Abstract
The chapter provides a thorough account of a developed online resource: a learning management system organization named online faculty community. The resource supports faculty in the cognitive, social, and teaching areas. The authors provide a description of the resource, its areas of strengths, and the lessons learned from implementation. The authors also assessed the resource's efficacy via a survey, and they highlight quantitative and qualitative results in the chapter. This chapter is particularly innovative as the authors describe a project that was created shortly after the shutdown of universities due to a pandemic across the world in efforts to stay connected. Learning about unique ways to engage faculty in a pandemic is important, and the project was a collaborative effort of faculty leaders seeking to serve other faculty in a difficult time.
TopBackground
The global pandemic of 2020 catapulted the transition of higher education courses to the current levels of remote teaching and online learning (Hodges et al., 2020; Johnson et al., 2020). However, online education has been evolving and expanding from its earliest days of correspondence courses in the 1800s, radio/television broadcast course in the 1900s, and web-based distance education in the last three decades (Caruth & Caruth, 2013; Picciano et al., 2010; Schulte, 2011). More students, traditional and nontraditional, are taking online courses to achieve their educational goals. According to Allen and Seaman (2016), in the fall of 2014, 2.8 million higher education students enrolled in all of their courses exclusively online. The noted number accounts for 14% of all higher education students, an increase from the 12.5% in the previous fall and a continuation of the increases in years prior to that (Allen & Seaman, 2016; Caruth & Caruth, 2013). By the fall of 2017, the number of students enrolled exclusively in online courses increased to 3.1 million, accounting for over 15% of all students in higher education (Bustamante, 2020). More and more frequently, online courses provide a convenient means to obtaining an education.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social Presence: One of the three components in the Community of Inquiry framework; includes opportunities for learners to interact with one another on a personal level and to engage in purposeful discussion about the content; demonstration of being a “real person” behind the text.
Community Of Practice: A group of people who share common interests, interact as a community, and practice their common interests regularly.
Teaching Presence: One of the three components in the Community of Inquiry framework; includes the facilitation of the cognitive presence for teaching content, engagement of the social presence with learner to establish the learning environment, and development of instruction, assessment, and feedback to ensure mastery of learning outcomes.
eLearning: Generally synonymous with online or electronic learning; in this chapter, refers to the department within Information Technology that is responsible for supporting the learning management system (LMS) and online courses.
Online Education: Courses and programs that are offered digitally (web-based); designed specifically for web-based delivery for self-directed, self-motivated learners; offers flexibility and convenience for learners with obligations that create barriers to traditional class schedules.
Andragogy: Refers to the principles, methods, and practices associated with adult learning and adult learners; most often applied to non-traditional students in higher education.
Cognitive Presence: One of the three components in the Community of Inquiry framework; includes learning activities that promote critical thinking, problem-solving, and reflection that allow learners to construct meaning.
Online Faculty Community (OFC): An online organization for all faculty housed within the learning management system (LMS), which created a community of practice; offers opportunities to share experiences, expertise, resources, and reflections.
Community Of Inquiry: A conceptual framework for creating a sense of community in an asynchronous learning environment; educational experience occurs at the intersection of cognitive, social, and teaching presence.