Faculty demands in higher education are changing dramatically because of the growing adult student population and increase of course delivery formats. To increase access to the growing adult population, many colleges are offering blended programs that include courses that are face-to-face and fully and partially online, known as hybrid or blended. A Sloan-C survey of U.S. colleges and universities found that core faculty members teach online courses (64.7%) about as frequently as they teach face-to-face-courses (61.6%) and a large percentage teach hybrid courses (67.4%).
When learning to teach adults in a blended program, faculty members face many challenges as they experiment with teaching multiple course delivery formats. Challenges include identifying effective learning strategies, preparing students for online learning, redesigning courses using new technology, learning new ways to facilitate courses, handling technology issues, developing content, managing workload, and providing feedback and assessing learning. This is even more challenging since even though teaching is a major part of the faculty role, many are not taught how to teach as a practice nor are they expected to keep up with trends that affect their teaching, including the growth of adult students and the increase of new course delivery formats.
Results of a qualitative study that utilized in-depth interviews with ten undergraduate and graduate instructors who taught adults in a blended program will be shared that investigated: (1) How faculty members perceive how they learn to teach online, hybrid, and face-to-face course delivery formats that comprise a blended program? (2) How faculty members perceive teaching adults in a blended program influences their overall teaching practices and influences teaching multiple course delivery formats? (3) How faculty members describe the process and implications of moving back and forth between teaching multiple course delivery formats within a blended program? This study found that experienced faculty members become novices again when they are learning to teach new course delivery formats. Teaching in a blended program provides a laboratory to experiment with many pedagogical possibilities to teach, design courses and learning activities, and meet the needs of adult learners.
Research participants learn how to teach adults in a blended program through the interrelated interactions between the five themes that emerged from the research data: (1) Anchored by Adult Learning Strategies, (2) Adapted to Market Demand (3) Experimented in Blended Laboratory, 4) Evolved from Trial and Error to Support, and (5) Rethought Pedagogical Possibilities. Each theme followed similar patterns of a faculty learning cycle that includes four phases: planning, acting, observing, and reflection. The faculty members learned to teach by reflecting on each cycle based on observation of what takes place from their experiences and actions. "According to Chism (2004),"The power of this learning is that it arises from a felt need" (p.40). In this study, faculty members realized they needed to change the way they teach to adapt to the changing needs of adult learners or meet market demands.
To help them make this transition, faculty members who have taught adult learners incorporated adult learning strategies such as collaborative and constructivist learning that also work well in online formats. They experimented with these methods to see what worked well or not and made modifications. Since they were not trained to teach, they learned through trial and error of experimenting with different methods of teaching and most sought extra help to learn methods for teaching online and hybrid courses. Then they act on their plans, and in the case of online and hybrid course formats, use more up-front planning than face-to-face courses to develop online learning activities and strategies. Then instructors observed what happens and start the learning process over again.
This study supports the professional development literature that applies adult learning principles when teaching them how to learn either online or in a blended program (K. King & Lawler, 2003; P A. Lawler & King, 2000; P. A. Lawler, 2003). Just like the students they teach, it is important to get faculty members to take responsibility for their own learning, provide opportunities to immediately apply what they learn, and provide opportunities for self-assessment and reflection. In addition, it is important to consider each faculty member's prior experiences, attitudes toward change, their teaching assumptions and beliefs, and preferences for teaching and learning when helping them learn to teach adults in a blended program (Biro, 2004). Like adult learners, instructors bring a wealth of experience that should be shared in a learning environment. It is also important to ask how to better help faculty members learn not only learn how to use the technology but also the pedagogy. This study highlighted the importance of providing opportunities to utilize technology to help faculty members reflect on and enhance pedagogy. Faculty learning development and technology centers need to provide opportunities beyond the traditional workshops that only create awareness of new technologies.
This study revealed how important it is to take into account faculty learning cycles when investigating the factors that lead to instructors learning how to teach in a blended program. A message for faculty development is that it is important to listen to the stories of instructors of how they learned to teach and what they learned from experience. The faculty members in this study made it clear that while experience has been their most significant teacher when learning how to teach in a blended program, they wanted and needed more help on both technology and pedagogy. Teaching multiple course delivery formats in a blended program multiplied both the challenges and opportunities for education, student learning, and faculty success. Therefore, helping instructors learn to teach in a blended program is also helping them fulfill their ongoing role as an adult learner with a goal of improving teaching practice, and ultimately, student learning.
The presenter will engage the audience using interactive questions and answers about how faculty learn how to teach in a blended program at their university. Later the audience will be asked to share how they could incorporate the faculty learning cycles in faculty development.
