Rational

Various studies have determined that at least four universal barriers affecting higher education faculty adoption of technology exist: lack of institutional support, lack of financial support, lack of time, and lack of knowledge (Chizmar and Williams, 2001; Butler and Sellbom, 2001; Groves & Zemel, 2000; Betts, 1999). These factors have caused faculty to adopt technology in instruction somewhat more slowly than other workplace professionals (Dusick, 1998). For many college and university faculty resource centers and other technology support units in higher education, this can be frustrating and challenging. Charged with supporting and training faculty in their use of instructional technology, many resource centers are finding the traditional workshop model unsuccessful; even when they do attend, faculty are leaving workshops with little more knowledge and skill than when they went in. Faculty members report that they are getting too much information too quickly, with little or no time to practice the new knowledge once they leave the workshop.

Affective factors have long been known to influence learning, and this is true for all learners, faculty included. Not everyone learns at the same pace and not everyone is interested in learning to incorporate technology into his or her instruction according to the same timeframe. The difference in rate has been referred to as the Technology Adoption Lifecycle. This theory was originally developed at Iowa State College in 1957, and later expanded by Everett Rogers in Diffusion of Innovations. Rogers describes Categories of Innovativeness, and catalogs basic attitudes toward adaptation of technology.

Figure 1. Percentage of Early Adopters vs. other types of technology users.

Innovators in web-based instruction began to generate web-based instructional technologies as early as 1994; they tended to work alone and had little contact with the fledgling faculty resource centers of the time. In the mid to late 1990s, early adopters were beginning to create their own instructional technologies and looked to resource centers to help with these developing technologies. The early majority followed suit in the late 1990s and early into this century. Currently, the late majority is being at best encouraged and at worst pressured into developing web-based instructional technologies. Early adopters tend to be interested in the technology itself. Late majority faculty adopters are primarily concerned with teaching and learning. They want ease of use and proven applications that have a low risk of failure. This majority has special motivational and pedagogic needs that resource centers must recognize and find new ways to meet.

Literature

As the World Wide Web was not a significant tool in higher education instruction prior to 1994, there is a scarcity of literature that discusses the effectiveness of faculty technology workshops before this time. Mills, one of the earliest to publish on this issue, discusses in 1994 what was considered to be typical for the time and for the few years following. She claims that the primary necessity for faculty in terms of instructional technology was to “. . . . be trained to integrate and enhance their syllabi, lecture notes, and typical hand-outs, transparencies or slides through the new digital technology by creating richer, more interactive materials.” In her mind, technology is important because it can enhance the ways in which the “product” is disseminated. Donovan and Macklin reported that in 1996, initial efforts to support faculty at the University of Washington consisted mainly of workshops and faculty showcases. These workshops were “drop-in” and could be led by faculty, staff or graduate students.

In 1998, Xavier University began a series of three summer workshops. These workshops were designed at the time when the early majority was becoming more and more interested in instructional technology, and the goal was for faculty to develop an instructional technology enhancement in the course ( Cagle and Hornik, 2001). The faculty concentrated on incorporating technology into one aspect of one course. The amount of time of the workshops varied slightly over the course of the three years, and faculty were compensated for their participation. Although Xavier did incorporate pedagogy into the workshops, their basic focus was technology, not pedagogy. While organizers at Xavier did many things well in the creation and execution of these workshops, their basic flaw was that the concentration was not on pedagogy, and the development of technology that incorporated concrete pedagogic principles was secondary to the acquisition of technology skills.

Littlejohn and Sclater (1999) discuss how Strathclyde University in Glasgow dealt with the difficulty of promoting technology for technology’s sake. The University realized that they needed a conceptual framework in which to plan their workshops, and determined that the focus had to be placed on the teaching and learning rather than the technology. “Faculty are continually invited, through the use of face-to-face and electronic discussions, to think about how the technologies would best be used to enhance the student learning process (Littlejohn and Sclater,1999). Additionally, each workshop began with a discussion of pedagogic issues.

Strathclyde University seemed, however, to be the exception rather than the rule at the time. Although some institutions like Strathclyde University and Xavier were starting to understand the importance of placing pedagogy first, the enthusiasm and resourcefulness of the early majority gave the illusion that resource centers were fulfilling faculty needs. Thurston, et. al., in 1998 still viewed technology as paramount; their workshops were the typical fare of the day, two or so hours long, consecutive workshops for more complex topics, technology driven. There is no mention of pedagogy, and the workshops were even occasionally lead by graduate students who would have had little formal training in instruction technology, and very little experience in teaching. Additionally, Shapiro and Cartwright found in their research that technology was central and pedagogy was less important or even absent, “In most cases, targeted workshops assist faculty in gaining skills in specific areas such as building a Web page for their class syllabus, or using e-mail to support class projects” (1998).

