Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching: Higher Education Lessons in Post-Pandemic Times 3031178408, 9783031178405

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Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching Higher Education Lessons in Post-Pandemic Times Edited by Payal Kumar · Jacob Eisenberg

Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching “The pandemic was more of an accelerator than a temporary bump in the road: We won’t, and cannot, turn back. Student and hiring organizations’ demands for more flexibility and responsiveness have combined to challenge us to rethink what we do and how we do it. In this collection, we have insights from researchers and teachers who have thought about how we adapt our teaching to new environments. The chapter authors dare us to invent new ways of doing and thinking about our craft while also giving us insights about how these changes may have consequences to our identities.” —Professor Christine Quinn Trank, PhD, Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, USA, Former Editor, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Former Board of Governors member, Academy of Management “The Covid pandemic hit me hard as an educator and leader of a School of Business with over 3800 students. There were so many questions, with so few answers, including how do we switch effectively to online teaching? I would have turned to Ben Arbaugh, the online teaching and learning pioneer, for the answers, but Ben passed away in 2018. Payal Kumar and Jacob Eisenberg have done a wonderful job of bringing together a diverse community of practicing educators and researchers to address the core questions of how we can evolve and prosper as educators in the new world of synchronous and asynchronous online learning. This is a book I can turn to for practical insights into how to be a successful educator, and how to lead educators in the post-Covid world of online (and blended) education.” —Prof. Peter Mc Namara, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Maynooth University, Ireland, Past-Chairperson of Management Education and Development, Academy of Management

Payal Kumar  •  Jacob Eisenberg Editors

Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching Higher Education Lessons in Post–­Pandemic Times

Editors Payal Kumar Research and Management Studies Indian School of Hospitality Delhi, India

Jacob Eisenberg Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School University College Dublin Dublin, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-031-17840-5    ISBN 978-3-031-17841-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and ­transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to all teachers who strive to excel at teaching, no matter what the mode of teaching is.

Foreword

Once or twice in a century something quite radical comes along that upsets the status quo of institutional norms—our capacity to bureaucratize and routinize our organizational life. These very rare events create new pervasive trajectories, activities, routines, and expectations. The COVID-19 pandemic is certain to be considered one of these events; and as anyone involved in education as student or as teacher will certainly vouch for—the impact has been nothing short of cataclysmic. Our entire educational world was turned upside down on a dime—as our educational communities were forced to undergo decades of evolution and organic change virtually overnight. No doubt, understanding, studying, and evaluating the impact of these changes will be a monumental effort likely to take decades. With the overwhelming challenge in mind, I take special delight in introducing this edited volume by Payal Kumar and Jacob Eisenberg. This landmark work, arriving as it does at the front end of our challenge to understand the impact of the many pedagogical transitions, is thoughtfully framed by two scholars who notably represent very different parts of the world, facilitating a more generalizable understanding of the impact of these emergent pedagogical transformations. Kumar brings to the collection a very comprehensive view of mentorship and comparative Human

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Resource Management anchored in the South Asian context. Eisenberg, with whom I am well acquainted, brings a most refreshing and extensive career in Europe focusing on creativity, cross-national and cross cultural management learning, and group identity. Notably, he is very much the kind of scholar who lives his research—engaging in a continual stream of creativity-inducing activities and seminars world-wide. Given the engagement of these two very diverse and accomplished editor-scholars, I believe this compendium is an instant ‘must read’ for those of us trying to understand the implications of this pedagogical revolution that has been thrust upon us. On a personal note, despite over 25 years of teaching on four different continents, my own COVID teaching experiences ranged between thriving and nearly collapsing, and from enduring to embracing, regarding adaptation to the different demands necessary to accommodate this radical shift in pedagogy, how can I possibly make sense of these varied responses? Clearly, this well thought out compendium provides an excellent start, and will be an important resource for educators and policymakers alike. This volume provides both the necessary breadth and rigor to begin understanding the impact of these transitions, and it will no doubt be valuable to social scientists, policy makers, and educators in a wide variety of fields. I can attest to the rigor and relevance of this book. The chapters are all written by reputable scholars, and address some of the most engaging and challenging elements of virtual education. A range of salient questions are imbedded in the different scholarly chapters, including the following: How do we create and encourage engagement? How do we study and assess the impact of our programs? Do various cultures have differential impacts? How do faculty react to these transformations, and how can we convert existing programs based on experiential learning into a virtual environment? What new methods are suitable for this type of education, and how can the educational environment be improved? As a ‘seasoned’ well published scholar on the subject of management learning and education, I am certain that this book will reside on a

