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Kicking and Screaming: Overcoming Faculty Resistance to Teaching Online Courses

Abstract

Faculty may find themselves in an awkward position: having to reformat a face-to-face course to an online course because of institutional or departmental need. They may not want to make this change, but it is necessary. They come in “kicking and screaming” about the changes. What approaches might be used, what guidelines can be offered, what safeguards can be built into the process for success rather than failure? Join the discussion, hear some suggestions.

Description

Imagine a traditional face-to-face class which must be adapted to an online course format to meet the needs of a department, an institution, and students. The faculty member is “kicking and screaming” about the necessary change, doesn’t want to make this change, but is being told this is required. Perhaps not an ideal situation, but frequently the case in point.

As an instructional technologist or as another faculty member, there are things which you can do to help facilitate this change from a F2F class to an online course.

Approaches used may include discussing the need for the change, the approaches you might use in working with this faculty member, some guidelines which may be offered to facilitate this transition, and some safeguards which might be built into the process to encourage success rather than failure of the course.

At the completion of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. identify the characteristics of distance education;
2. identify characteristics of successful distance education students;
3. discuss research findings about distance education;
4. justify reasons for using distance education to teach a course;
5. incorporate guidelines and strategies for revamping a F2F course to an online course format;
6. use effective teaching strategies for an online course (partnerships, team activities, reflective activities, authentic activities, games/simulations, case studies, reflective activities such as debates, chatroom discussions, icebreakers, virtual field trips, journals, and listservs);
7. consider alternative forms of assessment (authenic, performance-based, portfolio, projects) in lieu of or in addition to traditional pencil-and-paper tests;
8. use the constructivist approach to teaching/ learning