Gimmie Shelter: Faculty Adoption of Learning Methodologies and Technologies

Gimmie Shelter: Faculty Adoption Of Learning Methodologies And Technologies

“They are going to shut the campus,” exclaimed a colleague who had just heard Governor Tom Wolfe’s press conference. The COVID-19 pandemic created mayhem, and on March 13, 2020, schools in Pennsylvania were ordered shut (State of Pennsylvania, 2020). “The Administration still wants us to hold class. I’ve never done anything online. I don’t know a thing about Blackboard! Do something about this!” The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc, took lives, and created turmoil across the globe. As president of the Faculty Federation, a local chapter in the American Federation of Teachers (the Federation), I learned that shifting a university to different instructional delivery modalities in 24 hours is complex for myriad reasons, one of which will be the focus of this chapter: faculty technological pedagogic preparation and competence. Organizational agility requires strategic thinking, an innovative mindset, exploitation of change, and an unrelenting need to be adaptable and proactive (Harraf et al., 2015). Higher education experienced significant shifts in teaching and learning during the pandemic, and perhaps evolved to being more agile.

This chapter explores (1) faculty preparation and development in academe, (2) technology adoption and the multi-generational workforce in agile organizations, (3) competence and life-long learning as situational and evolving terms in academic performance, (4) organizational agility as a framework to incorporate instructional technologies in traditional and virtual classrooms, and (5) incorporating pedagogies driven by technology and online course delivery. The chapter is crafted through the lens of my social identity as a faculty member who is senior in age and rank. I share my constructivist educator philosophy, as well as the influences that positioned me to practice a socially constructed view of pedagogic and andragogic difference while embracing the evolution of technologies and innovative approaches to deliver and enhance education.

My identities frame my personal worldview, and influence how I approach teaching, embrace technology, and negotiate multiple Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) that govern and guide working conditions. During an earlier negotiation, the administration articulated a desire to pursue a growth strategy of joining the online education market. The Federation supported the online teaching effort and requested allocation of resources for faculty to learn how to teach online effectively. Additionally, the Federation sought faculty empowerment and negotiated faculty choice to accept or reject online teaching assignments for faculty hired prior to 2014. A number of faculty expressed no interest in pursuing online teaching and preferred face-to-face classroom engagement with students. Thus, complying with members’ requests, the newly negotiated CBA provided faculty hired prior to 2014 with the choice to accept online instruction as part of teaching load. Faculty hired after 2014 could be assigned online courses as a part of teaching load. Faculty teaching online were required to attend training and course content was evaluated through a Quality Matters review. Neither the administration nor the Federation comprehended the consequences of providing shelter to faculty from critical technological growth in classroom instruction and delivery modalities.

Despite subsequent negotiations—and a significant evolution in, and infiltration of, technology in academe—the administration hasn’t negotiated technological acumen for faculty as a working condition. The Federation has requested more resources for teaching and learning across all modalities during each negotiation in order to address faculty requests to evolve and innovate course content. This lack of strategic vision—not requiring faculty to be competent to teach in all modalities—has consequences as digital natives or persons who are raised in a digital, media-saturated world (Moran, 2016) enter the university setting ready to learn using diverse technologies and learning management systems. The consequences of technological ignorance - especially for aging faculty members who hoped to retire with face-to-face teaching exposure only—can be career-changing. The next section focuses on my lived experience as an aging faculty who has evolved with technological innovations in teaching and learning. The positions I advocate evolved from the lessons I learned from teaching with technology during the pandemic crisis.