Further review of the literature finds these two patterns repeating. There is a prevalence of workshops that focus on technology for technology’s sake (Coppola, 2000; Kaminsky, 2000; Roach, 2000), and a scant few that make an attempt to incorporate pedagogy (Sorg, et.al., 1999).

Background

In creating effective training, resource centers must not only face the barriers of lack of institutional support, lack of financial support, lack of time for faculty, and most importantly, lack of faculty knowledge about technology, but also with the technology adoption lifecycle. Ideally, an effective workshop would consider and strive to address all of these factors.

The Faculty Resource Center (FRC) at the University of Alabama (a Carnegie-classified intensive doctoral/research university with roughly 19,000 students and 900 faculty) has conducted diverse workshops and seminars geared at training and supporting faculty. These workshops have altered as demand has changed and as attendees shifted from early adopters to majority users. Originally, the workshops consisted of three-hour long workshops during the academic semester and weeklong workshops during the summer months. All of these workshops were of the “technology for technology’s sake” variety. During the academic semester, the sessions progressed from simple to more difficult. Typically, the semester workshops began with topics that covered basic concepts such as making, copying and moving files and subdirectories. Workshops then moved to more complex issues like file transfer protocol (ftp), file zipping, and basic web theory. More complicated topics and programs were introduced next after the faculty member was, ideally, more confident and comfortable with the basics. In summer workshops, over a one-week period, participants were given all the technology they could possibly need to put a web site or web course online. Faculty were introduced to Adobe Acrobat 4.0, Macromedia DreamWeaver 4.0, Adobe PhotoShop 6.0 and others, programs that are the mainstay of technology professionals. The emphasis of these workshops was, as with the three-hour workshops, technology for technology’s sake.

These kinds of workshops were addressing only the lack of knowledge with respect to technology in attendees, and not addressing that very well. They did not deal with institutional support, financial support, or time issues. The workshops were geared toward the small group of early adopters, who were quite satisfied with the format, style and outcomes of the workshops. This generally held for the early majority as well. When the workshops began to become more crowed with the late majority and laggards, it became clear based on frequency of repetition and faculty comments, that changes would be necessary in order for the FRC to continue to address the needs of faculty. Not only did other barriers beyond basic lack of technology expertise need to be addressed, but the emphasis had to shift toward pedagogy and educational goals, and away from technology. As Donovan and Macklin found, faculty were, at this point, actually not interested in acquiring a technology skill; they wanted to know how to perform specific tasks that were applicable to their disciplines or fields, and they wanted to be able to retain the knowledge and be equipped to repeat these tasks once they returned to their offices (1996).

The New Workshop Model

The challenge was to create a workshop that was not only instructive, but also addressed lack of funding and time, gave cross-institutional support and focused on instruction and pedagogy. The solution was to hold a two-week “Workshop for Web-based Instruction.” The main objectives were that each participant would create an entire online WebCT course that realized concrete pedagogic principles, and that compensation would be provided to faculty participants. An institutional $15,000 grant made it possible for faculty to be compensated $1,000 each for participation in the workshop and for completion of the WebCT course. All faculty applicants were required to submit a proposal that outlined the educational goals and objectives for online delivery of the course, and how they expected to benefit from the use of technology. Of the approximately 40 proposals (roughly 5% of the total faculty) ten faculty members were selected. Decisions were based on the submitted proposal and the applicants’ availability in the summer. Eight of the ten faculty were in tenure-track positions, and of those, seven were already tenured. Participants came from four different colleges, including two from Communication and Information Science, four from Human Environmental Sciences, three from Arts and Sciences, and one from Education.

The workshop was organized with the idea that the technical and the pedagogic issues would interact with and build upon each other. Emphasis was placed on the concept that the pedagogy and, most especially, the final goal of creating a complete WebCT course would be paramount. Only enough technology was taught to get the immediate job done; in the past, sessions on DreamWeaver 4.0, for example, would cover as many possible aspects of the program that could be packed into a 3-hour session. During the Workshop for Web-based Instruction, participants were taught only the parts of DreamWeaver 4.0 they needed to know in order to achieve the task at hand, whether that be creating the obligatory syllabus, or working with lecture notes. With this in mind, each 6-hour day began with a faculty expert presenting an issue directly correlated to the day’s technology and pedagogy goals. After each faculty expert presentation, an FRC professional staff member taught participants the particular technology skill applicable to the day’s pedagogic objective. In the early afternoon, the learned skill was directly applied to the building of the course, and participants were walked through the implementation step by step. Later, the participant had work time, with professionals from the Faculty Resource Center at hand to assist.

Administrators from the Distance Education department at the University came to discuss not only issues related to distance education, but also further possible compensation possibilities for faculty members skilled in web-based distance education technology. This gave faculty another financial incentive to finish the workshop and the course.

