Community Building in a Virtual Teaching Environment

Sara L. Schwartz, PhD, MSW saraschw@usc.edu

June L. Wiley, PhD, MSW june.wiley@usc.edu

Charles D. Kaplan, PhD cdkaplan@usc.edu

Introduction

• USC launched the Virtual Academic Center (VAC) in 2010 to deliver MSW curriculum via an exclusively online model. In April 2015, there are:• ~ 2230 Students• ~125 full time faculty teaching on the VAC; 250

part-time/adjunct

• This presentation introduces a qualitative, exploratory study examining the experiences of faculty teaching via the VAC.

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Background

• Advances in technology create exciting opportunities for social work education and practice.

• Emerging paradigm shift in our field.

• The traditional social work education model has been uprooted for both students and faculty.

Literature on Virtual Education

• Literature demonstrates successful learning outcomes and student satisfaction with virtual education (Cappiccie & Desrosiers, 2011; Noble & Russell, 2013; Woehle & Quinn, 2009; York, 2008).

• Smaller body of research focuses on resources identified by faculty, challenges faced and instructor satisfaction (Douville, 2013; Flynn, Maiden, Smith & Wiley, 2013; Levin, Whitsett & Wood, 2013).

Existing Gap

• Faculty are critical to the successful delivery of virtual education; however, little attention is given to the experiences and perspectives of faculty.

• Essential to consider the person-in-environment perspective of both faculty and students in virtual social work communities in order to build best practices.

Study Importance

• Building a new paradigm for local, national and international education and training.

• Considering new roles and norms for the teacher/student learning transaction.

• Developing knowledge to build best practices in virtual education.

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Research Design

• Qualitative, exploratory

• Cross-sectional research

• Specific aims of the study are to: • Characterize instructor motivations• Learn about instructor experiences and teacher/student

relationships in virtual classrooms• Understand relationships among faculty • Uncover opportunities and challenges

Sample

• Non-probability sample drawn from faculty who had taught on the VAC for one year or more.

• Purposive and quota strategies used to represent tenure line, clinical teaching and adjunct faculty.

• 48 faculty invited to participate via email invitation; 33 responded (5 declined) for a response rate of 69%. 25 faculty participated (52%).

Data Collection

• Twenty-five semi-structured telephone interviews were completed and audio-recorded by one member of the research team.

• Participant anonymity was maintained and no identifying data were collected.

• Recordings were transcribed.

Data Analysis

• Transcribed interviews were uploaded into NVivo 10 for coding and thematic analysis.

• Initial open coding of interviews 1-13 resulted in identification of 51 codes and achieved saturation.

• Initial codes were grouped to form a reduced codebook of 21 themes used to guide axial coding of interviews 14-25.

Results – Sample Description

• 84% self-identified as Female • 68% self-identified as White• 16% self-identified as African-American • Age:

• 36% were in their 60s • 28% in their 50s• 28% in their 40s • 8% in their 30s

• (64% over the age of 50)

Results – Sample, Continued

• Position Held • 40% adjunct faculty • 32% clinical teaching faculty • 20% tenure line faculty • 8% field faculty

• The sample had a mean of 14 years teaching experience, with a range of 1 to over 30 years.

Theme 1: Geographic Diversity

Faculty consider the geographic diversity of students a benefit:

“I think it has provided an opportunity to bring diversity - more of a diversity spectrum or framework to the classroom. You know we often think of diversity in religion, sexual orientation, gender or what not but we really, I mean, to get a sense of how it’s actually different to live in the South than it is in the West and in the East there’s just a difference in some respects. I think that diversity is valuable in the classroom”.

Geographic Diversity, Continued

Only two faculty reflected on the geographic diversity of faculty as a strength.

“And from an organizational standpoint, I think its given us an opportunity to attract some really stellar folks to teach for us, that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do it. But they are really amazing practitioners and leaders in the profession and they’ve been attracted to what we are doing here. So, organizationally, it’s been an amazing thing that we’ve been able to achieve by doing this.”

