Why Faculty Members Still Aren’t Sure What to Make of Education Technology

Chronicle photo by Julia Schmalz

Ask faculty members what they think of technology in teaching, and you’ll get a lot of seemingly contradictory opinions.

They are skeptical of online learning. But they think technology can make them better teachers. They want more high-tech tools but prefer not to do anything too complicated with them. They want more research on whether technology improves learning but often rely on colleagues when figuring out what to use.

Surveys and observations by technology experts show variations on these views, suggesting a collective opinion veering somewhere between caution and outright skepticism. What does it all mean? Probably that there’s a great deal of confusion around the definitions, use, and value of technology.

That’s to be expected when even the surveyors themselves aren’t sure how people are defining terms like hybrid or online learning. If you post your syllabus on Canvas, does that mean you’re teaching a hybrid class? No doubt some professors think so. Others might set the bar higher, to include a mix of video lecture and in-person discussion. Does the term “online learning” suggest a lack of meaningful interaction between professor and student? That may explain why a majority of faculty members, across a number of surveys, believe it is not as effective as face-to-face instruction.

Yet professors are far from anti-technology. More than 70 percent of faculty members prefer teaching that is a mixture of online and in-person, according to a recent survey by the Educause Center for Analysis and Research, an arm of the higher-education-technology consortium. About half believe that online learning leads to pedagogical breakthroughs. And many are eager to get involved with multimedia production, educational games and simulations, and online collaboration tools.

Jeffrey Pomerantz, a senior researcher at Educause who presented the survey results at the group’s annual conference last week, called this mix of skepticism and enthusiasm over digital technologies “some very weird doublethink.”

Mr. Pomerantz says the survey, which reached more than 11,000 full- and part-time faculty members from a range of U.S. colleges, masked a lot of variability in the opinions. “You’re always going to have old-school resisters and you’re always going to have early adopters,” he notes.

Confusion over terminology, as well as the pace of development and adoption of digital technologies, probably complicate faculty views, he says. Learning management systems, for example, are now ubiquitous, deployed at more than 99 percent of all higher-education institutions. So, he asks, does that even count as a technology anymore? Meanwhile, he wonders whether the term “online learning” conjures up a course devoid of classroom presence. “And we all know how strongly faculty feel about classroom presence.”

What faculty want more of, he says, are tools that lead toward a hybrid course model, in which technology is infused into the curriculum. Multimedia production means that you can flip your classroom. More open courseware means you can deliver already prepared materials to your students when they want it. “That allows you to use face-to-face time for other things,” he says. “That allows for more interactive course time.”

Adding technology to a course, or creating an online version, however, requires both resources and support. It changes the way you teach, requires knowledge of different products and services, and consumes a lot of time. But resources and support are something that faculty members aren’t getting, according to another report, “Time For Class: Lessons for the Future of Digital Learning in Higher Education,” which surveyed 3,500 faculty and administrators. Among administrators who say support for faculty development is critical to implementing digital learning on their campus, only one in four believes their college is doing it effectively.

Another survey on faculty attitudes toward technology, by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup, found that fewer than half of faculty members who designed or revised an online or blended course received professional development. There’s a disconnect, in other words, between institutional strategy and execution.

Elusive Evidence

Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, who co-wrote the “Time for Class” report in partnership with Tyton Partners, says faculty views toward technology are more nuanced than surveys often make them appear. They understand the value and purpose of online education, even if they prefer face-to-face, for example. And faculty who have participated in online education are generally more supportive of it.

Yet there are so many digital technologies available to faculty members: clickers, flipped classrooms, digital materials, adaptive learning technologies. How are instructors supposed to make sense of what actually works and master the different tools? The Babson survey also showed, for example, a high level of dissatisfaction with digital courseware products — which combine the delivery mechanism and the content — among faculty and administrators.

Mr. Pomerantz of Educause notes that faculty members say they want proof that digital technologies will improve learning outcomes before they use them. But that evidence often doesn’t exist. “The pace of research and the pace of corporate R&D are so wildly different,” he says, “you get new tools and technologies coming out much faster than the evidence of their value can be produced.”

As a result, professors often rely on colleagues, including early adopters, to figure out which tools to use, surveys show.

Phillip D. Long, chief innovation officer and associate vice provost for learning sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, points to another factor holding some faculty members back: “fear that they’ll look like idiots in front of their students.” He notes research done by Lauren Herckis, an anthropologist at Carnegie Mellon University, showing that when it comes to new technologies, faculty often worry that it may not work well and thus lead to a bad experience in the classroom.

He also says that many faculty members “don’t think in the way technology requires them to think,” with things like structured decision trees. Yet most software, particularly personalized learning tools, requires that sort of deliberation and decision making in course design.

Alexandra M. Pickett, director of the Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence, at the State University of New York, sympathizes with faculty fears. “Faculty concerns are really really valid,” says Ms. Pickett, who estimates she has helped train as many as 5,000 faculty members in online course development over the past two decades. “They think about time, they think about ownership, they think about, Who is going to support me? Who is going to help me when something breaks? Who is going to help me through this whole process?”

For colleges that have the resources, Melody Buckner, director of the Office of Digital Learning at the University of Arizona, has one big piece of advice: Listen to the faculty and understand their needs. “It’s all about matching the technology with the faculty member,” says Ms. Buckner, who oversees a team of instructional designers, technologists, and curriculum developers. “If you can say this is going to fit in with how you teach, and it’s going to be a richer experience for the student, we get very excited faculty.”

Beth McMurtrie writes about technology’s influence on teaching and the future of learning. Follow her on Twitter @bethmcmurtrie, or email her at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.