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central location of my bookshelf. I am equally confident it will be well referenced and widely read, serving an important role in our understanding of the pedagogical transformations we are now experiencing in higher education. McMaster University Hamilton, ON, Canada

Benson Honig

Contents

 How Teachers Around the World Realigned Classrooms and Pedagogical Tools for Online Consumption  1 Payal Kumar and Jacob Eisenberg Part I Faculty Lived Experiences & Programme Design  11  Exploring Social Learning Theory in Synchronous Design for Engagement in Online Learning 13 Lynn Gribble and Janis Wardrop  Becoming a Qualitative Researcher: Transformative On Learning Theory in an Online Research Course 33 Kathy D. Geller, Joy C. Phillips, and Kristine S. Lewis Grant  Teaching Courses Online: Practical Implications from an International University Teachers’ Survey 59 Alessia Paccagnini

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 Flourishing Or Languishing? Exploring the Lived Experiences of Faculty Negotiating the Challenges of Synchronous and Asynchronous Delivery 81 Rachel Germanier and Ruth Puhr  The Global Leadership Program: Adapting a Leadership Development Program for Graduate Business Students in the Pandemic and Post-­Pandemic Periods105 Linda Dowling-Hetherington and Jacob Eisenberg Part II Learning Approaches & Pedagogical Practices 133  Experiential Learning in an Online, Asynchronous Business Ethics Course135 Sheldene Simola  Weathering the (Covid-19) Storm: Insights from Business School Instructors on Integrating Experiential Learning into Online Courses at the Outset of the Pandemic159 Melanie A. Robinson, Marine Agogué, and John Fiset  Pedagogic Practices for Student Engagement During COVID-19 Pandemic in an Introductory Course of Economics181 Belén Pagone, Cecilia Primogerio, and Mariana Sajón  Gamification for Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning203 Nibu John Thomas and Rupashree Baral  Pivoting to Online Experiential Learning During the Pandemic: Three Leadership Exercises223 Paul Balwant

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 Blended Freshman Electronics Labs247 John J. Healy  Learning Experience Design (LXD) of Language and Content Modules: Insights from Students and Instructors269 Rosario Hernández and Eva Kilar-Magdziarz I ndex291

Notes on Contributors

Marine Agogué is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management and scientific director of the Pierre-Péladeau Center in Management & Leadership at HEC Montréal. Her research focuses on cognitive biases in creativity, creativity management, as well as managerial and pedagogical innovation. Paul Balwant is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor and Deputy Dean (Planning and Programming) in the Faculty of Social Sciences at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine. He is also a member of Trinidad and Tobago’s Industrial Relations Advisory Committee. Balwant lectures in the areas of organizational behavior and leadership. He has also supervised master’s and doctoral students at UWI, UWI-­ Open Campus, and Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business. Balwant holds a PhD in Management from The University of Sheffield, is a Certified Management and Business Educator, and has been the recipient of prestigious scholarships as well as research and teaching awards. At the 2014 Academy of Management Meeting, he was awarded the MED Best Paper in Management Education Award sponsored by the Organisational Behavior Teaching Society and the Journal of Management Education. Balwant has published numerous articles on leadership, engagement, and harassment in top international journals. xv

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Rupashree Baral is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). Her research interests are in the areas of Technology and Human Interface, Work-Life Balance, Women in Management and Entrepreneurship, Employer Branding, Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility, Knowledge Sharing, and Hiding Behavior. Her work has been published in journals such as Human Resource Development Review, Journal of Knowledge Management, and Management Decision. Linda Dowling-Hetherington  is the Director of Assurance of Learning at the College of Business, University College Dublin, Ireland. She earned a Doctorate in Education at the University of Bath (UK) and currently teaches the MSc Management and Master’s in Engineering programs. Her teaching and research interests are primarily in areas related to human resource management, learning and development and talent management. She has extensive experience in the design and development of undergraduate and graduate degree programs and cocurricular leadership programs. Jacob Eisenberg  is an Associate Professor at the University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in Dublin, Ireland, where he has been teaching at the school’s internationally top ranked programs. Jacob earned his PhD in Social/Organizational Psychology at Colorado State University (USA) and his research and teaching interests are primarily related to organizational behavior, human resource management and cross cultural management. Jacob presented his work in leading international conferences and published in academic books and journals including Academy of Management Learning & Education, Creativity Research Journal, and Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. John Fiset  is an Associate Professor of Management at the Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University in Canada. His research interests focus on how leaders influence intragroup workplace dynamics, multilingualism at work, and experiential management education. In addition, he has consulted for several organizations in the areas of leadership, motivation, and decision-making. Kathy D. Geller PhD, joined the School of Leadership Studies at Fielding Graduate University as Program Director for the Human and