Theme 2: Community Building Among Faculty

Identification of and challenges building community among faculty across all campuses: Challenges associated:

• Large faculty • Lack of opportunities for informal interactions

(e.g., water cooler)• Few opportunities to meet in person • Few opportunities to meet with faculty outside

of course assignments

Theme 2

“I have felt like I don’t have enough communication and interaction with my colleagues. And I think that’s something that the school needs to work on because we have lots of faculty all the way across the country that must be feeling more isolated, or ignorant of what is going on….”

“There are some people that I interact with on the VAC that I’ve never seen in real life. I think its hard to feel as connected.”

“It’s like, you and I can have really great rapport, but if we don’t ever… you know, we may never interact again. So, it was just a really nice conversation, but it doesn’t build community.”

Theme 2: Possible Solutions

Suggestions for faculty community building:

• “I think its key to provide opportunities for faculty to come together as a full body of faculty as we do on the ground.”

• “It would be great to create opportunities for adjunct faculty who are interested in participating in research studies.”

• “Maybe having West Coast regional meetings of faculty, or North or South, or Midwest or East, where faculty are able to come together once or twice a year to create some sort of collaboration and meet each other in the same physical space.”

Theme 3: Community Building Among Students and Faculty

Few reported challenges building relationships with students; however, geographic diversity introduces unique limitations for informal networking and resource sharing.

• “If you see somebody on campus then you can build the relationship quicker, I believe. It doesn’t mean that its better, it’s just quicker.”

• “I develop relationships with the students totally online at the same quality as I would say on the ground. Again, the modality of interaction on the phone or office hours – not in the same air space, that’s a little bit different but in terms of person-to-person connection, or the professor-to-student connection, that is just as good.”

• “They can’t stop by your office and see if you are actually there and say ‘Hey, do you want a cup of coffee while we talk? You need water?’ or “Here’s a book off my shelf that could help you.”

Suggestions for Community Building Between Students and Faculty

• “I encourage students to use the chat pod as a way to insert their feelings and some of their reflections on the class discussion process.”

• “We might think about how to use All School Day a little differently so it is more of a community building experience and less of a Q&A.”

• “Using breakout rooms often so that they get to know each other individually and in small groups. Which forces a core building between them and [is] just a little bit more intimate.”

Conclusions

• Geographic diversity offers interesting opportunities within the classroom; however, less attention is paid to the strengths of geographic diversity within the faculty body.

• Reported disconnect among faculty on the different campuses, related to geography. Consider reframing the discussion of geographic diversity and ways to build connections.

Study Limitations

• Qualitative design precludes quantitative inferences about identified themes.

• Non-probability sampling strategy plus small sample size limits generalizability of findings.

• Potential for interviewer bias as the lead researcher is a VAC faculty member.

Implications for Social Work Education

• Virtual social work education presents opportunities for faculty and students to overcome geographic boundaries, working collaboratively to build strong, sustainable communities around the country and internationally.

• Develop best practice guidelines for virtual social

work education and community building.

• Consider new ways of faculty engagement.

References

Cappiccie, A. & Desrosiers, P. (2011). Lessons learned from using adobe connect in the social work classroom. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 29, 296-302.

Douville, M.L. (2013). The effectiveness of mutual aid learning communities in online MSW practice courses. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 33(1), 15-25.

Flynn, M., Maiden, R.P., Smith, W., Wiley, J. & Wood, G. (2013). Launching the Virtual Academic Center: Issues and challenges in innovation. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 33(4-5), 339-356. doi: 10.1080/08841233.2013.843364.

Levin, S., Whitsett, D., & Wood, G. (2013). Teaching MSW social work practice in a blended online learning environment. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 33(4-5), 408-420. Doi: 10.1080/08841233.201.829168.

Noble, D. & Russell, A.C. (2013). Research on webbed connectivity in a web-based learning environment: Online social work education. Journal of Teaching in SocialWork, 33 (4-5), 496-513. Doi: 10/1080/08841233.2013.829167.

Woehle, R. & Quinn, A. (2009). An experiment comparing HBSE graduate social work classes: Face-to-face and at a distance. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 29(4), 418-430.

York, R.O. (2008). Comparing three modes of instruction in a graduate social work program. Journal of Social Work Education, 44(2), 157-172.

Thank You!