gave faculty
participants $1,500 if they completed course deliverables by a set
deadline; faculty mentors got $6,055. All faculty also received a
completion certificate that can go in their personnel file.
North Carolina State University provided $1,000 per fall course taught
by full-time faculty on nine-month contracts to help them prepare over
the summer in case their classes moved online. (The university shifted
to fully remote instruction soon after the term began.)
The vast majority — 93% — of respondents to Tyton Partners' survey said
they'd be teaching a hybrid or online course this fall. Of that group,
a similar share said they were transitioning a class that previously
was taught face-to-face.
While faculty members are accustomed to unpaid summer work preparing
fall classes, "it was nice that this time, the urgency was demonstrated
with that financial support," Xavier's Todd said. That hasn't been the
case for many faculty, however.
While some teaching and learning experts interviewed for this story
were unsure whether this period would have a lasting impact on how
institutions supported online instruction, they generally agreed that
having faculty level up their skills simultaneously would have
long-term benefits.
"We have had people participating collectively in professional
development at the same time on an unprecedented scale," said Emily
Magruder, director of CSU's Institute for Teaching and Learning, noting
that some 17,000 faculty systemwide participated in programs this
summer designed to help them teach remotely this fall. "When they're
all doing it at the same time, that has the virtue of creating a kind
of collective teacher efficacy vocabulary conversation."
"Any exploration of teaching and learning is going to inform the way
people teach in any modality going forward," Magruder continued, noting
that the system's early decision to have fall classes mostly online
yielded important time to prepare.
Changes for the long haul
Kansas State University began fall with a mix of hybrid, in-person and
online classes, but there was a lot of uncertainty around if and when
the campus might need to go fully remote, said Katie Linder, executive
director for program development at Kansas State's Global Campus.
Faculty also knew they would need to accommodate people who couldn't
come to class because of the virus.
To help instructors ready their classes for online delivery, Global
Campus, working with other groups including the university's teaching
and learning center and its IT services, came up with the Online Course
Design Institute.
The team shifted the mostly asynchronous institute slightly to cover
blended teaching and learning as the university formalized its fall
plans. About 400 faculty and staff members completed the summer courses.
Many colleges are likely to at least start the spring term online. And
the pandemic has seen several institutions make new investments to
expand online learning for the long term.
Greg Siering, director of Indiana University Bloomington's teaching and
learning center, expects one lasting impact of the pandemic will be
greater flexibility around how classes are offered. But more funding,
smaller class sizes and enhanced course design support will be needed
to make it work, Siering said.
The higher ed sector will need to realize what is already known about
online learning, Siering said, which is that "it takes significant
investment."
CSU Chico used funding from the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic
Security (CARES) Act to pay for its training program. Crews, the
consultant, is seeing colleges use their CARES money to build out basic
capabilities for online learning, noting that the initial investment
can be the biggest hurdle. "It's created focus and discussion," she
said of the relief funding.
Prospects for additional relief have dimmed, though the sector has been
pushing for more. And while Tyton Partners' survey indicated that
required training could be a burden on faculty already strapped for
time, it also found more support was needed for faculty teaching hybrid
classes.
"There's definitely a sense of exhaustion and burnout" among faculty,
said Chantal Levesque-Bristol, executive director at Purdue
University's Center for Instructional Excellence. The university
developed truncated versions of its IMPACT course development program
in response to the pandemic, which more than 1,000 faculty completed
this summer. CARES money was used to fund part of the program, which
taught online and hybrid instruction through the LMS.
Materials from Kansas State's institute will be available to anyone at
the university, Linder said. And participants in CSU Chico's seminars
can continue their discussions at weekly virtual meetings. Those
conversations and other interactions are important, Fernandes said.
"How do we keep supporting faculty through December to keep moving them
forward without them being exhausted? In other words, how do they
support each other?"
But Fernandes and others are looking ahead to the next term, when they
want to offer more training. But they won't have as much time to
prepare and aren't sure what kind of funding will be available. "That's
a challenge, the next challenge," Fernandes said.
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