I often hear online learning touted as a disruptive innovation that is turning traditional higher education on its head. Yet for all the excitement swirling around the rise of online learning, there are many longtime academics who seem to view it as a kind of conqueror, tearing down the old and the good.
And perhaps they have a point.
I’m a distance-learning administrator at a two-year college where the number of students taking online courses has risen sharply. The more I’ve gotten to know the committed faculty members who have been serving students for decades, the more clearly I understand that their resistance isn’t just about doing business differently; it’s also about preserving their very purpose and identity.
Five years ago, one-fifth of the students at my institution, Jefferson Community and Technical College, in Louisville, Ky., were taking online courses. That figure has now climbed to nearly one-third of our student body. In my role, I hear plenty of complaints — from grumblings to borderline hostility — about online courses encroaching on the traditional classroom.
The underlying concern, I believe, is about the long-term sustainability of the traditional faculty role. Many faculty members wonder whether the rug has been pulled out from under them, positioning them to be the rear guard in a paradigm shift that is uprooting the very idea of the college professor who delivers a lecture in the front of the classroom. For those who have aspired to such a calling for their entire lives, such fears are understandable.
It is no secret that full-time teaching positions are becoming rarer, particularly at the two-year college, where adjunct instructors make up a large part of the faculty. In addition, more faculty members are holding onto their jobs longer, which, ironically, is becoming easier to do because of the flexibility of teaching online.
Many faculty members wonder whether the rug has been pulled out from under them.
The rise of online learning has further destabilized the faculty role by shifting attention from experts who actively and orally instruct to learning facilitators who may use materials developed by experts far away. I recognize that online instructors are often considered to have an easier job than their on-site colleagues, and may even be seen as doomed to teaching less effectively.
Labels like “highly automated” and “canned” are sometimes used to describe online courses that allow students to move at their own pace, in an asynchronous setting. To some longstanding and particularly skeptical faculty members, the identity of online instructor is like a scarlet letter.
As time has passed, I have seen more and more detractors slowly make their way to the other side of the aisle. Perhaps this slow acceptance is a kind of self-preservation at a time when online courses fill more reliably than those on-site. Whatever their reasons, faculty critics can no longer deny that students have steadily flocked to online offerings, to the point at which institutions and their faculties must face the reality that online learning not only is here to stay, but also is likely to expand.
So, what is a professor to do?
F irst, brick-and-mortar classrooms are not a thing of the past, and will continue to be used by two-year colleges for as long as students are social creatures who seek out structured settings in which they are taught by another human being. But while full-time faculty members do not need to surrender unconditionally, they will need to adapt.
There comes a point at which resistance may be far less beneficial than cautious collaboration. This may mean exploring new options such as hybrid modes of instruction, leveraging new and unfamiliar tools to teach more efficiently, or perhaps even agreeing to teach more face-to-face courses as their colleagues migrate to online teaching. Adaptation is also likely to involve acceptance of a more fundamental shift of the faculty role in an online course — serving as an engaging and supportive facilitator rather than the often-mentioned “sage on the stage.”
If faculty members feel unprepared to delve into online teaching, they should let administrators know about their professional-development needs. These days, one of the biggest challenges for the would-be online educator is to sort through the overabundance of technologies, trainings, and course materials available. The literature is thick and the toolbox deep. Most colleges have a dedicated point person who can help find training resources. Further, those who have grown comfortable with online teaching are often happy to mentor newcomers to the virtual classroom.
Faculty members considering the leap should also browse distinguished online courses of their colleagues, who are typically pleased to show off their handiwork. Colleges can facilitate those constructive relationships by reframing faculty-mentoring programs around not only seniority but also technical skills. New and adjunct instructors are often very open to teaching online, perhaps because they are not as attached to the traditional role of the college professor. In a relatively new arena that relies on innovation, such faculty colleagues may have skills and perspectives that are just as valuable as the classroom experience of their more-established colleagues. One of the most dynamic and effective online faculty members I’ve ever worked with was a proud home-schooling mom who was brand-new to the faculty role but passionate about teaching in the format that had allowed her to earn her own degree.
W hen faculty members make a sincere commitment to online learning, the results can be astounding. I have had the privilege of working with more than a few whose attitudes shifted from outright opposition to curiosity to enthusiasm. In most cases, the turning point came in that second phase, when, in the process of investigating potential teaching materials, technologies, and training, the instructor realized how the sheer volume of possibilities could help him or her deliver a class in a starkly different way, without compromising standards of rigor.
The transition was now less about the need to adapt and more about the opportunity to reinvent. One self-described Luddite who made the unlikely decision to “go online” after many years in the classroom told me: “I decided to get on the train rather than in front of it, and found out it was actually a pretty wonderful way to travel, once you got used to it.”
Experience has shown me that the resilience of my own college’s faculty and the transformative potential of technology serve not only to redefine the identity of the college professor, but also to preserve and prepare it — to upgrade it — for the next phase in higher education.
Not all faculty members must fully embrace online learning, but it is key that they do what they can to ensure that their college can carry out its mission. Likewise, administrators must tread carefully around online-learning initiatives, recognizing that the faculty is their very best resource. And they must address faculty anxiety and alienation in constructive and supportive ways.
As the role of the instructor continues to evolve, there is no good future in which faculty members aren’t at the helm of the two-year college. For that, we need them to be on board.
Adam Elias is director of eLearning initiatives at Jefferson Community and Technical College, in Louisville, Ky.