| | December - 20208How Challenging is Remote Instruction During a Pandemic?By Jeonghyun (Jonna) Lee, Ph.D.,Assistant Director of Research in Education Innovation, Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U), Georgia Institute of TechnologyIn response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities around the world shifted rapidly from the more traditional delivery of face-to-face courses to remote, mostly digital delivery. My research team in Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U) quickly realized the critical nature of collecting data about the impact of this unprecedentedinstructional pivot. With this in mind, we conducted an online survey (n=266) as well as acase study (n=7) between mid-April and May 2020 in the hopes ofgaining insight intohow the recent emergency move to remote teaching affected facultyperceptions and instructional practices.Through this mixed-method study, the C21U team hasbeen able to contribute to the development and implementation of new tools that effectively support remote teaching and learning practicesfor the Georgia Tech community. Our study captured a snapshot of how faculty adapted their instructionduring the sudden transition fromface-to-face to remote teaching. According to the survey results,approximately half of the total respondents (47%) reported that they used a combination of asynchronous and synchronous methods to deliver their instruction.Our combined findings from the survey and case study suggested that the transition processin general seemed to require a considerable amount of adjustments and efforts under time constraints.Interestingly, we found that our faculty's attitudes towards remote teaching appeared to differ to some extent by their course subject as well as prior experience in using technology. For instance, some faculty members perceived that their course topics and some of their initial face-to-face class activities were not suitable for the online instruction mode, especially if their classinvolved "hands-on" learning activities such as projects in a design studio. Additionally, we observed that faculty members who have had more experience with teaching, learning, or having professional meetings online seemed to have a generally positive stance towards technology and were more enthusiastic about the transition, although they still ran into difficulties transitioning to remote teaching.Regardless of unique factors that affectedindividual course transition either positively or negatively, we foundseveral salient challenges and issues that arose during the transition to remote teaching.Our faculty commonly reported that their perceived difficulties in remote teaching often derived from internet connectivity and technical issues.To resolve these issues, many instructors reported that they reduced the length of recorded lectures by dividing a continuous, long lecture into a series of short videos (typically less than 15 minutes) and makingthem available in advance so that they mightbe downloaded with no need for streaming. Another common approach was adding some degree of flexibility to assignments and exams. For example, instructors often reported that they extended assignment deadlines or divided long exams into smaller tests to minimize timeouts and connectivity issues. We also observed that many instructors offered flexibility in test-taking by providing a broadertime window to accommodate students working from different time zones.IN MY OPINION Jeonghyun (Jonna) Lee
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