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Organizational Development PhD. programs in 2021. Kathy previously served as Associate Clinical Professor and Program Director for the EdD program at Drexel University. During her tenure as Program Director, Drexel’s EdD program was recognized by the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate (CPED) as the 2019 Ed.D. Program of the Year. A scholar-practitioner, Kathy has applied transformative learning theory in the design and delivery of leadership development programs in corporate settings and graduate leadership and qualitative research courses with the goal of fostering both knowledge acquisition and vertical leadership development. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in corporate settings leading leadership development and organizational effectiveness efforts in the US, UK, Asia and the Middle East, Kathy brings a transnational view to her work. As a collaborative editor and author, she has published Innovations in Transformative Learning: Space, Culture and the Arts (2009) and Transnational Leadership Development: Preparing the Next Generation for the Borderless Business World (2009). Her articles have appeared in an array of journals, including Management Learning, Education and Urban Society, the Journal of Industrial and Commercial Training, and CPED’s: Impacting Education. Rachel Germanier is Associate Professor at Les Roches Global Hospitality Education, Switzerland where she co-ordinates and supervises students on the undergraduate dissertation program and teaches under graduate and post graduate courses. She obtained her EdD from the Open University for her work on student humor and has eclectic research interests including in sustainability, wine and cycling tourism and student interaction. Germanier is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Lynn Gribble is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a nationally recognized award-winning teacher, and an education-focused academic at the University of New South Wales Business School. She is a digital innovator and educational change agent. Teaching online for over 16 years she also teaches large numbers of students (~2700 per annum) in compulsory core courses and has pioneered the use of voice recordings, audience response platforms and learning analytics to personalize every interaction with her students, increasing both their engagement and learning outcomes.

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John J. Healy  was born in Co. Dublin, Ireland in 1983. He was awarded the BE and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin in 2005 and 2010. He has worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Physics in UNAM, Mexico, and in Computer Science and Electronic Engineering in Maynooth University. In 2012, he was awarded the NUI Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Sciences. He has been a Lecturer in Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering in UCD since 2015. He is a member of the IEEE, and a Senior Member of Optica and of SPIE. His research interests include computational imaging, signal processing, and medical imaging. Rosario Hernández  is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Languages, Culture and Linguistics at University College Dublin (UCD), where she has been teaching Spanish and Second Language Studies for over 30 years. Her research interests include second language teaching and learning, assessment of students learning, ICT in teaching and study abroad experiences. She has presented her work at international conferences and written several articles in peer-reviewed journals. In 2014, she co-edited a book, Higher Education and Second Language Learning: Promoting Self-Directed Learning in New Technological and Educational Contexts. She was Vice-Principal for Teaching and Learning in the College of Arts and Humanities (2014–17) working on a number of initiatives to enhance the educational experience of students at UCD and to facilitate activities for staff development in teaching, learning and assessment. Eva Kilar-Magdziarz  is Course Director at Digital Learning Institute, Dublin, Ireland. She has extensive experience in the educational context working on curriculum design, digital learning strategies, teaching, training, and supporting in the field of instructional design, rolling out online learning. She has been working across multiple sectors as well as within primary, secondary, and higher education as a teacher, teacher trainer, tutor, and director of studies. Kilar-Magdziarz holds an MSc degree in Applied eLearning as well as an MA degree in English philology, BA in Teaching English as a Second Language and Translation and Interpreting. Her field of research and interest is instructional design with focus on effective multimedia design for languages and accessibility in digital learning.

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Payal Kumar is Dean of Research & Management Studies, Indian School of Hospitality, India. She earned her Ph.D from XLRI, a top business school in India. Her research interests include diversity and inclusion, gender equity, social entrepreneurship and also leadership. Apart from published research papers, she has authored and edited 20 books, including a 5-volume Palgrave Macmillan Series Leadership and Followership. Payal has won many international accolades including the Andre Delbecq & Lee Robbins MSR (Academy of Management) Scholarship. She is also a global ambassador for Emerald Publications. Kristine S. Lewis Grant,  PhD, is Clinical Professor of Multicultural and Urban Education. Before joining the Drexel faculty in 2006, Grant was a research associate with Research for Action—a Philadelphia-based nonprofit engaged in educational research and evaluation. She employs qualitative methods to pursue her research interests in the engagement of culturally and linguistically diverse families in urban schools, the recruitment and retention of teachers of color in urban schools, and teaching and learning in online settings. In partnership with Dr. Stephanie Smith Budhai, Grant authored Culturally Responsive Teaching Online and In Person: An Action Planner for Dynamic Equitable Learning Environments (Corwin). She is presently co-editing a volume with Dr. Vera Lee titled Advancing Culturally Responsive and Socially Just Approaches to Multilingual Family—School Partnerships (Lexington). Grant’s research has been published in Multicultural Education, Sociology of Education, Education and Urban Society, Journal of Research in Education, and Journal of Family Diversity in Education. Grant served as president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education (2017–2021). Alessia Paccagnini  is currently a tenured academic at the University College Dublin, a research associate at CAMA, and the Scientific Communication Manager of a European project about FinTech. Her work in macro-econometrics and applied econometrics has appeared in prestigious journals such as the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Money Credit and Banking, the International Journal of Forecasting, and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. Paccagnini had several research and teaching positions at Bicocca University, EUI, ECB,

