Seismic Shifts in the Online Learning Environment in Higher Education

Introduction

According to higher education enrollment data, an increasing number of students are enrolling in online courses (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.). Consequently, many colleges and universities across the United States are increasing the number of online courses they offer. This action is partly due to their need to maintain a competitive edge and make courses easily accessible to a growing and diverse student population (Keengwe & Kidd, 2010; Tank, 2020). This proliferation of online courses has also been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as most colleges and universities had to transition from face-to-face instruction to online learning in response to government-imposed restrictions to limit the spread of the virus (Gallagher, 2020; Morris et al., 2020).

Clearly, there has been a major shift in higher education, particularly regarding teaching responsibilities at colleges and universities across the United States (Weber et al., 2022). Historically, tenured and tenure-track faculty represent the majority of teaching faculty. However, according to the American Federation of Teachers (2022), “Seventy-five percent of faculty are not eligible for tenure, and 47% hold part-time positions” (p. 1). In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the primary mode of instruction delivery shifted from face-to-face to online learning modalities. Although the restrictions have been rescinded, the number of online classes remains higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey of students demonstrated that 60% reported a significant shift to mostly remote instruction in the 2020–2021 academic year and that almost all institutions reported using adjuncts to teach online (Cameron et al., 2021). Such a shift in the higher education landscape has rapidly increased reliance on online adjunct faculty (i.e., non-tenure-track instructors or contingent faculty) to deliver instruction and promote student success.

Despite the increasing reliance on online adjunct faculty across the United States, the provision of institutional support they receive is less than that for tenure-track faculty (Weber et al., 2022). Adjunct faculty generally have insufficient access to crucial resources, such as support with instructional design, despite their desire for such assistance. Moreover, offering institutional support for and promoting connections with online adjunct faculty is critical to improving teaching effectiveness and retention (Burleigh et al., 2021; Gelman et al., 2022). Lederman’s (2019) survey of public college provosts reinforced the troubling reality that even with the growing number of institutions relying on online learning to reach students, they often do not train faculty in advance or provide them with meaningful professional development opportunities that they may need to be effective and improve their skills.

These shifts in higher education and online learning highlight that colleges and universities should invest in the development of online adjunct instructors to ensure that students enrolled in online programs experience quality learning in this nontraditional modality. Adjunct instructors should be provided opportunities to develop as teachers on a platform that requires pedagogical skills that somewhat differ from those necessary in a traditional classroom (Layou et al., 2022; Rouse, 2021).