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1 Introduction

It may seem cliché to say, “it takes a village” to deal with the challenges caused by COVID-19, nevertheless, that was what we experienced during the initial weeks of the crisis at our home institution, Purdue University, and we know the same was true at other educational institutions around the globe. On the eve of spring break 2020 we received an emergency email from Purdue University’s Office of Teaching and Learning. We were entreated to be part of the University’s contingency team, planning for and developing resources to assist faculty with transitioning from face-to-face instruction to remote teaching and learning. The contingency team included ten members from the Learning Design and Technology program faculty (the authors), the Center for Instructional Excellence, Teaching and Learning Technologies, and Purdue Online all headed by the Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning. Our experience was unique due to the sheer size of the institution and other complex factors related to instructors, learners, and resources:

  • 5000 face-to-face courses needed to be moved “online” for remote teaching within 2 weeks, some courses had 20 students, some had 1100+ students;

  • Purdue University had just started transitioning from Blackboard to Brightspace. Many faculty faced additional challenges because they had not been slated to transition yet and had no experience with the new Brightspace platform;

  • The international context of a large number of our students and faculty, many of whom were leaving campus to return home in the early days before they were closed out of their home countries, and ensuring the availability of content abroad;

  • The fact that we are a doctoral university designated as R1 or Very High Research Activity institution; although teaching is important to many faculty and we have a number of innovators, we need to acknowledge that we also had a number of instructors who had largely avoided online teaching and tools until it was mandated.

Using the experience and expertise we had demonstrated in the online learning realm (see Purdue Repository for online Teaching and Learning, launched January 2019) (PoRTAL Team, 2019; Purdue Innovative Learning, 2020), we were tasked with developing a set of expectations for remote teaching and resources covering the most essential topics faculty needed. Specifically, we were to create resources that could be digested and implemented easily and quickly. More importantly, the recommended strategies needed to be relatable and replicable. With that in mind, we used the snowball sampling method to identify faculty from across campus who could help us achieve this goal. This process gave us the opportunity to get to know our colleagues, uncover their talents, and create a new platform for shared expertise in teaching and learning to develop practices related to resources for instructors to sustain learning with some continuity and flexibility. Ultimately, we used a faculty-driven approach rather than a top-down leadership-driven approach to design the materials and resources.

1.1 Elaboration of Context

As we began the transition to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) the Teaching and Learning contingency team encountered issues familiar to many other institutions and instructors. As a team we worked on solving issues as they came up, meeting once or twice daily as needed. For example, we had instructors who were not wanting to heed time zone issues and/or they wanted to teach their courses synchronously in order to maintain what they would have done in their face-to-face classes. On the other side, we faced issues with basic internet connectivity and especially high-speed internet connections that would need to be in place for synchronous sessions. A sample email that went to faculty as an example of what students were dealing with included the following:

One of our students had to return to southeast Asia because of COVID-19 , and was asked to take a timed synchronous exam set for 2 a.m. their local time. This student is in a COVID quarantine camp with limited access to technology and a very poor Internet connection. So, in addition to normal test anxiety, this student is worried about potentially being sick, living in an unfamiliar environment that is likely not conducive to studying, and dealing with a significant time difference. Obviously, the student is not going to be able to perform their best on the exam.

The institution also had issues with infrastructure such as bandwidth that limited the number of synchronous sessions that could be held without interruption. This became very evident within the first few days of ERT, and it was determined that cameras should be off simply because the infrastructure couldn’t handle it with so many classes being offered simultaneously in a synchronous manner. Beyond the campus this was also a community problem as shown by this example sent to faculty:

Now, let’s go just 17 miles east of campus. Another student lives in the “Wi-Fi desert” of Rossville, Ind. This student also does not have adequate Internet service at their house. Just downloading the welcome message from their course instructor triggered the dreaded “Wi-Fi spin,” and many of the locations that offer free Wi-Fi have closed (e.g. libraries, Starbucks). The student is sharing one computer with their parents, so must take turns with who can work.