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University of Pennsylvania, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Bank of England, National Bank of Poland, IMT Lucca, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and Bocconi University, where she earned her PhD. Paccagnini is associate editor of the International Journal of Finance & Economics. She is the recipient of several research and teaching awards, including the Gender, Diversity, & Entrepreneurship Kauffman Award 2022 of the Annual Academy of Management Conference and the University College Dublin College of Business teaching award. Belén Pagone  is a full time Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Faculty of Business Sciences (FCE), Universidad Austral and as a researcher in the Inclusive Productivity Project, IAE Business SchoolFCE, Universidad Austral. Her research is focused on topics such as state productivity, public education productivity, public policy, and economic development. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Universidad Católica, Argentina, and a Master’s degree in International Studies from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Political Sciences from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella Joy C. Phillips  PhD, is a clinical professor in the School of Education at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. Her research focuses on educational leadership, policy development and implementation, and school reform with an emphasis on investigating the intended and unintended consequences of educational policy implementation. Joy has a record of examining qualitatively intractable educational issues by redefining the problem, exploring underlying roots, experimenting with original teaching and research strategies, and building genuine university/public school partners. Phillips has taught in face-to-face, hybrid, and online formats for 20+ years. Her work has been published in the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) journal, Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice, the Journal of School Leadership, Journal of Research on Leadership Education, International Journal of Leadership in Education, Torrance Journal for Applied Creativity, Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, and UCEA Review. Cecilia Primogerio currently serves as the Education Department Coordinator at the Faculty of Business Sciences, Universidad Austral. She has worked with governmental and non-governmental organizations and

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is the co-founder of Teach for Argentina. Her research interests include medical and business education, educational tutoring, teacher training, teaching methodologies, study habits, and learning at the university level, vocational training, reflective practice, and learning communities, among others. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychopedagogy from the Universidad Del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She pursued her postgraduate studies at the Universidad Católica Argentina and the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and is a Fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada. Ruth Puhr  is Head of Teaching and Learning Development at Les Roches Global Hospitality Education, Switzerland. She holds an MA in Music and an MSc in Information Technology and is currently completing a doctorate in Education at University College London. Her research interests include professional identity and innovation in higher education practice. Puhr is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) and President of the Swiss Faculty Development Network (SFDN). Melanie A. Robinson  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management at HEC Montréal. Her research interests center on leadership, followership, and management education (with a particular focus on experiential learning and the development of instructional innovations). Mariana Sajón  is a Specialist in User Experience and Digital Learning, Universidad de Barcelona, and is currently part of the Knowledge Management team at Mercado Libre Company. From 2020 to 2021 she collaborated in the Education Department of Faculty of Business Sciences, Universidad Austral, and is actually professor in a graduate course at the School of Education, Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina. Her research interests include reflective practice, teacher training, learning communities, higher education, business education, and adolescent education. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education Sciences from Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina. Sheldene Simola  received the PhD degree from Queen’s University at Kingston, CA. She is currently a full professor in the School of Business at Trent University, Peterborough, CA, and a former associate director of this School. Sheldene’s research occurs at intersections among business

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ethics, workplace mental health, dignity, care ethics, relational cultural theory, corporate crisis management, moral courage, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Several of her articles have appeared in leading international journals, including the Journal of Business Ethics, The Leadership Quarterly, Career Development International, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, and Society and Business Review. She has received “Outstanding Article” of the year awards from both the Emerald Publishing Literati Network and Division 13 (Society of Consulting Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. Sheldene is also an award-winning educator, recognized for her leadership and innovation in teaching and learning, as well as care for the development, well-being and success of her students. Nibu John Thomas  is a PhD candidate from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). He works in the domains of human-­ computer interaction, positive psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource development. His research interests include gamification, gameful experience, learning, instructional design, flow experience, and the metaverse. He has received the best student paper award by the Academy of Management (AOM) for his research on gamification for Management Education and Development (MED). Janis Wardrop  Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Authority (SFHEA) is an academic leader, educational change agent, and commentator on management education, business ethics, and governance. With 15 years of experience in academia as both lecturer, program leader and manager, her expertise lies in adopting a holistic approach to curriculum design. She is committed to providing University of New South Wales students with the best educational outcomes to establish themselves as global leaders.

