Faculty preparedness for transition to teaching online courses in the Iowa Community College Online Consortium

Abstract

The recent growth of the internet has had a large impact on education and caused a growing demand for online courses at community colleges. There has also been a demand for hybrid courses, which offer a compromise between the flexibility of online courses and the personal interaction of face-to-face courses. Online and hybrid courses provide new educational opportunities for students who are unable to attend traditional face-to-face classes because of conflicts due to work and other responsibilities. This is particularly true of community college students, who are often nontraditional adult learners. Although students and institutions can clearly benefit from increasing online offerings, many issues such as faculty preparation to teach online courses still remain. The purpose of this dissertation was first to look at the experiences of community college faculty members who first started teaching in face-to-face classroom format and transitioned to teaching online, and secondly to conduct an analysis of their reported experiences. Considering the importance of bringing teachers’ voices to the discussion of transitioning to online teaching, a phenomenological qualitative research, involving the use of semi-structured interviews with eight faculty members drawn from four Iowa community colleges that belong to Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC) was conducted. Participants were asked to describe their experiences in transitioning from teaching in a face-to-face classroom environment to teaching online. Interview questions focused on their prior assumptions about online education, their preparation for online teaching and the identification of information they would recommend as vital for successful online teaching. Participation was voluntary and participants were selected by both criterion and network sampling. Interviews were conducted in person, audio-taped, transcribed, and analyzed using