Faculty Resistance to Online Learning

Faculty Resistance to Online Learning

By Sedi Minachi

Objective Questions: What I know about the topic.

Online courses open up exciting new possibilities to both instructors and students when designed efficiently and taught effectively. Among the many benefits they offer instructors is the fact that they no longer need to deliver lectures standing in front of students in a lecture hall or classroom, and can instead choose any location convenient to them as they interact with and engage students online.  Despite online courses offering increased opportunities to teaching institutions, instructors and students, as argued by Bates (2012), many faculty resist creating and teaching online courses, giving the impression they do not want to deal with online teaching.

Tony Bates (2011) conducted extensive research on online teaching within the Canadian and American context outlines the following five factors as major systemic barriers/limitations of instructors to e-learning and distance learning: (1) Faculty resistance, (2) Lack of training for teaching faculty, (3) Lack of institutional ambition for the use of technology in teaching, (4) Lack of adequate costing methods, (5) Lack of system – wide provision for distance education programs, (6) Poor quality offerings, and (7) Lack of data on Canadian online and distance education.

Meanwhile, Bates explains that one of the key reasons for faculty resistance to online and distance education is their lack of knowledge or understanding of pedagogy and theories of teaching and learning. He further argues that many faculty members working in higher education do not have teacher training and their teaching methods are based on traditional classroom settings that they themselves have experienced when they were students. 

The Objective of this journal is to explore briefly the key reasons behind faculty resistance to their organizations offering online courses, and to explore ways to overcome this resistance.  

Reflective Questions: Why I chose this topic and how I identify with it.

I chose this topic because I agree with Bates that many faculty members working in higher education do not have teacher training and their teaching methods are based on their own experiences within the framework of the traditional classroom setting.

Bates’ research findings reminded me of my own classroom experience in undergraduate and graduate school where almost no online courses matching my interest were available despite the accessibility of fast internet service on and off campus.

As a student, I was sometimes frustrated by professors who followed rigid class structure by delivering long lectures and evaluated students’ learning only through quizzes, tests and exams.  I assume professors whose model of teaching is the rigid-traditional teaching method are reluctant to embrace delivering instruction online.  

On the one hand, the issue of faculty members resisting designing and delivering online courses needs to be addressed promptly, because computers and related interactive technologies have transformed every aspect of our lives, and educational institutions need to commit to developing more online instruction skills among their faculty. On the other hand, the faculty needs to take advantage of valuable teaching opportunities benefiting themselves and learners.

Steven A. Lloyd (2012) who studied factors contributing to barriers among faculty groups engaging in online instruction, found interpersonal and institutional barriers, lack of training in technology and cost/benefit analysis barriers were largely responsible for faculty resisting embracing online instruction. 

Interpretive Question: What this new learning mean to me.

In these transformative years new technology and social media play significant roles in the development of younger generations of students, and there is a strong and growing need for schools to expand their online course offerings and to promote this method of course delivery more among faculty members by training them how best to design engaging courses and deliver content to online, distant learners.

In reading Bates (2011) and Lloyd (2012) on the topic of faculty resistance to online teaching, I learned that educational institutions need to pay more attention to firstly raising awareness among their faculty of the benefits of online instruction, and secondly to training faculty members in becoming skillful designers and deliverers of online courses. In my perspective, every faculty should offer students the option of taking either online or in-class courses for all courses offered within a program.

I think that faculty resistance will continue and students will have limited access to quality online courses and programs in the absence of assistance and facilitation from management backing the fast-tracking of organization-wide e-learning initiatives.

Decisional Question: How this new learning can be applied in my online course.

I decided to take the certificate online teaching program at VCC College to gain knowledge about online teaching methods and develop skills to design and deliver online curricula.  I agree with Bates (2011) that nowadays, the new generation of students has access to many kinds of new technology such as mobile phones with camera and audio recording capabilities, access to low cost video cameras, and access to video editing through software on their laptops and video publishing through YouTube.
They are therefore able to publish their work on the internet and access a multitude of resources far beyond the limits of a traditional class curriculum.  With the help of email, online videos, video conferencing and social media, they are able to perform course activities outside the traditional classroom without putting a foot on campus.

By being aware of the great opportunities new technological tools provide to everyone including students, I hope to soon read research findings that show majority of instructors are increasingly embracing online course delivery and finding even more effective ways to teach online learners.

Once institutions understand the barriers to faculty resisting online teaching, I think they should take initiatives to train their staff in online course delivery and ask each faculty member to teach one or more online courses to help them become better at teaching online learners.

References

Lloyd, S. A. & Byrne, M. M. & McCoy, T. S. (2012). Faculty-Perceived Barriers of Online Education. Merlot Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, vol 8 (1), 2012. Retrieved on Feb 13, 2014 from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol8no1/lloyd_0312.htm

Faculty Training is a Major Investment for Online Ed Programs: ADA Compliance Remains a Major Vulnerability.  Retrieved Feb 13, 2014 from http://www.campuscomputing.net/item/2010-managing-online-education-survey-wvideo

Bates, T. (2011) 2011 outlook for online learning and distance education

 Contact North. Retrieved Feb 10, 2014 from: http://provost.ncsu.edu/governance/task-forces/distance-education/2011/documents/2011-outlook-for-online-learning-and-de.pdf