List of Figures

 eaching Courses Online: Practical Implications from an T International University Teachers’ Survey Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Teaching tools. (Source: Author’s own) Interaction with students: Tools. (Source: Author’s own) Interaction with students: Camera on. (Source: Author’s own) The advantages and disadvantages of online teaching. (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 5 Do university teachers like online teaching? (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 6 Future teaching design including online delivery. (Source: Author’s own)

69 70 70 72 73 74

Flourishing Or Languishing? Exploring the Lived Experiences of Faculty Negotiating the Challenges of Synchronous and Asynchronous Delivery Fig. 1 Remote and HyFlex, synchronous and asynchronous teaching. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 2 Visualization of COVID timeline. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 3 List of adjectives for interviewees. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 4 An illustration of the journey to flourishing. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 5 The positive impact of planned vacation on flourishing. (Source: Authors’ own)

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List of Figures

 he Global Leadership Program: Adapting a Leadership T Development Program for Graduate Business Students in the Pandemic and Post-­Pandemic Periods Fig. 1 The concept behind the GLP. (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 2 Dilemmas considered at the design stage. (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 3 The GLP three-pillar framework. (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 4 Program deliverables. (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 5 Key success factors. (Source: Author’s own) Fig. 6 Post-pandemic: an improved GLP model. (Source: Author’s own)

109 112 113 114 120 126

 ivoting to Online Experiential Learning During the P Pandemic: Three Leadership Exercises Fig. 1 Example e-mail with instructor’s comments used for discussion and reflection in an actual class. (Source: Author’s own. Note: I typically used question marks to indicate vague phrases or terms and circled unclear pronouns. Co = context; Pu = purpose; PV = passive voice) 242 Fig. 2 The simulated inbox. (Source: Author’s own. Note: The left navigation bar allows learners to select e-mails/instant messages that require a response or read messages for which they already responded (i.e., “Sent Items”)) 242

Blended Freshman Electronics Labs Fig. 1 The importance of realistic Graphical User Interfaces. (top) A single-­amplifier transistor constructed on breadboard (coin for scale). (middle) A TinkerCAD simulation of the same circuit (including an Arduino for power and instrumentation). (Source: Top and bottom (unpublished) images courtesy of Emma Pender. Middle image by the author. Note: This is the tool used in our simulated labs. Note the realistic depictions of the components, the breadboard, the colourful wiring. This is to be contrasted with an LTspice model (bottom), an industrystandard simulation tool. The latter image is symbolic, minimalist, and functional) 256

  List of Figures 

Fig. 2 Student preference of resources. (Source: Author’s own. Note: The resources are listed here in weighted order of preference. Students mostly used the video and written instructions to complete the task, with lesser input from TAs, classmates and other resources) Fig. 3 Student assessment preference. (Source: Author’s own. Note: Students showed a strong preference for assessment by means of an online quiz) Fig. 4 Student preference for group work. (Source: Author’s own. Note: Students showed a preference for group work over working alone)

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 earning Experience Design (LXD) of Language and Content L Modules: Insights from Students and Instructors Fig. 1 Visualisation of an image and a quote that serves the purpose of gaining students’ attention. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 2 Reading text divided into digestible chunks for reading comprehension in a German module. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 3 Word cloud showcasing the main factors contributing to the learning experience for BCIT modules. (Source: Authors’ own) Fig. 4 A word cloud generated from all inputs gathered from respondents on the navigation and general learning experience. (Source: Authors’ own)

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List of Tables

 n Becoming a Qualitative Researcher: Transformative O Learning Theory in an Online Research Course Table 1 Table 2

Transformative learning: from theory to practice 36 Qualitative research course descriptions and learning outcomes 38

 lourishing Or Languishing? Exploring the Lived Experiences F of Faculty Negotiating the Challenges of Synchronous and Asynchronous Delivery Table1

Emergent themes mapped to PERMA building blocks. (Source: Authors’ own)

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 he Global Leadership Program: Adapting a Leadership T Development Program for Graduate Business Students in the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Periods Table 1 Table 2

Why participate in a cocurricular leadership development program during a pandemic? A student guide to understanding the key stages of the GLP

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List of Tables

 xperiential Learning in an Online, Asynchronous Business E Ethics Course Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Experiential learning cycle phases and associated learning styles with activities in the ethics course Course topics and content examples Examples of questions used within EL cycle phases for recurrent course activities

