Objective: What have you learned about this topic?
There has been a steady growth in the number of registrations in online courses in Canada in recent years. According to Johnson (2019), Canadian universities and colleges that were surveyed reported a growth of around 10% in online course registrations from the 2016/2017 academic year to the 2017/2018 academic year. Tony Bates predicts that the push to online education during the pandemic will accelerate this trend in fully online courses, but perhaps even more so in blended courses (Bates, 2020).
At the same time, there does still seem to be resistance on the part of both instructors and learners. Some instructors like Jonathan Rose, a history professor at Drew University, argue against online courses altogether, calling them ‘a poor second-best’ to face-to-face courses, in part because he feels the human elements are missing and there are many learning activities which he does not believe can be replicated in an online environment. He also argues that much of what students learn in university does not take place in the classroom or in a particular course but rather from extracurricular activities and the social context of the campus (Rose, 2020).
Other instructors may be more open to teaching online, but based on my own experience and what I’ve found out from doing some research there does seem to be some resistance to the move to online learning by many instructors. Some of the reasons for this are indentified by Laurie Pulido and Melissa Morris-Olson in an interview on the IngenioUs podcast (Morris-Olson, 2020). They point out that:
- the terminology, which uses words like ‘distance’ and ‘remote’ can be off-putting.
- there may be a lack of support—instructors may not have a learning designer to work with or if they do, they may not know how to take advantage of one.
- they wonder how they can make the move to teaching online on top of everything else they need to do.
Bates suggests that being forced to teach online as a result of the pandemic may have been enlightening for many instructors. Though initially reluctant, once they were thrown in at the deep end and had to cope with the new teaching context, they may have ‘learned there is much that can be taught online just as well if not better than on campus.’ (Bates, 2020). An example of such an instructor is Christopher Schaberg, who declared in an article in 2018 that he would ‘never teach online.’ (Schaberg, 2018). In a follow-up article in 2020, after being forced to teach online, he acknowledged that it has been at least partly a positive experience, giving him a chance to try new teaching strategies that he may carry forward whether teaching online or face-to-face. He generally seems to have a more positive view of online learning, though he says the learning curve was steep.
Resistance on the part of students
Students may be more comfortable with technology than some of their instructors are but their resistance may stem from the social aspects of the course and what they feel they are missing in this respect. Rose (2020) points to an example of a student who has decided to delay attending a university he was accepted to if classes are online, instead taking a year off, because he’d been looking forward to the whole experience of living away from home, getting to know people in his residence as well as in his classes. Rose also points to research done by SimpsonScarborough that ‘finds that, if colleges only offer online instruction this fall, fully 20 percent of high school seniors will not enrol, and 14 percent of current college students will not reenrol.’
Overcoming resistance
Suggestions for overcoming resistance among faculty / instructors:
- Kevin Bentley advises institutions to support professors to teach online, by providing professional development opportunities that will ‘give faculty the knowledge and skills they will need to embrace innovative digital teaching strategies that make the most sense for them given their particular discipline.’ (Lieberman, 2018).
- Paul Krause suggests that ‘Leaders should strive to expose faculty to examples of high-quality online instruction and related research on learning effectiveness.’ (Lieberman, 2018).
- Joseph Scurelli advises institutions to encourage gradual adoption of online class components for skeptical instructors, perhaps beginning by introducing use of a learning management system in more traditional face-to-face courses. He also suggests making instructors ‘aware of game-changing technology such as adaptive learning, where e-texts and other course materials are automatically modified based upon quick assessments.’ (Lieberman, 2018).
Reflective: What has been your experience with this topic? How has it impacted your life?
As a disruptor in education, the pandemic will, I believe, have both positive and negative effects on the acceptance of online learning as an effective learning modality. I think many instructors and students will become aware of the benefits of online learning and this might be the catalyst for greater acceptance of elearning. However, I also fear that, as Doug Lederman pointed out, ‘the way colleges and universities transform all of their instruction in this compressed time frame will be a pale imitation of what the best in today’s online learning looks like, and that exposing entire faculties and student bodies to this flawed product will set back, rather than advance, faculty and student attitudes about the quality of technology-enabled learning.’ (Lederman, 2020). This does seem to be the case from what I’m hearing.
In my experience, resistance among teachers probably does stem in part from being less comfortable with technology. I have for many years experimented with technology to find ways of enhancing my teaching practice and feel comfortable doing so. Finding out last March that I needed to pivot to teaching wholly online with less than 24 hours to prepare came as something of a shock, but it was doable. Many of my colleagues responded similarly to me, but I was surprised to find just how tech-phobic and tech-illiterate others were. For these instructors, the prospect of suddenly teaching online was terrifying. Their level of knowledge was so low that they were unable to experiment and play around with technology to figure out how to use it. I realized that in order to learn more about educational technology, people need a certain critical level of knowledge to begin with or the task of learning about it is too daunting. These instructors might have coped well with a gradual move online, which would have afforded them time to slowly become comfortable with and proficient in using technology and learning about pedagogy for effective online teaching. However, the pandemic forced the move to online teaching so suddenly that it was difficult for them to cope and many of these teachers did not continue teaching online for long.
