All Aboard! Getting Faculty Mobilized for Emergency Online Teaching

Abstract

This reflective essay describes steps taken by Business faculty in a U.S. Midwestern mid-sized regional university to assist faculty in making the 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. The coronavirus pandemic forced faculty members at institutions across the world into teaching online in about two weeks. Many tenure-track professors and full-time instructors, who were required to complete extensive training prior to teaching online courses, were relatively well-prepared. In spite of this training, some instructors felt overwhelmed when the pandemic forced an immediate transition online. 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. Adjunct instructors often teach limited courses while maintaining full-time employment in their respective fields. Junior faculty also have limited resources due to 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 center for teaching and learning (CTL) staff. Lastly, we recommend strategies for CTLs and academic departments to prepare for future crises. “Deputizing” power-users in each academic unit to redistribute workloads during emergencies and sharing tips and tricks customized for their departments is one such strategy. Creating annual online training modules is another strategy to allow seamless transition to unexpected online teaching.

Training, comfort, and perceived effectiveness: Lessons from the pandemic

“…In addition, many faculties do not engage in additional formal CTL training beyond the initial training typically offered to new faculty members (Sweet et al, 2017). This lack of formal training may be partially resolved by having faculty take what they learn in formal CTL events and share the information informally with colleagues within their discipline (Debelius & Mooney, 2020;Lach et al, 2022;Sweet et al, 2017). This practice, which Lach et al (2022) call "filtered informal learning," can be especially effective since faculty can take the formal information from CTLs and produce discipline-specific applications.…”

“…This lack of formal training may be partially resolved by having faculty take what they learn in formal CTL events and share the information informally with colleagues within their discipline (Debelius & Mooney, 2020;Lach et al, 2022;Sweet et al, 2017). This practice, which Lach et al (2022) call "filtered informal learning," can be especially effective since faculty can take the formal information from CTLs and produce discipline-specific applications. Marbach-Ad et al (2015) argue that a discipline-specific application is important because of the technical nature of material in different disciplines.…”

“…to continuously enhance student learning. This level of learning often enables faculty to develop more authentic assessment, stronger direct evidence of learning, and higher levels of student engagement (Kummitha et al, 2021;Lach et al, 2021). These skills are especially important for business school faculty who may be teaching in rapidly evolving fields such as digital marketing or business analytics (Elhajjar, 2022;Rienzo & Chen, 2018).…”

“…We also evaluate the relationship between formal training in online teaching and perceptions of general stress, including key challenges during the ETOL. Prior research has found a positive relationship between training in online teaching and perceived effectiveness (Kummitha et al, 2021;Lach et al, 2021) as well as a positive relationship between training in online teaching and perceived comfort (Bélanger et al, 2011;Brinkley-Etzkorn & Schumann, 2015;Lee et al, 2021;Stickney et al, 2019). Prior research has also found a positive relationship between perceived comfort and perceived effectiveness (Marbach-Ad et al, 2013;Nadler et al, 2012;Stickney et al, 2019).…”

“…Early in the pandemic, college faculty around the world faced an Emergency Transition to Online Learning (ETOL) to slow the spread of this deadly virus among students, faculty, and their families. An ETOL is defined as the complete or partial transition of academic offerings to a fully online learning environment due to an exigent crisis event including inclement weather, outbreak of illness, disaster, or an emergency (Lach et al., 2021).…”