138 142 144

Blended Freshman Electronics Labs Table 1

Likert results for the question “The online pre-lab helped me to understand how:”

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How Teachers Around the World Realigned Classrooms and Pedagogical Tools for Online Consumption Payal Kumar and Jacob Eisenberg

1 Introduction The ubiquitous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in heavy restrictions on mobility and physical engagement, spread its tentacles to all areas of life including education. Within a few weeks, millions of teachers (about 13 million teachers/lecturers are currently estimated as teaching in tertiary education) found themselves teaching in distant mode, often with little preparation. Until recently, lecturers systematically prepared for teaching online and built up expertise through practice. But during the pandemic they were expected to conduct online classes, often without systematic preparation, with the additional complication of often having to do so from P. Kumar (*) Research and Management Studies, Indian School of Hospitality, Delhi, India J. Eisenberg Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_1

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their homes, with little technical support and in suboptimal conditions. So sweeping was the change that even PhD vivas were conducted online, and graduation ceremonies were curated using digital avatars of students and faculty. While distant teaching has been practised and researched for a while now (Arbaugh & Benbunan-Finch, 2006), this recent massive global move to online education is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively different than before. Online teaching became the primary mode of teaching and was no longer seen as supplementary to the ‘brick-and-­ mortar’ classroom experience. Also as a faculty experience, it was not clear at that time when—or if—things would go back to ‘normal’. While contemplating the book title, we did wonder if Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching: Higher Education Lessons in Post-­ pandemic Times would be a relevant book title by the time the book was published a year later. Well, the answer today to this is a resounding yes. Given the various waves of the later COVID variants and the fact that many institutions continue with some sort of hybrid teaching modes, indicating that online teaching—in both synchronous and asynchronous modes—has become pivotal and fundamental to the classroom experience the world over, this book title remains highly relevant today. This book was born as we felt there were many questions that were perplexing both individual faculty and management teams of higher educational institutes, including: How should we change our assessment practices? What are the implications for teaching and learning practices? What are the advantages and disadvantages of different platforms? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of synchronous versus asynchronous approaches, and when should each be used to optimize students’ learning experience? What implications are there for lecturers’ teaching training, given that most academics had little exposure to systematic training in online education? These questions indicated both research and practice gaps. Not only does this edited volume capture recent empirical studies conducted in this area, but the chapters will also provide practical implications and suggestions to academics and senior management about best teaching practices. Indicating the centrality of the themes to academics from

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diverse professional disciplines, we received a rather large number of chapter proposals in response to our call. After a rigorous peer-review process, the selected chapters that you read in this book were authored by a truly global group of scholars, hailing from eight countries and five continents. Our heartfelt gratitude to all the contributors from both the Global North and Global South. The contributors ranged from a variety of notable schools around the world— all interconnected by the challenge of switching to online teaching almost overnight during the first lockdown brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers contributed from the following schools: • • • • • • • • • • •

University of New South Wales, Australia Fielding Graduate University, USA University College Dublin, Ireland Les Roches Global Hospitality Education, Switzerland Trent University School of Business, Canada HEC Montréal, Canada Undergraduate Business School of Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India Indian School of Hospitality, India The University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago Digital Learning Institute, Ireland

2 Two Major Book Parts The book chapters correspond to two major parts: (1) faculty lived experiences and programme design and (2) learning approaches and pedagogical practices.

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3 Part I: Faculty Lived Experiences and Programme Design The six chapters comprising our first part revolve around the experiences of higher education institutes’ faculty and staff during the pandemic and how they responded to the changing educational terrain through re-­ design of their programmes and changes in their educational and teaching practices. In Chap. 2, Gribble and Wardrop tackle the challenges that the move to online teaching presented with respect to class attendance behavioural norms and the imperative of focusing student attention on learning during online classes. Drawing on social learning theory lens, they demonstrate how it is possible to create a more equitable learning environment for maintaining student engagement with the learning process by incorporating online participatory student activities. They observe that the necessity to move from physical to virtual teaching led from a move away from a traditional model of lecturing to a more active and inter-active model of teaching and learning, with the latter requiring students to assume greater agency and teachers to reduce the power distance with their students. Using Bandura’s social learning principles, they taught their students to actively engage in the online environment. Their professional journey as educators who have learned how to adapt to the digital classroom environment for student-engagement and focused attention is encouraging as it demonstrates that, with the right motivation and attitude, teachers can overcome situational difficulties such as those presented by the lockdowns. Chapter 3, authored by Geller, Phillips and Grant, also takes a deep look at the learning processes, utilizing a transformative learning theory perspective. Building on experiential learning principles, the authors draw on their experiences with online teaching of a doctoral-level qualitative research methods course, in order to distil five transformative learning practices, which they used to develop perspective transformation among their students. These practices are (1) cultural responsiveness, (2) self-reflection, (3) critical thinking, (4) empathic dialogue and (5) praxis (reflection on action). The authors describe the learning activities they