Results

There are few faculty workshops and seminars in this country that are two weeks long; many technology resource professionals and faculty alike believe that there is no feasible way faculty, particularly those seeking tenure, can spend two weeks in the summer creating an online course. However, as many of the participants found, two weeks were critical in that the time frame allowed for individual attention and practice while help was readily available. When asked what was most beneficial, the pervasive theme was the work time with professionals:

“The instructors were well prepared and provided great information having them ON SITE while we worked was CRUCIAL.”
“Having you right there to instantly help us as we encountered problems when trying to do something - NOT having this and getting stumped on something that takes hours or days to resolve prohibits any progression of learning to do this stuff.”
“The opportunity to have focused time with professional assistance to work on designing a WebCT class that can be used in the future.”
“Work time with resource people available.”
“Working with very friendly, very knowledgeable instructors from the FRC. This is very important because it keeps the frustration level down while acquiring the skills.”

When asked what aspects of the workshop could be improved, participants responded with the wish for more compensation, requests to make the handouts available before the workshop began, and demands for even more individual work time. When asked how they would rate their satisfaction with the workshop overall, using Very Unsatisfied/Unsatisfied/Satisfied/Very Satisfied as the indicators, all of the ten faculty rated their feelings as “very satisfied.”

The Workshop for Web-based Instruction was successful because the planning, organization and implementation addressed the barriers faculty face when adopting technology. The two-week structure removed the barriers of lack of time and knowledge, while compensation alleviated the financial barrier. Additionally, the faculty were institutionally supported through the collaboration of various departments and divisions in conducting the workshop. The two-week time frame and the model of technology for pedagogy’s sake allowed for the late majority to be given the care and motivation needed to welcome technology into instruction.

References

Betts, Kristen S. (1999) Perception vs. reality: top 10 motivators and inhibitors for participating in distance education
    as view by faculty and deans at a research II institution. The Virtual University Gazette. http://www.geteducated.com/vug/archives/vug0499.htm#chalk

Butler, Darrell L., & Sellbom, Martin (2002). Barriers to adopting technology for teaching and learning.
    Educause Quartely, Volume 25, number 2, pp. 22-28.

Cagle, Julie A.B. & Hornik, Steven (October, 2001). Faculty development and educational technology.
    T H E Journal, Vol. 29, Issue 3, 92-97.

Chizmar, J.F. and Williams, D. B. (2001). What do faculty want? Educause Quarterly. 24 (1), 2001, 18-24.

Coppola, Jean. F (January, 2000) Beyond ‘chalk and talk.’ T H E Journal, Vol. 27, Issue 6.

Donovan, Mark & Macklin, Scott (1998) One size doesn’t fit all: designing scaleable, client-centered support for technology in teaching.
    Paper presented at CAUSE98: The Networked Academy, an EDUCAUSE Conference on Information Technology in Higher Education.
    Seattle, Washington. December 8-11, 1998.

Dusick, Diane M. (1998). What social cognitive factors influence faculty members’ use of computers for teaching? A literature review.
    Journal of Research on Computing in Education. Vol. 31, Issue 2, 123.

Groves, Melissa M. & Zemel, Paula C. (2000). Instructional technology adoption in higher education: An action research case study.
    International Journal of Instructional Media, Vol. 27, Issue 1, 57.

Kaminski, Karen (April, 2000). Infusing technology into the classroom. TechTrends, Vol. 44, No. 3, 38-39.

Littlejohn, Allison & Sclater, Niall (1999). The virtual university as a conceptual model for faculty change and innovation.
    Interactive Learning Environments, Vol. 7, No. 2-3, 209-225.

Millis, Barbara J. (May/June, 1994). Faculty development in the 1990s:what it is and why we can’t wait.
    Journal of Counseling and Development, Vol 72, Issue 5. 454-465.

Shapiro, W. L. & Cartwright, G. P. (1998). New ways to link technology and faculty development. Change. 30(5), 50-52.

Sorg, Steven, Truman-Davis, Barbara, Dziuban, Charles, Moskal, Patsy, Hartman, Joel & Juge, Frank (1999).
    Faculty development, learner support and evaluation in web-based programs. Interactive Learning Environments, Vol. 7, No. 2-3, 137-153.

Roach, Ronald (2000). Mastering technology’s tools and techniques. Black Issues in Higher Education. Nov. 23, 2000.

Rogers, Everett M. (1962). Diffusion of Innovations. The Free Press. New York.

Thurston, Catherine O., Stuve, Mathew J., Pianfetti, Evangeline S., & Thomas, Ryan (1998). Multiple means of support:
    the role of the office of educational technology in faculty development. Technology and Teacher Education Annual, 352-355.

Tables:

Table 1: Characteristics of those in the Technology Adoption Lifecycle.

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