Thriving in the Post-Pandemic Classroom

This chapter focuses on promoting student engagement in heath profession education. Discussions will include the longstanding issues related to student engagement that were evident before the COVID-19 pandemic, how these issues associated with engagement were magnified during the pandemic, and how these issues have been transformed into new opportunities to enhance student engagement as we collectively enter the post-pandemic era. Elements of wellbeing, resiliency, and motivation, as they relate to engagement, are explored in depth. Strategies to promote student engagement in the future classroom are discussed in addition to considerations for stronger faculty engagement surrounding teaching. Throughout the chapter, the experiences of one school of pharmacy will be described, providing examples of strategies for enhancing engagement in the post-pandemic classroom.

Scholars for Life! Building Faculty and Community Connections on an Age-Friendly University Campus

Central Connecticut State University’s Scholars for Life! supports the engagement of older learners in the community through faculty guest lectures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, participation in the virtual format frequently swelled to over 100 attendees, which is five times the number participating pre-pandemic. Moreover, faculty engagement increased. This presentation will share results of a study that used an Age-Friendly University (AFU) lens to explore this expanded connection to community members with the intention to build on its successful faculty-community engagement. 132 participants responded to the survey (M age = 69), mostly identifying as local retired alumni and community members. Participants reported high satisfaction with the lectures, connection to the university, interest in joining future travel abroad experiences, and utilizing campus resources when safe. Indeed, 84% are now aware of CCSU’s AFU status and 61% expressed interest in the 62+ course tuition waiver. Implications and future directions will be addressed.

Contextualizing communities in an instructional improvement initiative: exploring STEM faculty engagement in teaching-related conversations

A frequently cited strategy for fostering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instructional improvements is creating communities where faculty can share and learn evidence-based teaching practices. Despite research-documented benefits, little is known about why (and with whom) faculty engage in teaching-related conversations, including those fostered by initiative communities. We explored how STEM faculty engage in teaching-related conversations, via analysis of faculty interviews and discussion networks, to identify factors potentially influencing teaching-related conversations over the life of an initiative. Our results suggest aspects that might inhibit STEM faculty from engaging in teaching-related conversations, including: 1) faculty members’ autonomy with teaching practices; 2) faculty members’ varied interests in teaching improvements; 3) varied degrees of support to engage in teaching-related conversations; and 4) a lack of inclusive and non-judgmental spaces to talk about teaching. We suggest that those fostering STEM faculty communities consider working with others across the institution to map the instructional improvement opportunities faculty may already take part in and attend to areas lacking support. Initiative leaders and designers should also elicit and build off faculty members’ teaching-related knowledge and concerns. We further suggest making conversational spaces inclusive and safe, to help faculty honestly share teaching-related challenges and insights. We recommend creating and fostering spaces that bring faculty together across department boundaries. Our study echoes prior research by drawing attention to administrative support for instructional improvement initiatives, which can foster and sustain opportunities for faculty to talk about teaching and learn instructional improvements.

Faculty Engagement in Online Education: Applying the Perceived Characteristics of Innovation to Explain Online Teaching Intention

There exists an increasing demand for online education; however, faculty may question the value of online courses as they grapple with making a connection between the face-to-face classroom and the online learning experience. Much research has focused on factors relating to student engagement, although we posit that faculty engagement represents an important aspect in the online learning context that has been fairly overlooked in the engagement research stream. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence a faculty’s intention to teach an OL course in addition to their level of engagement in teaching an online learning course is vital to the growth and success of an OL program. Therefore, in this study, we seek to not only understand the factors that influence faculty’s intention to teach online learning courses but also an instructor’s level of faculty engagement in online learning courses. We sought a novel lens with which to examine this phenomenon, so this study utilizes the perceived characteristics of innovation (PCI) to examine the relationships between faculty engagement and intention to teach online learning courses. We conducted a survey of 99 instructors from a large public university in order to assess the impact of PCI on faculty engagement and intention to teach online courses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data, concluding that result demonstration, relative advantage, and compatibility influence a faculty’s level of engagement in an online learning course, which in turn influences their intention to teach an OL course. We discuss how this research can be utilized in order to more effectively allocate scarce resources by focusing on the relative advantage of online learning, the measurability of online learning, and the way in which it can be compatible with instructors teaching preferences. We present this study to enable the beginning of a new stream of research into faculty engagement.

A Qualitative Assessment of the Determinants of Faculty Engagement in Internationalization: A Chinese Perspective

Faculty is the key agent for internationalization. This interview-based study explored faculty views about the internationalization understanding, rationales, roles, engagement, and motivation in a research-centric, double-first class university in China. Faculty motivation was analyzed using the lens of the motivation systems theory (MST). The main findings concerning the five main themes emerging from the analysis of documents and interviews of twenty-eight faculty members are as follows. First, Chinese faculty’s understanding, rationales, roles, engagement, and motivation were significantly influenced by the national and university policies. Second, they mainly understood internationalization as activities, openness, and cross-cultural exchange. Third, unlike other countries, Chinese faculty espoused a broader scope of internationalization in their rationales, spanning from personal to university, higher education, China, and world development. Fourth, faculty perceived roles in internationalization included main drivers, role models, liaisons, and coordinators. Fifth, faculty motivation comprised goals, beliefs, and emotions. Faculty, among other goals, aspired to improve teaching content and expand students and self-abilities, yet they had mixed context and capacity beliefs. For example, they appreciated the university and national support for international travel, funding, and research but criticized complex travel procedures and teaching evaluation methods. They also felt concerned about their teaching, research, and communicating in a foreign language with students and international peers, except those with foreign backgrounds and experience. Faculty experienced different emotions when undertaking international activities, for example, joy, interest, and excitement to explore and learn. Finally, there was a high-medium level of faculty engagement in teaching and research than service internationalization (low or no engagement).