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designed to match the philosophical principles underpinning the transformative learning theory and explain how these were adapted and implemented in an online learning environment. Using students’ qualitative data, the authors demonstrate the meaningful transformative learning effects that their course had on students. In Chap. 4, Paccagnini continues to examine university teachers’ responses to coping with the consequences of the pandemic. To learn how lecturers’ teaching strategies have been modified due to the pandemic and shifts to online teaching, she conducted a broad survey with a global outreach of university faculty teaching in STEM and Social Sciences disciplines. Paccagnini found that lecturers adapted to the changes by learning to use multiple new delivery and teaching methods (ranging from Zoom to Kahoot!). She found that the quality of internet connection ranged widely among world regions and that this had a strong impact on students’ ability to use online video methods and, thus, impacted on quality of synchronous deliveries. She reported that the main advantage of online teaching was the feeling of safety and flexibility. Lecturers also valued the opportunity to learn and develop new teaching skills. On the other hand, many pointed out to the main disadvantages of online teaching, including less interaction with students and also the difficulty in keeping them engaged. Additional challenges were having to face a screen for long periods and the increases in workload as consequence to moving to use new technologies, teaching methods and designs. Overall, while the majority of lecturers found online teaching less desirable than face-to-face teaching, the pragmatic approach they exhibited can be applied to various situations even after the pandemic has ended. We can conclude from the study that while at the start of the pandemic most lecturers were not familiar and not comfortable with online delivery, having made the transition and taught online for a long while, they became comfortable enough with online teaching and open to using this approach. Chapter 5 was authored by Germanier and Puhr who used a qualitative approach, utilizing interpretative phenomenological analysis as method, to learn about faculty psychological experiences during a two-­ year period of challenge and adjustment. The outcomes of their inquiry are encouraging regarding the resilience and adaptability of the faculty

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they interviewed: the vast majority of their sample reported that they managed to flourish in face of the multiple challenges experienced. Although most faculty ended up flourishing, Germanier and Puhr found two diverse paths in their initial responses to the pandemic as they navigated their turbulent professional and personal environments: one group can be characterized as feeling unprepared, stressed and even overwhelmed. On the other hand, another group of academics faced the radical changes with a self-assured frame of mind from the start. An interesting conceptual aspect of the study is the classification that emerged of faculty responses into several ‘types’, such as the upbeat fixer, the analytical shepherd and the gritty survivor. The authors offer recommendations for higher education institution (HEI) leadership on how to prepare and respond to volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) situations, while building on their findings which indicated that a novel culture of experimentation and creativity was facilitated by a deliberate simplification and streamlining of administrative and managerial processes, enabling faculty to adapt and adjust their approaches and methods in ways that suited them. In Chap. 6, Dowling-Hetherington and Eisenberg describe the process of developing a new co-curricular leadership development programme for graduate business students and how that programme was adapted to the online teaching reality, and later the changes it underwent when teaching started returning to physical class environment. The Global Leadership Programme (GLP) is based on active student engagement in activities that correspond to three pillars: student leadership, workplace skills and career planning. Student feedback provided insights into the programme’s strengths and challenges and indicated that, in spite of the vast limitations imposed by the virtual learning environment, the Global Leadership Programme was a resounding success and achieved its goals. The authors discuss the design elements that helped the GLP be a success both during the distance delivery and during the hybrid/in-class period and, in doing so, offer insights that may help other institutions implement programme designs that could weather various VUCA situations. These principles include striking and dynamically maintaining a balance between three sets of contrasting elements: standardization versus individualization, structure versus flexibility and challenge versus support.

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4 Part II: Learning Approaches and Pedagogical Practices As with several other of our chapter authors, Simola, the author of Chap. 7, also deals with the consequences of pandemic-related pedagogic changes and challenges for experiential learning activities. Specifically, she considers the question of how experiential learning (EL) can be integrated into online courses and describes the implementation of Kolb’s EL model within an online, asynchronous course on behavioural business ethics. Among the main challenges that were encountered during transitioning the course to its online mode was the necessity, due to practical student-­related factors, to offer the course in asynchronous mode. This aspect presented various challenges for both lecturers and students, especially in regard to how assessment activities were impacted by the need to use new technological interfaces. The author concludes that the greater the development and clarity of theoretically grounded EL processes and materials for each module within the in-person version of the course, the easier the transition to the online version is. The other experience-based insight, which many of us can resonate with, is that investing in pre-­ course rich and detailed communication with students about expectations and how students can meet them reduces students’ stress and increases their ability to cope with changes during VUCA-type periods. In Chap. 8 Robinson, Agogué and Fiset explore the challenge of teachers having to integrate experiential learning techniques into online courses. This was quite a stark change from EL being traditionally integrated into synchronous modes of teaching in the classroom. Using a qualitative design, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 instructors from nine Canadian universities to explore their reflections on, and experiences with, integrating EL into their online courses during the fall 2020 semester. Two main findings emerged. First, instructors had to contend with a variety of time and logistical issues, coupled with ambiguities related to the pandemic and a mode of course delivery that they may not have been familiar with prior to that semester. This required instructors to invest a large amount of time into the

