Exploring the Strategies Needed to Successfully Migrate Ground Campus Instruction to Fully Online Higher Education Courses

Introduction

The migration of face to face courses has occurred at rapid rates during the global COVID pandemic. The number of universities that have moved their courses to a fully online format is still being assessed but colleges around the globe have been forced to shut their doors, move the majority of their students off campus and prepare faculty to finish their instructional assignments online. Many instructors have had to learn how to use the college learning management system and several kinds of software to facilitate discussions, live lectures and assessment techniques. The first phase of moving colleges online has been bumpy as instructors and students struggled to get used to the new normal. A host of obstacles have presented themselves including a lack of strategies to migrate online classes in a normally slow environment where college administrators, students, faculty and staff face their own adjustment into an online education environment. Luckily online pedagogical experts and educational technology companies have come together to offer guidance, training and support to make the process as streamlined as possible. This study investigates the components of successful migration of face to face instruction to an online modality by uncovering best practices higher education professionals have used in the recent COVID pandemic.

Business continuity is an integral for the survival of higher education institutions. Dr. Shubha G. Kashyap, Director of Online Learning Design & Innovation for the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan recorded a workshop for the Online Learning Consortium (n.d.) for administrators developing continuity plans in the height of an emergency. In her workshop she stressed the “important part of bringing faculty up to speed is to focus on the minimal functionality that will allow faculty to move online in a pinch without too many bells and whistles.” One method for continuity of instruction is to email students as soon as possible and implement other outreach methods to make sure everyone is informed of the plan and the platform being used because it is important to establish a method of communication early on (Preparation Checklist, n.d.).

This chapter discusses many topics in crisis management including how to navigate an unexpected emergency, how to get buy in and establish change management. Management theories will be discussed along with instructional design theory and practice with a focus on the user experience, culturally responsive teaching and learning and universal design for learning. According to Pacancy-Brock (2019) a humanized course is when faculty try to create an inclusive environment for their students in a way that fosters a feeling of trust and safety. This paper will also discuss the ways in which administrators can foster faculty and provide the support and tools it needs to deal with rapid change in the face of a crisis.

Covid originated in China and made its way around the globe in a matter of months. Countries around the world have been watching to see how the Chinese government has handled the migration of ground campus instruction and the continuity of instruction. China has adopted the mantra “stop classes but don’t stop learning (Miller, 2020).” Their K-12 migration has been particularly interesting. China has hired expert teachers to teach the curriculum to the entire country and put it live on TV which has closed the income disparity gap that existed before COVID. Prior to the virus only the most expensive exclusive areas of china had quality education and the resources to properly prepare students for higher education through feeder programs but now the sharing of resources has allowed greater access to these programs (Miller, 2020).