How to deal with online learning ‘deniers’ in your institution

Lieberman, M. (2018) Overcoming faculty resistance – or not? Inside Higher Education, March 14

I’ve been a bit slow on picking up on this (thanks to WCET for bringing it to my attention), but this is such a useful article that it’s well worth reading if you are encountering faculty or instructor resistance to online learning.

This article is in response to an earlier IHE article from a professor who declared that he has no interest in teaching online, despite many colleagues’ attempts to convince him otherwise.

What Lieberman has done is interview seven experts about the most productive way to respond to online learning ‘deniers’ (my term, not his). What Lieberman specifically asked of them was:

• What percentage of faculty members do you believe hold views similar to this professor?
• Should institutional leaders try to change the minds of faculty members who are firmly opposed to digital forms of learning, or is it OK to leave a certain proportion of the faculty teaching in a more traditional format if they choose?
• What do you do on your campus (or what can be done on campuses more generally) to convince skeptical faculty members that teaching online is both possible and practical — and how successful has it been?

For once, I’m not going to attempt to summarise their comments, because they are so rich and varied, but if your job is to support faculty and instructors in teaching online, you will not fail to learn something useful from this article.

But there are a couple of things I would add that were not covered by the other experts:

• focus on issues where instructors feel vulnerable or will readily admit to a teaching problem (e.g. too large a class for student interaction, too many students not completing a course, not enough equipment for all students to see or interact with, etc.) and explore if the use of technology could help improve this situation – not necessarily fully online but get a foot in the door to getting the instructor to teach at least something outside the classroom or lab that will help with a perceived limitation of their specific face-to-face class; but it must solve their problem, not yours;
• link online learning to the development of digital skills and 21st century skills within a particular discipline area – for instance, ensuring students are aware of the main digital tools being used in their profession and why they are useful; using online learning for teaching ‘virtual’ collaboration skills in science or business; etc. Many instructors are becoming aware that they need to teach these skills, but don’t know how to do this. This is an opening for online learning;
• show how online learning can reduce their current teaching workload, through, for example, automated marking, peer/student feedback and evaluation, reduced lecture time and office hours, identifying at risk students, etc.
• take a strategic approach to online learning at a program level – for instance start slowly with a few online learning activities in the first year for most courses, moving to more hybrid combinations in the middle years, building up to perhaps a few fully online courses in the final year; ‘resistant’ instructors, by working alongside more committed instructors, become caught up in a general climate of online being used appropriately.

It is true you can take a horse to water, but not make it drink. So first, make it thirsty!