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preparation of their courses. Second, educators were intensely mindful of the potential risks for their students of integrating EL into online courses. In Chap. 9, Pagone, Primogerio and Sajón analysed pedagogic practices for student engagement in an economics course during the COVID-19 pandemic, by drawing on a qualitative ethnographic account carried out by studying reflective analysis of the teacher’s personal travel log and memorable themes from student reflections too. The students showed a very satisfactory level of progress in economic analysis during virtual classes. Unexpectedly students learned to assess themselves and also provide accurate peer marks. This experience allowed the teachers to see these contextual circumstances as an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of innovation, teacher reflection and flexibility in order to achieve deep learning for students. In Chap. 10, Thomas and Baral write about gamification, defined as the ‘use of game design elements in non-game contexts’. This chapter consolidates the existing literature on gamification for synchronous and asynchronous learning and presents four emergent research themes regarding its effectiveness, mechanism, outcomes and theoretical basis. Empirical evidence on gamification in synchronous and asynchronous learning approaches suggests that gamified platforms can bring about desired behavioural changes in learners too, apart from high engagement. Academicians can utilize the insights presented in this chapter to create evidence-based gamification. In Chap. 11 Balwant draws on three leadership exercises in order to enhance online experiential learning during the pandemic. The first two exercises focus on crisis leadership and leadership correspondence. These were converted from a face-to-face exercise to an online format and the findings showed that improvements in students’ abilities were not significantly different between online (during COVID-19) and face-to-face environments (pre-COVID-19). The third exercise was a combination of simulation and self-reflection that focuses on flexible leadership. For this exercise, mixed method findings showed that students’ reactions were positive, and their abilities improved significantly after the exercise. In Chap. 12, Healy pondered how to teach his engineering students without a laboratory. He set out to create blended electronics labs, including an online simulation tool. Teaching involved individual, self-paced

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foundational pre-labs preparing students to contribute to group work in the physical lab at a later date. Survey results show that students were positive about the changes. More than half of respondents replied that they would use the simulation platform for personal study or fun, while nearly three-quarters of them replied confidently about achieving the learning outcomes of the pre-labs. Some positives about this method were enhanced student engagement and individualized learning curves. In Chap. 13, Hernández and Kilar-Magdziarz describe how a team of designers and academic leaders under the direction of an educational technologist and a pedagogical expert began a process of designing four online modules for undergraduate students. This entailed 4 hours per week of synchronous online classes with an instructor focusing on interaction and communication and a minimum of 10 hours per week of self-directed learning, with asynchronous activities (videos, texts, quizzes, discussion forums etc.). While it was challenging to design this in a short time, the study results show that the design approach of the online modules informed by appropriate use of technology, relevant content and a pedagogically sound teaching approach can contribute significantly to the engagement of the students, both synchronously and asynchronously during the completion of self-directed learning activities.

5 Future Research Implications While this book was in progress, we organized and presented a symposium on a similar theme in the Annual Academy of Management 2022 meeting in Seattle, Washington. We were delighted to learn that our symposium won the prestigious Management, Education and Development Division’s Global Forum Best Symposium Award (sponsored by Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers—CNAM). Our symposium was based on four papers authored by academics from Canada, India, Switzerland and the USA, who have over the past couple years navigated the VUCA environment with various combinations of synchronous and asynchronous teaching in the higher education while conducting research on this too.

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From the shared experiences and research presented in both the symposium and this book on what worked, what did not work and what had to be changed during the rapid shift to online synchronous and asynchronous teaching during the lockdowns, we aim to navigate an uncertain world by realigning teaching approaches in the hope that this will create a better world by enhancing the educational experience for the student, the faculty and the higher education institution. In our brave, new world, many of the authors expressed that some of the new learning and teaching techniques used during the lockdowns are being carried over to the brick-and-mortar classroom today, in what appears to be an emergent spillover effect that would be worth watching. