The experience of teaching online and its impact on faculty innovation across delivery methods

Internet and Higher Education 31 (2016) 71–78

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Internet and Higher Education

The experience of teaching online and its impact on faculty innovation across delivery methods Lorna R. Kearns University of Pittsburgh, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 4 October 2015 Received in revised form 9 May 2016 Accepted 22 June 2016 Available online 24 June 2016 Keywords: Online teaching and learning Teaching in higher education Teaching innovation Faculty professional growth

a b s t r a c t As traditional colleges and universities increasingly incorporate online learning programs into their curriculum, it is important to understand the benefits that may accrue to the faculty who teach in those programs, particularly those that influence instructors' continuing participation in face-to-face (f2f) teaching. The purpose of this qualitative study was to provide a greater understanding of how the experience of teaching online influenced instructors' thinking, planning, and enactment in their teaching practice across delivery methods. Four overarching themes emerged: 1) Reflecting on Practice, 2) Creating Structure, 3) Conducting the Class, and 4) Facilitating Learning. Reflecting on Practice occurred when instructors questioned themselves about their teaching goals and objectives. Creating Structure encompasses course planning and designing. Conducting the Class refers to the ongoing consideration of maximizing class time for student learning. Facilitating Learning involved creating conditions that promote student learning. Three trends had an impact on the themes: 1) a shift in focus from teaching to learning, 2) a growing awareness of the affordances of technology and media, and 3) a weakening of the boundary between in-class and out-of-class learning activities. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction As online learning in higher education becomes more common (Allen & Seaman, 2014), the number of faculty who move from faceto-face (f2f) teaching to online teaching has also increased. Studies examining this shift have focused on competencies for teaching online (e.g., Williams, 2003), faculty development needs and initiatives (e.g., Eib & Miller, 2006), barriers and incentives to faculty participation (e.g., Shattuck, 2012), faculty satisfaction with online teaching (Bolliger & Wasilik, 2009), and changing faculty roles (e.g., Beaudoin, 1990). Much less research has been conducted on a shift in the other direction, i.e., how teaching online might influence f2f teaching. Although a few researchers have begun to explore this phenomenon (e.g., Kampov-Polevoi, 2010; McQuiggan, 2011; Scagnoli, Buki, & Johnson, 2009; Shea, Pelz, Fredericksen, & Pickett, 2002; Skibba, 2009; Wiesenberg & Stacey, 2008), the overall knowledge base is not robust. A fuller examination of the relationship between online and f2f teaching will contribute to our understanding of the professional development process of faculty in higher education. It may also assist instructional designers and faculty developers in communicating more effectively and productively with faculty clients about instructional issues in both domains. Additionally, expanding the knowledge base on

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2016.06.005 1096-7516/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

the types of teaching strategies that work in both formats should provide instructors and instructional designers with a more robust set of strategies in both contexts, a better understanding of how to implement strategies in either context, and an appreciation for the kinds of strategies that might transfer to new and emerging teaching domains, e.g., massive open online courses. 2. Literature review 2.1. Faculty professional development and orientations to teaching Teaching and learning are widely acknowledged to be complex, multifaceted processes (e.g., Gaff & Simpson, 1994; Kane, Sandretto, & Heath, 2002; Roche & Marsh, 2000). A model of faculty professional growth that captures this complexity must account for the ways in which faculty develop expertise in teaching, how they think about teaching and learning, and how they innovate in their teaching practice. One such model, proposed by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002), incorporates both formal learning opportunities such as participation in university-sponsored faculty development programs as well as the informal learning that takes place in the day-to-day practice of teaching. The value of such learning is supported by studies that highlight the importance of on-the-job learning for teaching in higher education (e.g., Knight, Tait, & Yorke, 2006; Pickering, 2006; Post, 2011; Van Eekelen, Boshuizen, & Vermunt, 2005).