Not only were many instructors teaching online for the first time, they were teaching online when all these other factors were happening, and ERT was not a format that they were in any way prepared to offer. For example, some faculty went to the extreme, with at least one who oversaw a large undergraduate course saying he “was done teaching, [and] the course couldn’t be offered online”; the Provost informed him otherwise.

2 Systematic Approach

Prior to the move to remote teaching, all faculty received an email stating, “Faculty and staff should begin to consider how, through Purdue learning management systems or other means, they would deliver classes and continue communications with students to keep their educational programs on track.” This was followed by “University administration is currently working with the Innovative Learning team (Purdue Online) on approaches that will allow us to continue to deliver courses.”

Based on the information we received from our colleagues, as well as from departments that work closely with faculty for course development and transformation, it became apparent to us that faculty needed concrete examples they could implement in their courses immediately. While concrete examples would be beneficial and valuable, we knew it was equally important to showcase evidence-based practices validated and supported by research in order to earn faculty’s buy-in. Extra kudos when we could identify colleagues on campus who had used the practices successfully and could share their experiences as exemplars. At the same time, we were getting daily reports from faculty-facing services (e.g., technology assistance requests) and the Provost’s Office collected feedback from instructors through surveys. Based on these inputs, we determined that our initial primary focus should be on developing general resources for online teaching and learning while collecting exemplars for more specific topics such as laboratory settings and large lectures.

2.1 Selecting Resource Topics

Our goal was to create a quick and easy self-guided ERT webpage with examples and suggestions from the University’s faculty and our own online teaching and course development experiences. We deliberately chose the Community of Inquiry (CoI) as a framework to structure the resources (see Fig. 15.1). The Community of Inquiry is a commonly adopted framework for online and blended learning (Garrison et al., 2000),which views learning, the educational experience, as resulting from the interaction of three kinds of presence—social, cognitive and teaching. Essentially, it is a socio-constructivist model which suggests that well designed online learning materials are not enough to guarantee online learning, but rather it needs human interaction and instructional guidance. Even though the course transformation goal that the faculty aimed to accomplish in the beginning of the pandemic was not converting their courses to fully asynchronous online courses, we saw the benefits of using this framework to identify the resource topics. Additionally, the authors have previously developed a series of short articles related to online learning and CoI (i.e., PoRTAL) that could be incorporated in the ERT resources.

Fig. 15.1
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Community of inquiry for emergency remote teaching

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The ERT resource page titled “Practical Tips and Examples for Faculty by Faculty” (Richardson & Huang, 2020) includes the following topics: (1) Availability and Communication, (2) Discussion Board Tips, (3) Setting Student Expectations, (4) Building Community, (5) Delivering Course Materials, (6) Adding Technology to Your Toolkit, and (7) Checking for Student Understanding, Descriptions of each are provided in the following sections and Fig. 15.1 presents a visual of how the topics fit within the CoI framework.

2.1.1 Delivering Course Materials: From In-Class Lectures to Videos and Beyond

“How can I teach my class online?” That was perhaps the most popular question we encountered from faculty , especially from those who had never taught online or taken any online courses prior to the pandemic. In general, teaching a face-to-face course involves teaching learning content or sharing expertise (e.g., lectures) and stimulating students’ participation in class (e.g., discussions, group activities). Orlando (2020) states “Too often faculty go into the course development process with the ‘content coverage’ mentality” (para 6). In fact, faculty frequently focus on the content and its delivery initially when converting their face-to-face courses to other formats.

Although teaching remotely means teaching synchronously while students are present online, it is different from teaching face-to-face as remote teaching takes place on a different medium. One primary challenge is that instructors might not be able to see the facial cues of the class especially when the class size is big. Moreover, students could be distracted more easily by other on-screen activities (e.g., email, social media, etc.) than they would be in face-to-face courses. It is essential for faculty to deliver course materials in a more engaging and concise manner. Additionally, it is necessary for faculty to know lecturing through a webcam is not the only method for sharing their expertise with their students. Also, the scheduled online meeting class time is not the only time they can share their knowledge with their students.

