The Impact of Faculty Experience with Emergency Remote Teaching: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study

Abstract

The aim of this phenomenological study is to provide a deeper understanding of the impact of remote teaching on instructors’ perceptions of online learning and future teaching practices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyze open-ended semi-structured interviews conducted with five higher education faculty in Saudi Arabia. Three major themes were identified: enhancing student engagement; increased awareness of technology affordances and constraints; and moving from emergency remote teaching to technology-enhanced and blended learning. Participants of this study were mainly concerned about finding ways to support active student engagement in this new learning environment, which in turn increased their awareness of the educational affordances and constraints of online learning and technologies. Participants’ deeper understanding of the potential of online technologies in supporting student learning, as well as their own and students’ increased familiarity and comfort with online learning and technologies, served as the main drivers for potential future implementation of blended learning and technology-enhanced teaching practices. With that said, participants were still apprehensive about engaging in fully online teaching, arguing that blended strategies and enhanced-technology integration are more likely to overcome some of the limitations of face-to-face teaching and improve the overall learning experience for their students. Discussion of these findings in relation to the extant literature and their implications for higher education institutions moving forward are provided.

Viewing Technology Integration in Current Classroom Through Triple-E Framework

“…The digital literacy in this scope indeed is wide, reflecting IOT comprehensions, technology integration in classroom, online assessment, and project-based [12]. When these aspects are well occupied, the tendency of obtaining effectiveness in the integration of technology is getting high, vice versa [2], [7], [9], [12].…”

“…In fact, when technology is used properly, it may provide tremendous guidance in the direction of teaching and learning enhancement [1]- [4]. On the contrary, it appears to be creating barriers when technology is just taken for granted [4]- [7].…”

“…This research attempted to employ its advantages for describing the effectiveness of technology tools used by teachers in achieving learning objectives. The emerge of technology tools gains enormous attention during post pandemic education [1], [2], [7]- [13]. Teachers and students start realizing the emerge of technology in learning is extremely essential in current educations [8], [14], [15].…”

Teaching during a Pandemic: Elementary Candidates’ Experiences with Engagement in Distance Education

“…However, DE requires a different conceptualization of engagement since the learner has fewer opportunities to engage with the instructor (Martin & Bolliger, 2018). DE student engagement provides incentives to motivate student participation, interaction with teachers, peers, and course material (Al-Freih, 2021).…”

“…Educational technology research reports on the benefits that student engagement and interaction have on student outcomes (Al-Freih, 2021;Lear et al, 2010), describes DE interaction types (Anderson, 2003;Moore, 1989) and the skills teachers need to be effective DE educators (Zhao et al, 2005). However, most literature reports on higher education contexts where DE educators enact instruction for adult learners.…”