Experiencing the shift: How postsecondary contract and continuing faculty moved to online course delivery

Authors

  • Patricia Danyluk University of Calgary
  • Amy Burns University of Calgary, Werklund School of Education

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26522/brocked.v30i2.866

Abstract

The shift to online learning that occurred in March of 2020, created an unprecedented period of intense work for faculty and sessional instructors at the post-secondary level. This shift necessitated courses be adapted under short timelines, new technology be integrated into course design and teaching strategies and assessment methods be adapted for an online environment (Van Nuland et al., 2020). This study examines how sessional instructors, referred to in this chapter as contract faculty, and continuing full-time faculty members delivering the same online courses experienced this shift. While the demands of a continuing faculty position call for balancing of teaching, research and service responsibilities, contract instructors have their own unique stressors (Karram Stephenson et al., 2020). Contract faculty lack job security, are paid by the course and often receive their teaching assignments with short notice. By examining their perspectives on delivering the same courses online, we learn that the shift to online teaching resulted in additional work in order to adapt courses to the online environment, with faculty describing the challenges of balancing the additional work with other responsibilities of their position. Concerns of participants focused on a perceived inability to develop relationships with students in an online environment.

Author Biography

Amy Burns, University of Calgary, Werklund School of Education

Amy has four years of experience as Director of Field Experience and is currently in her third year as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs in Education with the Werklund School of Education.  She has thirty-six teacher education publications on topics ranging from leadership during the pandemic (in-press) to field experience and community-based experiential learning.  Two of these publications are edited books on which she was an editor.  She has undertaken extensive peer review responsibilities for her two edited books Leading with heart: Enacting self-care, collective care and justice and Women Negotiating Life in the Academy – A Canadian Perspective.  She has also undertaken reviews for the CATE publication Change and progress in Canadian Teacher Education: Research on recent innovations in teacher preparation in Canada.  Additionally, she is a regular reviewer for Teaching Education, Interchange, and the Alberta Journal of Educational Research.

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Published

2021-07-13

How to Cite

Danyluk, P., & Burns, A. (2021). Experiencing the shift: How postsecondary contract and continuing faculty moved to online course delivery. Brock Education Journal, 30(2), 63. https://doi.org/10.26522/brocked.v30i2.866

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 2 (2021): Professors in Canada: Experiences of the Academic Life

Section

Articles

License

The copyright for articles in this journal is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of this being an open-access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution to both the author(s) and Brock Education for educational and other non-commercial paper.