We identified examples that demonstrated how instructors could deliver course content through videos and other formats such as lecture notes or key terms. Knowing that creating video presentations might be the option most faculty would choose, we deliberately added a suggestion that was relevant to video recording in order to minimize faculty’s concerns and to help them realize the long-term benefits of using videos:

If you create videos for lectures, for weekly introductions or overviews, do not worry about the small stuff. Did your words get tangled? It’s okay. Did your technology go off for 10 seconds? It’s okay. This is not a feature film—green screen and special effects are not necessary. A more natural delivery will be closer to a normal classroom experience. Your students want to see the real you. Later, when you get settled, if you want to edit and re-use the video, there are support staff to help with that.

2.1.2 Stimulating Learner Interaction: Transforming In-Class Discussion Activity to Online Discussion

Student participation in class could involve small group discussions or real-time knowledge-check activities through Kahoot!, iClicker, Hotseat, etc. Alternatively, using a well-structured asynchronous discussion activity benefits both teachers and students, but it requires different levels of involvement from both groups than doing it face-to-face. From the perspective of teaching, being present in discussion is essential but can be tricky. Research shows that “students like discussion led by the instructor” (Richardson et al., 2015). While it is important to be present in online discussions, it can be challenging and difficult for an instructor to figure out the level of presence they need to have in their course/s. Anecdotally, some instructors felt overwhelmed by implementing online discussions in their courses because they thought they needed to respond to every student. These instructors expressed exhaustion from responding to students’ individual posts and grading students’ posts. On the other hand, some instructors were not participating in discussions and let students discuss among themselves, which sometimes leads to a common complaint about online courses—“I am teaching myself.” Our recommendations regarding discussion board activities included helping faculty find their realistic levels of participation while setting student expectations. We offered a clear statement that faculty could include in their syllabus to accomplish this:

When participating in the online discussions, I/the instructor will check in a minimum of three times per week. Keep in mind that it is not possible for me/the instructor to respond to every single posting every week (nor is it pedagogically appropriate), but I/the instructor will be sure to respond to a variety of postings and students each week and attempt to assure equality in responses to students. If you feel you are being neglected in any way, please contact me/the instructor.

We also encouraged instructors to set clear student participation directions and expectations in their courses by including discussion grading rubrics or discussion post examples. Further, we offered tips on how instructors could be “present” in discussions. For example, we recommended instructors address multiple posts at once, share or promote different students’ posts each week and encourage students to return to discussion to fully participate. For larger classes, we encouraged instructors to put students into groups, making it easier for students to access their peers’ posts and feel more comfortable expressing their opinion.

2.1.3 Checking for Student Understanding

When teaching face-to-face, faculty can quickly sense whether students understand the content or not through students’ facial cues, body postures, or even the classroom atmosphere. In our experience, teaching remotely caused some instructors to wonder how they could understand students’ learning and address their questions effectively and efficiently. Some students did not turn on their cameras, or the student videos were too small for the instructors to see the facial expressions, and finally the University requested that cameras be turned off due to bandwidth issues. Hence, it was difficult to take the pulse of students’ learning and provide just-in-time or immediate feedback. However, we recommended tools and methods that instructors could implement to address students’ questions.

  • Creating a discussion forum for students to ask questions. We recommend instructors use a title such as “Ask the instructor, Ask a peer” and also give the discussion forum a description that says “Post any general questions about the course to this discussion forum. Feel free to respond to the questions of your peers so that we can all learn from one another!”

  • Besides using discussion forums for students to ask questions, instructors can use formative assessments as “exit ticket” activities to evaluate students’ understanding. These assessments can be quizzes or reflective assignments

2.1.4 Responding to Student Questions

Providing feedback or answering students’ questions can present another challenge. It is especially difficult for big classes or courses that involve complex topics such as mathematics, coding, simulations, calculation, etc. We offered two specific instructional strategies that would enable faculty to respond to students’ questions effectively and efficiently.

  • Providing video tutorials to answer common questions. We reached out to faculty who are known for using videos to answer students’ questions rather than text and asked them to share their video clips with our colleagues. Through this approach we were able to provide a variety of tutorial videos ranging in level of professionalism from studio production to self-directed. Regardless of the method, students benefited from seeing the instructor answer the assignment questions and being able to replay the concepts that they needed more time to comprehend. It should also be noted that once they are created, videos can be used in other courses, as well as when faculty offer the same course next time.