I worked for a small language school which did not provide much support or training for teachers in learning to use technology, and provided little support at the beginning of the pandemic beyond acquainting instructors with the Zoom platform, which made the move online less effective that it might have been and led to a horrible experience for some of the teachers. This lack of support may be an additional barrier that creates resistance for instructors in smaller institutions.
What we did at my school that was helpful was to organize a group of instructors to informally share experiences and share with each other what was working and what was not. I also found support in many places outside of our institution, which was extremely helpful. In the early days of the pandemic, there was an overwhelming amount of camaraderie on social media, specifically on ‘Education Twitter’, providing tips and advice, sharing things that worked, and providing emotional support to each other. Many with expertise in online learning and edtech shared their knowledge there, with many quick primers popping up. There are also hundreds or thousands of useful YouTube videos from practitioners on how to use different tech tools, for example.
I have also heard directly from university-bound students that don’t want to take university courses online. For students who have jobs, have young children, are older, or live in more remote areas, online learning is likely to be appealing because it gives them a chance to work their studies in around other parts of their lives. For younger students who look forward to campus life, it seems less appealing and they may therefore be more resistant. The students I taught in my last three months were young Europeans on a gap year, and when they found out they would be starting university completely online because of Covid-19, they were extremely disappointed; they had been looking forward to the on-campus experience. I can definitely understand students who do not want to study online and miss the experience of campus life. I lived at home and attended a local university for my first year because I didn’t know what direction I wanted to pursue, but immediately regretted this decision and decided to move to a university several hours away so I could feel more immersed in campus life and get the full on-campus experience, becoming more involved socially. This is something that will be difficult to replace completely if students are not on campus at all.
I believe what will help teachers to be more receptive to teaching online is being exposed to excellent examples of online learning to provide models that can inspire them and help them change their minds if they are resistant to this modality. My impression from my reading on this topic is that some refuse to teach online without really knowing what online teaching is like or how good it could be. Different ways of sharing ideas about online teaching, whether formal or informal, can be very encouraging as well in my experience.
To overcome student resistance, of course online learning should be well designed. In addition, though, I think marketing by educational institutions will be important to sell this type of learning and to show how appealing it can be. Again, using examples could be helpful. Sample mini-courses could be offered for free to allow students to see how positive this type of learning experience can be.
To make courses more inviting and enjoyable for students, incorporating elements of current culture can be useful. I have used memes, for example, in my own classes, and have found this a way of communicating ideas easily, and of creating interest. Perhaps more importantly, sharing memes or funny videos can give the group an almost ‘inside joke’ kind of feeling that helps the group bond and creates a sense of community. If I share a meme or funny video, it almost always leads to students also sharing ones they’ve found or created without prompting.
Interpretive: What are you ‘aha’ moments related to this topic? What new insights do you now have?
What I realized from exploring this topic is that both teachers and students may resist online learning because they don’t really know what good online learning looks like. For both, exposure to examples of good, inspiring online learning might go a long way to changing their minds and giving them a more positive view of it.
Decisional: How can this new learning be applied in your online course?
For me, it’s difficult to predict what my next teaching context will be like. Some of the things I’d like to implement to help myself and potentially my colleagues are:
- Organizing a group of colleagues to share ideas on how to best exploit the advantages of online learning if this does not already exist.
- Seeking the help of a learning designer if one is provided. I think it would be valuable to have someone else looking at my course from a different perspective to see ways to improve my course.
- Proposing suitable professional development opportunities that could be provided by the institution I’m working at to make transitioning to online learning easier, more appealing and more effective.
References
Bates, T. (2020, November 5). Post-Pandemic Lesson 1: Online and blended learning will increase substantially post-COVID-19. Online learning and distance education resources. Retrieved from https://www.tonybates.ca/2020/11/05/post-pandemic-lesson-1-online-and-blended-learning-will-increase-substantially-post-covid-19/
Johnson, N. (2019). Tracking Online Education in Canadian Universities and Colleges. Halifax NS: Canadian Digital Learning Research Association.
Lederman, D. (2020, March 18) Most teaching is going remote. Will that help or hurt online learning? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/print/digital-learning/article/2020/03/18/most-teaching-going-remote-will-help-or-hurt-online-learning
Lieberman, M. (2018, March 14). Overcoming Faculty Resistance -- or Not. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/03/14/experts-offer-advice-convincing-faculty-members-teach-online-or?mc_cid=0675f4d198&mc_eid=e572da52ee
Moriss-Olson, M. (Host). (2020, September 8). The future of online learning with Ease Learning CEO Laurie Pulido. [Audio Podcast Episode]. In IngenioUs.
Quality Matters. (2018, January 22). Use humor to improve student learning. Retrieved from https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/resource-center/articles-resources/use-memes-for-learning
Rose, J. (2020, May 31). Stop the machine: Why we should resist online learning. History News Network. Retrieved from https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/175718
Schaberg, C. (2018, March 7). Why I won’t teach online. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2018/03/07/professor-explains-why-he-wont-teach-online-opinion
Schaberg, C. (2020, September 11). Why I’m teaching online. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/09/11/professor-who-asserted-hed-never-teach-online-explains-why-hes-opting-do-so-now
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