A Knowledge-Based Risk-Driven Model Supporting Collaborative Online Course Creation

This chapter presents a visible, explicit, and reusable risk-driven knowledge capture model that defines a process for supporting collaborative online course creation. The model defines the structure and use of a knowledge base of risks and heuristics for risk mitigation specific to transitioning courses to online. The instantiation of the model with known risks and heuristics is the end result of collaboration that takes place among a community of practitioners which includes experienced online instructors, instructional designers, and subject experts. Experienced practitioners hold within their established mental models of instructional design the theory behind such design. This theory consists of the knowledge behind decisions affecting success or difficulty and heuristics established regarding online course design. Without explicit capture of this knowledge, theories expressing mental models of successful design are lost when expert practitioners leave an organization. This presented model defines a structure and method for the capture and reuse of this knowledge.

Online Faculty Community

The chapter provides a thorough account of a developed online resource: a learning management system organization named online faculty community. The resource supports faculty in the cognitive, social, and teaching areas. The authors provide a description of the resource, its areas of strengths, and the lessons learned from implementation. The authors also assessed the resource's efficacy via a survey, and they highlight quantitative and qualitative results in the chapter. This chapter is particularly innovative as the authors describe a project that was created shortly after the shutdown of universities due to a pandemic across the world in efforts to stay connected. Learning about unique ways to engage faculty in a pandemic is important, and the project was a collaborative effort of faculty leaders seeking to serve other faculty in a difficult time.

Promoting a Collegial, Collaborative, and Innovative Teaching and Learning Environment

Ryerson University is home to the Real Institute's ESL Foundation Program and was required to adapt programming and curricula for virtual teaching and learning in response to COVID-19. Despite difficulties at the outset, through the collaboration and creativity of a group of curriculum specialists and instructors, best practices regarding course management, assessment design, and program development for the teaching and learning of EAP and ESL curricula across time and space were discovered. The adaptation of curricula and programming for the virtual classroom was made possible due to the collaboration, innovation, and perseverance of instructors, administrative staff, and, of course, students.

What the Flip

Given the abrupt shift to online learning when schools closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this chapter provides insights gained during the transition. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the use of flipped learning in teacher education courses as the courses transitioned to a virtual model. The authors discuss their participation in virtual professional learning communities (VPLCs) as well as efforts to engage students in VPLCs. This chapter offers perspectives of both instructors and students as well as insights gained while teaching in a teacher education program and while teaching at a Nicaraguan university. A primary focus within the chapter is the use of various technologies and the collaboration among colleagues in and out of the United States to instruct teachers candidates and practicing teachers from primary level through higher education programs. Practical guidance is offered to those looking to begin or further the virtual teaching and learning.

Pandemic-Fueled Essential Doctoral Community Collaborations

This chapter presents the current research into doctoral community collaborations between faculty leaders and library and information science (LIS) professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled and fostered rapid decision-making solutions for remote doctoral library research and increasingly blurred the bounds between on ground, hybrid, and online doctoral education. Many solutions necessitated by the pandemic may continue post-pandemic to transform and strengthen the doctoral learning community through LIS and faculty collaboration for the research supports needed for quality doctoral research as well as the effective development of new investigators. Insights include the integration of collaborative digital platforms, enhanced remote access, deeper academic databases, and instructional strategies to enhance remote research supervision.

Shifting to Online Learning Through Cognitive Flexibility

The chapter presents a review of the approaches to cognitive flexibility as an ability, behaviour, and executive function in psychology and neuroscience. In education, it was used to develop cognitive flexibility theory, which is treated as a pedagogical tool to enhance learners' information processing skills. The chapter also stresses the importance of cognitive flexibility in the context of transformation to distance learning in two universities of Russia and one in Turkey during the coronavirus pandemic in Spring-Fall 2020 when faculty members were forced to use flexible and creative solutions and approaches to resume the discontinued in-person learning online and maintain it.

Developing and Supporting Mathematics Teacher Educators Through Virtual Collaborations

This chapter focuses on a group of mathematics teacher educators across the state of Texas that utilized collaboration before and during a global pandemic in order to examine and apply equity issues in their own instruction and delivery of their mathematics methods courses. The authors will highlight and share how the use of collaboration that initiated with the focus on rethinking equity practices in methods courses morphed into a supportive environment that helped the group of mathematics teacher educators through a difficult transition in education due to COVID-19. The goal of the chapter is to urge educators to use collaboration as an impetus for professional development and establishing communities of practice.

The Unexpected Online Learning Pivot

The COVID-19 pandemic that swelled into an economic maelstrom during the year 2020 also focused a direct hit on higher education. As faculty and students were heading into spring break, the seismic impact of impending changes were realized. Within the digital age, the technology has raised an ever-increasing recognition of differentiated styles of teaching and learning, yet so many faculty held tightly to the traditional face-to-face instructional environments. Yet faculty persistence won the day, reflecting the ability of higher education faculty to succeed through the swerving road of the unknown, the tightrope that they walked dangling daringly over the online chasm of understanding. This chapter focuses on the initial foray into the principles of instruction, followed by an understanding of the differentiation between optics and outcomes, developing strategic priorities, an understanding of nuanced teaching and learning, and the gratitude and understanding conceived through critically reflective pedagogy and journaling.

Collaboration for Social Justice and Faculty Development Through Online Course Design

In this chapter, eight Canadian teacher-educators describe how they collaboratively transformed a face-to-face Master of Education course focused on education for social justice into an online summer course. Each of the eight instructors wrote a short narrative of their experience, and these were woven together to show examples of how this collaborative endeavor worked. Themes emerging from their writing included support through team meetings, faculty development and mentorship through shared resources, support through individuals' diversity of experience, support through building community, transitioning from face-to-face to online learning, and the importance of support from a pedagogically-informed technological support team. Reasons why this collaboration worked are discussed in the conclusion.

Utilizing Online Innovative Technology for Student Success in Higher Education Learning Environments

The sudden shift from face-to-face lectures to online learning occurred on a global scale at the onset of COVID-19 in early March 2020. The transition raised questions about faculty and students' abilities to use existing technology at national levels. COVID-19 has forced university staff to come up with out-of-the-box solutions because of the sudden shift. Such dramatic changes were not easily met because most teaching professionals only had experience with face-to-face lectures, assignments, and projects. This chapter explores utilizing online innovative technology for student success in higher education learning environments.