  • Offering drop-in virtual office hours. Office hours area common practice when teaching face-to-face courses. This is also a fairly common practice for instructors who teach online. What is tricky here is to find a time that can work for most of the students, especially when students and instructors are located in different time zones that might have huge time differences. We offered resources that help instructors understand the time differences within their classes and also suggested a more practical approach—drop-in virtual office hours that allow students to “stop by” their instructors’ virtual “offices” within a set period of time.

2.1.5 A New Way of Teaching: Adding Technology to Your Toolkit

Teaching remotely requires instructors to adopt new tools to deliver their courses. This can be intimidating as not all instructors are tech-savvy or have the equipment they need to teach remotely. Our message to the instructors is to choose technology they are comfortable with first and also to avoid trying tools that might have a steep learning curve. In addition, we encourage instructors to test any new technologies that they would like to include in their courses with colleagues or a small group of students to avoid creating extra anxiety or frustration felt during teaching and learning.

2.1.6 Work-Life Balance: Availability, Communication and Setting Students’ Expectations

Teaching remotely through a monitor or interacting with students online can be energy draining. It is essential for faculty to disconnect. We offered concrete tips that help faculty to stay present in the course while maintaining work-life balance. For example:

  • Inform students you will not be in the course 24/7. Let them know when you plan to be in the course reviewing their work so they can anticipate when you will be providing input and/or feedback. For example, “I will plan to be participating in discussion boards MWF 11-1.”

  • Similarly, communicate to students what your turn-around time is for emails (e.g., 24–48 h during business days). Share that if they haven’t heard back from you by that time, it’s appropriate for them to send a follow-up message.

3 Considerations and Lessons Learned

COVID-19 presented the teaching and learning community as a whole with a challenge and also an opportunity to explore its own hidden wealth of knowledge and potential in teaching and learning. Perhaps the most surprising lesson learned is that with our team and instructors across campus we were able to accomplish much more than we ever imagined in just a few weeks; if only higher education always worked this quickly! We also learned that the instructional designers and educational technologists across campus were invaluable and we would not have made it through 2020 without them.

Overall, we found that by incorporating a faculty-driven approach we were able to highlight a number of colleagues’ innovative efforts more prominent, allowing them to be appreciated across disciplines in a way that has never before happened. Moreover, by embedding faculty exemplars into our resources we added credibility to our guidance framework (CoI); faculty are more likely to pay attention when they see others they respect and know sharing their work. Specifically, we believe that the incorporation of the CoI into our planning has also helped our faculty and instructors have a better understanding of all that is necessary in online and hybrid environments to make the educational experience meaningful for learners.

As many others have discussed, we have had a real opportunity to reexamine our practices for everything from how to teach in an online/hybrid environment to how we support learners to how to levy our communities to be part of the conversation. Moreover, we also learned that being flexible in how we think about teaching and learning can have its advantages, as demonstrated by the more widespread use of virtual labs in engineering and science (see Instruction during pandemic provides foundation for future STEM education), the reimagining of the Writing Lab on a large scale in the online environment, and “operating in hybrid mode … to push ourselves into that new world and learn” (Edelman, 2021).

We believe we also saw a transformation at the institutional level of the People—Process—Technology principle (Dennen, 2020). Going in, those new to teaching online perceived it more as Technology with a capital T and then content, people, and finally process simply because that Technology was what we felt looming over us. As educators and instructional designers, we hope that faculty continue to recognize the need for continuous improvement in their teaching, take pride in what they accomplished under pressure and continue to embrace innovation. At the same time, we hear the grumbles of “online learning was horrible”, so continuing to repeat the message that “ERT is not online teaching” is necessary for all of us. Overall though, we feel that faculty now know it is possible to teach and learn effectively at a distance. Our shared goals are to make sure we have learned from our experience in 2020 and embrace opportunities to improve our practices with a specific focus on the Community of Inquiry framework as a guide for design and pedagogy and our colleagues’ exemplars as inspiration for innovation.