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Related to the subject of faculty professional growth is the study of faculty orientations towards teaching. Kember (1997) identified two orientations to teaching. A teacher-centered, content orientation is aligned with the knowledge transmission view of teaching. As described by Ramsden (1992), this orientation views the instructor as the authority who possesses the information to be transmitted to students. Teaching consists of passing this information on to students; learning is dependent upon their willingness to receive it. On the other hand, a student-centered, learning orientation is one in which the instructor not only presents information but also creates multiple opportunities for students to apply new material, thus enabling active and engaged learning. Much of the research on these two orientations has focused on how instructors move towards a learning orientation. Some studies have shown how conceptions of teaching change in this direction after instructors participate in faculty development initiatives (e.g., Gibbs & Coffey, 2004; Ho, Watkins, & Kelly, 2001). Others have demonstrated that instructors become more learning-oriented even without the benefit of an intervention (e.g., Entwistle & Walker, 2000; McKenzie, 2003). 2.2. The experience of teaching online Much has been made of the role changes required of instructors as they move from f2f teaching to online teaching. In general, this is seen as a shift from a teaching-centered “sage on the stage” model to a student-centered “guide on the side” model (e.g., Berge, 1995; Conrad, 2004; Mazzolini & Maddison, 2003; Ragan, 2008). Conceicao (2006) conducted a phenomenological study into the lived experience of instructors teaching online and concluded that online teaching did indeed require a shift in roles. De Gagne and Walters (2009) conducted a qualitative meta-synthesis study about the online teaching experience. Emergent themes included faculty concerns about work intensity, role changes, teaching strategies, and professional development. In a similar study (Major, 2010), instructors talked about the changes they experienced as they moved into online teaching. They reported assuming new technical responsibilities, reconstructing relationships with students within the constraints and affordances of the new environment, and experiencing professional rejuvenation with new opportunities to learn. 2.3. Impact of teaching online on f2f teaching Shea et al. (2002) administered a survey to faculty which explored, in part, how the experience of teaching online affected their classroom teaching. Over 90% of respondents agreed that developing and teaching an online course provided them with an opportunity to reflect on their classroom teaching. More than 80% believed that the experience would help them improve their teaching in the classroom. Wiesenberg and Stacey (2008) surveyed Canadian and Australian faculty teaching online at similar universities to compare their teaching philosophies. Both groups believed that the online and f2f formats complemented each other well and that potential existed to transfer strategies from one to the other. In particular, they remarked that the requirement of the online classroom to be more structured, organized, and thoughtful would be helpful in their f2f teaching. In a qualitative study aimed at discovering how teaching in a blended online program influenced teaching beliefs and practices, Skibba (2009) found that instructors who taught in f2f, online, and blended formats changed some of their assumptions about teaching by reflecting on their experiences across formats. In another qualitative study, Kampov-Polevoi (2010) reported that instructors consistently mentioned experimenting with new technologies and strategies in their f2f courses as a result of their exposure to the tools and methods they encountered in their online course development work. In a collective case study of university faculty (Scagnoli et al., 2009), instructors reported that teaching online led them to expand their use

of multimedia in their f2f courses and make greater use of their learning management system (LMS) for online discussion, assignment submission, and student collaborative work such as peer review activities. Additional transferred strategies included use of comments from students' online discussion to trigger in-class discussion, adaptation of essay assignments to become online collaborative writing projects, and use of student Web searches for self-exploration and inquiry. In McQuiggan's (2011) study of how a faculty development program on online teaching influenced participants' assumptions and beliefs about teaching, instructors reported a shift in their f2f classes towards less reliance on lecture and more focus on learner-centered activities. These studies represent a major portion of the work that has been reported on how the experience of teaching online influences f2f teaching. Although each has contributed to our understanding of this phenomenon, the body of work as a whole is fragmented and incomplete. The study presented here addresses that gap by describing an on-thejob teaching experience that can catalyze new learning, thus connecting the literature on online teaching to the scholarship of faculty professional development. It adds to the few studies that have focused on this phenomenon by providing a rich, experience-based description and proposing a model that may be used to conduct further research. 3. Research questions The purpose of this research study was to understand how the experience of teaching online influenced instructors' thinking, planning, and enactment in their teaching practice across delivery methods. This study sought to answer the following research questions: 1. How do instructors who report having changed their assumptions about effective teaching as a result of teaching online experience this change? 2. In what ways does this experience influence their f2f teaching? 4. Method Qualitative research methods seek to understand and describe complex phenomena situated in specific, naturalistic contexts. They are used to study individuals and groups of people in great depth, often from the perspective of the research participants. Phenomenology is a qualitative method that aims to describe “the meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon” (Creswell, 2007, p. 57, emphasis in original). Because this study sought to understand the experience of changing one's assumptions about effective teaching and/or modifying one's teaching practices as a result of teaching online, it was well suited to the phenomenological method. Qualitative methods are not without limitations, however, especially those arising from concerns about scientific rigor. To address these concerns, Lincoln and Guba (1986) proposed four criteria to evaluate rigor in qualitative research: 1) credibility, 2) transferability, 3) dependability, and 4) confirmability. To promote credibility, this study used techniques such as extended engagement and member checks with research participants to confirm conclusions. For transferability, context-rich descriptions of instructor thinking, planning, and enactment were sought and recorded. To enhance dependability and confirmability, triangulation of data sources was achieved by means of both a survey and set of interviews. Other data sources, such as syllabi, rubrics, and course sites, were also examined. Data were collected in two phases. In Phase One, an online survey was administered to the population of instructors who taught online graduate courses at a large public research university in the northeastern United States. The purpose of the survey was to recruit a small group of instructors to be interviewed about the kinds of pedagogical change they had experienced as a result of teaching online. It included multiple-choice questions about the respondent's discipline, years of experience in online and f2f teaching, and whether the experience of

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teaching online had an impact on the respondent's overall teaching. Three open-ended questions asked instructors who had experienced some kind of impact to describe the changes that had occurred in their overall teaching as a result of teaching online. An email was sent to 310 instructors inviting them to participate in the survey. The survey was completed by 78 respondents, an even 25% response rate. Although this rate may be considered low for measuring effects or making generalizations, the purpose of this study was not to investigate the pervasiveness of experiencing a positive impact on one's f2f teaching as a result of teaching online but rather to understand how that experience may have contributed to an instructor's growth and development as a teacher. The primary goal in conducting the survey, therefore, was to recruit a purposeful sample of participants for the interview phase of the study. Purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990), which is commonly used in qualitative studies, is accomplished by selecting cases that are likely to provide ample information about “issues of central importance to the purpose of the research” (p. 169). Of the 78 respondents, 63 taught both online and f2f. Among the instructors who taught in both formats, 29 indicated that they would be willing to be interviewed and 10 were selected for interviewing based on the variety of responses they offered to the open-ended questions on the survey and the disciplines they represented. This selection strategy was used in order to achieve a sufficient breadth and diversity of ways in which instructors had experienced the phenomenon under study. Of the 10 instructors willing to be interviewed, one did not respond to the interview invitation and another dropped out after the first interview. Eight instructors participated in the interviews that were conducted during Phase Two. These included initial Web-based interviews that lasted between 60 and 90 min as well as a set of shorter follow-up telephone interviews with each of the participants. Interview questions covered information about the instructor's teaching background, the processes by which the instructor had learned about teaching and learning, the methods used by the instructor to assess student learning, the instructor's views on how f2f and online teaching and learning compared to one another, and the ways in which the instructor experienced professional growth and change as a result of teaching online. Table 1 presents demographic information about the instructors and the aliases used to identify them. Qualitative data from both the survey and the interviews were analyzed for themes following a six-step process outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006): 1) becoming familiar with the data, 2) generating initial codes, 3) collating codes into potential theme categories, 4) building a thematic map, 5) naming themes, and 6) selecting examples for inclusion in the report. Data coding was accomplished using the Nvivo (2015) qualitative data analysis software. The first step of the six-step, Braun and Clarke (2006) thematic analysis process, becoming familiar with the data, was accomplished by writing summaries of each of the interviews. These were thumbnail sketches that contained some descriptive information, e.g., years of teaching experience, as well as salient comments suggesting preliminary themes. For example, in answer to one of the open-ended survey questions, Peter had written that the experience of teaching online had resulted in his becoming attuned to the importance of “a more

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rigorous teaching strategy of prepare-teach-assess.” His early articulation of “prepare-teach-assess” as a key strategy led to an exploration, in the interviews, of how and why he used that method in his teaching. Focusing attention on this strategy in the interviews resulted in its becoming a theme in the summaries as well as an element of interest in subsequent coding of the transcripts, the second step in the analysis process. In this second step, the transcripts of both interviews were closely read in order to apply initial codes to interesting passages. Codes were created based on the transcript data without regard to how they might later be related to one another. Passages of text with multiple meanings were given multiple codes. For example, Peter's reference to his “prepare-teach-assess” method was coded both as Assessment and Course Organization. Other passages from Peter's transcripts included codes for Active Learning, Assignment Restructuring, Between-Class Activity, and Differences Between F2F and Online Learning. Examples of codes from some of the other interviews included Communication with Students, Reuse of Online Materials, and Variety of Approaches. In all, 35 codes were generated from the interview transcripts and the qualitative responses to the open-ended questions on the survey. Since most of the interviewees related multiple experiences in which their online teaching led to a change in their f2f teaching, these pedagogical change experiences, rather than the individual instructors, were used as the unit of analysis. Van Eekelen et al. (2005) used the term learning episode to indicate an individual instance of learning, among higher education instructors, in which “an experience whereby knowledge, skills, [and] new attitudes related to work are acquired and recognized by the teachers themselves” (p. 448). Each learning episode consisted of three elements: 1) an initial problem or challenge the instructors wished to address in their f2f classes, 2) a set of observations and reflections relating to the problem or challenge, and 3) a resolution that was implemented as a potential solution in their f2f teaching. For example, Frank spoke about his use of between-class videos in order to use class time to communicate with, rather than lecture to, his students. This learning episode began with the unsolved problem of Frank's wanting more class time available for two-way communication with students. After recognizing the problem, he went through a series of observations and reflections about both his online and f2f classes and eventually decided to implement a strategy in his f2f teaching in which students would view lecture videos between class sessions. The outlining of learning episodes contributed a good deal to clarifying themes and building a thematic map. From the eight pairs of interviews, 22 learning episodes were extracted. Each episode began with a problem or challenge faced by the instructors in their f2f teaching. Following this, instructors engaged in a process of reflection on similarities and differences between their f2f and online classes. As a result of their reflections, instructors then implemented a new practice in their f2f teaching as a response to the initial problem. Developing the 22 learning episodes consisted of re-reading the transcripts, identifying elements within the narratives that formed a learning episode, and writing them up using the format described above: 1) initial problem, 2) reflective observations, and 3) final solution. The task of searching for themes became much easier with a data set consisting of 22 coherent narratives, all conforming to the same

Table 1 Demographic data collected from interviewees. Alias

Years taught online

Years taught f2f

Program area

Position

Allen Colin Emily Frank George John Miranda Peter

6 to 10 1 to 5 1 to 5 1 to 5 11 to 15 1 to 5 1 to 5 6 to 10

More than 20 6 to 10 11 to 15 More than 20 More than 20 11 to 15 11 to 15 11 to 15

Public Administration Geographic Information Systems Software Engineering Information Technology Education Information Technology and Public Administration Geology Geographic Information Systems

Senior Lecturer Instructor Lecturer Senior Lecturer Professor Instructor Assistant Professor Professor

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basic structure, than with 35 individual codes covering thousands of lines of transcribed interviews from eight different instructors. The documenting of the learning episodes thus accomplished the third step in the analysis process, that of searching for themes. The next two steps – building a thematic map and naming themes – were carried out iteratively. During this phase, themes were tested and retested for how thoroughly they accounted for the transcript data, how accurately they described the instructors' experiences, and how coherently they related to one another. The goal was to accurately capture all 22 episodes with four to six overarching themes. The goal was achieved when each of the learning episodes was able to fit comfortably within one of the proposed theme categories and when the theme categories themselves cohered together to suggest a recognizable model of the teaching concerns and activities of instructors in higher education. The final step of the analysis process entailed selecting examples for inclusion in the report. These are presented, along with the final themes, in the following section. 5. Results The final set of themes consisted of the following: • Reflecting on Practice occurred when instructors questioned themselves about their goals and objectives in teaching. • Creating Structure encompassed course planning and designing. • Conducting the Class reflected instructors' concern with making optimal use of class time. • Facilitating Learning was a super-category for instructors' ideas about what helped students learn their subjects. It included three subcategories: ° Promoting Active Learning reflected instructors' ongoing consideration of how to move students to deeper levels of engagement with the course content. ° Encouraging Peer Interaction focused on creating situations in which students interacted with one another as well as with the course content. Establishing a Connection described instructors' attempts to personal° ize themselves to students in an effort to address affective needs.

5.1. Reflecting on Practice Several interviewees mentioned reflecting on aspects of their practice as a result of moving their f2f courses to an online environment but none were as striking or detailed as the descriptions offered by Miranda and Emily of reflecting on the very premises of their teaching practice. Miranda described her initial challenge/problem this way: “What happens to a lot of people in f2f teaching is that it's a well-worn path and traditional so you don't take the time to question how you're doing it, whereas in online teaching, since you have to think about how you're going to do it, it does force you to examine the point of whatever you're teaching and how and what you're going to do to get to that point.” When she began teaching online, she realized that there were some activities from her f2f class that she would have to modify for her online class. She began to think about her learning objectives in a way that she would not have done if she had not been “forced to figure out a different way” to achieve the objective. To avoid being overly reliant on the “well-worn path,” Miranda cultivated a reflective approach to her teaching. In her words, “Now that I've taught online, when I go back to my f2f classes, I do think about in the back of my head, ‘Why are we doing this lab? Is it just because we've always done it this way?’” Emily's experience of this phenomenon was quite similar. For her, the initial issue was how to continually improve her effectiveness as a

teacher. Teaching online for the first time caused her to reflect deeply on why she used particular strategies in the classroom. She felt that she needed to understand how people learn “in order to do a good job” as a teacher. Her reflections on how people learn led her to begin reading research about learning theory. As a result, she now regularly follows the literature on effective teaching in order to experiment with strategies in the classroom. Teaching online, in her words, “…increased my understanding of teaching in general, and I've become more open to trying even more things.” 5.2. Creating structure A commonly mentioned theme among the interviewees was that teaching online had, in some way, led to a change in the way they planned and organized their f2f classes. Both Colin and John, for example, spoke about the importance of setting student expectations. For Colin, “Expectation management in the online environment was critical because people would get really agitated and frustrated if they didn't know what I was looking for.” As a result of his experience in the online environment, Colin came to believe it would be beneficial for his f2f students to have clearer written instructions and rubrics. John's experience was a little different. In his words, “I was having a lot of [f2f] students coming in who, all too late, would say ‘I didn't really know I was going to have to do this.’ Now, I thought I was being very explicit about things. Then, after some reflection, I thought ‘What can I do better?’ Then I started doing the online courses and that really helped give me some ideas.” For both John and Colin, the impetus for these changes was the need to provide explicit instructions to students in the online environment who did not have the benefit of being in a f2f classroom with the instructor where misunderstandings might have a better chance to be addressed. In Peter's words, “[Teaching online] forces you to be organized, and then, once you realize what you can do with a well-organized class, it's just hard to go back.” 5.3. Conducting the class As might be expected, many of the learning episodes reflected instructors' focus on conducting the actual class sessions, maximizing valuable f2f time with students. Talking about her use of class time, Miranda said, “I realized that what students need help doing is sitting and working out the bugs in their programs.” After teaching online, she began to recognize some activities as “time wasters” during class sessions. As she said, “I've figured out how to change up some of my f2f classes so that a lot of the work that doesn't need to be done synchronously isn't done synchronously anymore. That's been fun.” One strategy that she transferred from her online classes to her f2f teaching was creating short “screencasts” showing how she would work out a particular programming problem. She found that she could use these short videos from one semester to the next because students tended to have the same kinds of problems across semesters. Having these resources available to students outside of class allowed her to use class time for group work which was productive since it overcame the logistical issues students faced in scheduling meeting time outside of class. She thought the screencasts were also helpful for students who were “shy” about asking questions in class. When Peter began teaching online, he created narrated PowerPoints to function as his lectures to the online students. Once he became familiar with the process of creating narrated lectures for his online classes, he began doing so for his f2f classes as well. He said, “What needs to get done in the classroom still gets done in the classroom and other things happen online.” Similar to the way that online teaching had influenced instructors' planning and organizing an entire course before teaching, several interviewees mentioned being more organized and prepared for individual class sessions. Allen believed his class sessions had become “tighter”

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as a result of his online teaching experience. “Teaching online,” he said, “has helped me not to waste time.” 5.4. Facilitating learning Half of the 22 learning episodes reflected instructors' concerns with creating conditions to facilitate their students' learning. The three subthemes within this category are Promoting Active Learning, Encouraging Peer Interaction, and Establishing a Connection. 5.4.1. Promoting Active Learning Chickering and Gamson (1987), in their often-cited work on effective practices for undergraduate education, described active learning as any kind of activity that promotes deep levels of engagement between a learner and the material to be learned. Several learning episodes focused on issues of active learning. In one example, Emily realized that many of her f2f students were coming to class without completing the reading assignments. Because she had created online quizzes for her online classes, she was familiar with the online quiz tool and the purposes for which it could be used. This led her to experiment with having her f2f students complete online quizzes about the readings before they came to class. Peter employed a similar strategy, though the initial problem and eventual outcome were slightly different than Emily's. Similar to most f2f instructors, he relied on body language and eye contact to assess students' comprehension in the classroom. On the tests, however, he noticed that students were not doing as well as he thought they should be. Like Emily, he had become familiar with the quizzing functions of his LMS after he began teaching online. As a result of learning how to use these tools, he began having students bring their laptops to class so that he could conduct short, focused online quizzes during class lectures in order to collect immediate data about students' understanding. George experienced both a concern about the extent to which students had completed the reading assignments and a desire to increase class participation. After realizing that the online discussion board provided a mechanism for ensuring that every student contributed to a discussion, he began posting online materials for his f2f students and requiring them to react via the discussion board. An additional benefit of using this method was that posting to the discussion board provided students with an opportunity to “think and write more clearly.” Moreover, using the discussion board between class sessions extended the time allowed during class for discussing and engaging with the material. Allen also used discussion to promote active learning but, rather than using online discussion between class sessions, he implemented a particular strategy in his f2f class sessions. In reflecting on the differences between classroom and online discussion, he realized that online students had time to organize their thoughts before responding to questions. This led him to implement a strategy in which he posed a question to his f2f class and told them he would call on somebody 5 min later to answer the question. He said, “The students appreciate they have some time. Their level of participation and cooperation seems to be quite a bit higher that way.” He believed that this technique helped “to maximize the learning experience and minimize the uneasiness and those aspects of learning that often turn students off.” 5.4.2. Encouraging Peer Interaction Several learning episodes were described in the previous section in which instructors used discussion as a means of moving students towards deeper levels of engagement with course material. In those examples, the instructor's primary concern was the engagement with content. There were also learning episodes in which instructors described using discussion to provide a space for students to interact with one another. Although no one used the term social learning, it was implied that, in these episodes, the peer-to-peer interaction, rather than interaction with course content, was the primary purpose because of the benefit it provided to students' learning. With roots in the

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writings of Vygotsky (1978) and Dewey (1938), social learning is an important element of constructivism (Driscoll, 2000) and such contemporary theories of learning as Wenger's (2015) Communities of Practice framework. John described an episode in which teaching online had led to a changed f2f teaching practice in the area of peer interaction. At the beginning of the semester, students were assigned a large team project. One of their first activities was to collaboratively create a team contract. John said, “In the past, what I've done with the f2f class is give them some time in class to talk about this and work it out. What I do now is I give them a small amount of time to sort of introduce themselves, exchange some contact information, things like that, but I provide them a discussion forum by which they can sort of go back and forth about what they want in this contract.” Explaining his reason for employing this strategy, he said, “What I would often see when they do it in class is one person usually take control, and say ‘Listen to this’ and a bunch of other heads just nodding, not a real discussion, so the idea was, well let's see if they're a little more actively taking part in this if we do it electronically.” Another instructor who used online discussion as a between-class activity was George, to whom the exchange of ideas among students was also important. He explained that, by discussing course concepts online during the week, students were given a chance to raise questions and “go back and forth on these issues” in a way that they might not have if the discussion were limited to classroom time. 5.4.3. Establishing a Connection Another of Chickering and Gamson's (1987) best practices is the promotion of student-faculty communication, both in and out of class. Three of the 22 learning episodes exemplified instructors' concerns with this issue. Colin, for example, believed that the learning was better for students when the instructor established a connection with them. When he began teaching online, he was especially concerned with this because, as he said, “It's easier for a student to just feel isolated like they're online out there on the Internet and there's no one else out there to talk to.” As a consequence, he felt that it was important to “actively reach out to students and try and engage them and make them feel connected.” He used email to establish and maintain regular contact with his online students. After implementing this practice, he began to reflect on his f2f classes and came to the conclusion that “It's really no different for regular classroom students, too. They want to feel connected and part of it.” After that, he began to make a concerted effort to reach out to his f2f students by talking with them before and after class, asking how they were doing, and making one-on-one small talk in labs. He said, “As I watched how students were interacting, I noticed that there were a lot of people that I just never heard from. I took it upon myself to then reach out. After I did reach out, that's when I saw them start to engage a lot more. I thought, ‘Oh, well, this is much better.’” 6. Discussion The themes outlined above were drawn from the instructors' explicit descriptions of their thinking, planning, and actions. Underlying these themes were three trends. First, instructors showed an increased focus on how students learn and what they do while they are learning. Second, instructors became more familiar with online technologies and more aware of their potential. Third, the distinction became blurred between the kinds of activities normally conducted during class time and those reserved for out-of-class time. This trend manifested in flipping the class (O'Flaherty & Phillips, 2015), i.e., using the LMS to host video lectures and conduct online quizzes so that valuable class time could be saved for group activities and coaching sessions with instructors. As instructors approach the task of developing an online course, they may encounter obstacles in converting learning activities and assignments to an online format. Several of the instructors in this study

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made references to becoming more deliberate in their thinking about how students learn. Emily and Miranda, for instance, both described a learning episode in which they deliberately began reflecting on student learning in their f2f teaching after they had done so in their online classes. Others, like Allen, spoke about implementing strategies in the f2f classroom “to maximize the learning experience.” In George's learning episode of Promoting Active Learning, he came to realize that the online format “was a more thorough learning experience and a more reliable learning experience” because of its ability to engage every student in the class in discussion. As a result, he began using online discussion between class sessions to maintain the momentum and hold students accountable for participation. These examples indicate a movement towards a student-centered, learning orientation. Although some authors (e.g., Entwistle & Walker, 2000; McKenzie, 2003) have pointed out that this progression does not necessarily require a particular trigger, it was clear among the instructors in this study that the experience of teaching online provided many opportunities to adopt a student-centered perspective. Regarding instructors' experience with technology, teaching in the online environment necessitates a much greater reliance on technology and media than does f2f teaching. Several instructors in this study mentioned developing greater facility with an expanded repertoire of technologies as a result of teaching online. They reported increased familiarity and confidence in using email to communicate with students, conducting online quizzes, and employing between-class online discussions. They also experimented quite a bit with other technologies for creating lecture videos and narrated PowerPoints. A related phenomenon was the existence of already-developed course materials such as videos and online quizzes that were initially created for an online course. Once the materials had been developed, many instructors took the opportunistic step of making those materials available to their f2f classes. In Frank's case, after creating lecture videos for his online class, he made them available to the students of his corresponding f2f class. Eventually, because he was so pleased with the results of his experiment, he reported that he planned to create lecture videos for additional f2f classes, even those that did not have an online counterpart. Finally, for instructors in this study, the boundary in their f2f classes between in-class time and out-of-class time became more permeable as they acquired more experience in the online environment, an environment in which there really is no such boundary. They began thinking of out-of-class time not just for reading and homework assignments but also as a way to extend the activity of the classroom. Several of the instructors in this study flipped their classrooms by making videos, screencasts, and narrated PowerPoint lectures available for online viewing between class sessions. Another between-class strategy was online discussion. George used it to extend classroom discussion and provide opportunities for every student to contribute. John used it to facilitate group work and also as a springboard for in-class discussion. Online quizzing was another technique that instructors deployed in their f2f classes after becoming familiar with it in the online environment. The four main themes represent areas of focus with which virtually all instructors are concerned. They reflect on their goals, plan and structure their courses, and think about how to facilitate learning, both in and out of class. The three trends exerted influence on these focal areas and resulted in the particular learning episodes reported by these instructors, as shown in Fig. 1. 7. Conclusion 7.1. Implications for practice There are several ways in which an understanding of the phenomenon described in this study might benefit faculty developers and

instructional designers working with faculty in higher education. First and foremost, it might be viewed as a lever to help faculty improve their f2f teaching. As noted by Knight et al. (2006), the primary way faculty in higher education learn to teach is “simply doing the job of teaching” (p. 323). Given the important contribution that doing the job of teaching makes to an instructor's learning about teaching, faculty developers and instructional designers who work with faculty to prepare them for online teaching may want to take advantage of these oneon-one opportunities to set the stage for instances of learning transfer from online to f2f teaching. Strategies for accomplishing this might include talking with faculty about similarities and differences between their online and f2f teaching, encouraging them to reflect on how lessons learned from online teaching might benefit their f2f classes, and offering to observe them teaching a f2f class in order to suggest explicit connections between the two teaching formats. In addition to the opportunity presented in these one-on-one occasions to assist online faculty to transfer strategies to their f2f classes, additional opportunities exist for instructional designers to act as agents in the diffusion of innovation. Instructional designers in higher education interact with faculty from all disciplines who seek consultation on a wide variety of teaching challenges. As such, they are perfectly positioned to transmit information from one faculty interaction to another, thus introducing appropriate applications of online teaching strategies to f2f instructors, even when those f2f instructors do not teach online. Another outcome that the phenomenon under investigation in this study might be leveraged to produce is the creation of faculty learning communities in which instructors who teach in both formats share information with one another. Several authors have asserted that instructor-to-instructor communication plays a major role in learning about teaching (e.g., Hoekstra, Brekelmans, Beijaard, & Korthagen, 2009; Maaranen, Kynaslahti, & Krokfors, 2008). As recognition of the importance of this type of communication among faculty has increased, faculty development efforts have begun to focus on creating and maintaining such learning communities, not only because they promote learning about teaching but also because they foster collaborative innovation, positively influence student learning, and promote constructive relations among faculty (e.g., Glowacki-Dudka & Brown, 2007; Stevenson, Duran, Barrett, & Colarulli, 2005).

7.2. Recommendations for further research An interesting and useful approach to further research would be to study the conditions under which some online instructors experience positive impacts on their f2f teaching while others do not. Areas of potential focus could include personal orientations to teaching (e.g., Kember, 1997), paths of professional development (e.g., Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002), strategies for self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 2002), and measures of change-readiness (e.g., Risquez & Moore, 2013). Another recommendation would be to focus on the conditions under which instructors first began to teach online in order to assess the effect those initial conditions may have on this phenomenon. For example, most of the instructors interviewed for this study reported that they designed and developed the online courses they eventually taught. It would be useful to investigate whether differences exist between instructors who taught online courses designed by another instructor and those who both designed and taught their online courses. Focusing attention on the phenomenon of how the experience of teaching online influences an instructor's f2f teaching will enable us to ask and begin to answer important questions about how faculty in higher education grow and develop in their teaching practice, the types of experiences that lead to pedagogical change, the kinds of changes they make to improve their teaching, and the ways in which they innovate across multiple teaching formats.

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Fig. 1. Relationship between trends and theme categories.

Acknowledgements Portions of this work were presented and published in thesis form in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the author's Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Pennsylvania State University.

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