Weaving Academic Grace into the Fabric of Online Courses and Faculty Training: First-Year Engineering Student Advice for Online Faculty During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Faculty Responses

Abstract

Background: In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 forced the majority of higher education online, resulting in a wave of new online students uniquely positioned to offer fresh perspectives and advice to faculty. Purpose: This study investigated the advice offered to online faculty by first-year engineering (FYE) students who were forced online during the pandemic and faculty ideas to address the student advice. Methods: This multi-methods study included qualitative data from 233 FYE students (in 67 teams across four class offerings) who provided advice for online faculty through an end-of-year team assignment, leveraging analytic induction methods for analysis. The Quality Matters Online Instructor Skill Set was used as the theoretical framework for viewing the student results (Quality Matters, 2016). After being presented with the student results, 41 faculty participants within two workshops brainstormed ways to respond to FYEs’ advice. Faculty workshop participants organized their own brainstorming/discussion results by themes within community documents. Results: Students forced online expressed the following needs/desires: instructional design practices appropriate for the online environment; understanding, flexibility, and patience from their faculty (which we defined as Academic Grace); instructor social presence; appropriate pedagogy for online learning environments; effective assessment; technologically capable instructors; and instructor understanding of their institutional context. Faculty advised responding to online students with more Academic Grace. Conclusions: This work reveals a new competency missing from traditional online instructor skills, that of Academic Grace. To embed Academic Grace within online courses, we propose that faculty consider a flexible bichronous model for online courses, in which students can choose to attend synchronous live lectures/classes or cover the material asynchronously at their own convenience. In this model, lecture/class recordings and supplemental asynchronous materials should be provided to foster fluid student movement between the learning modes. We also recommend online faculty training efforts include the components of Academic Grace: understanding, flexibility, and patience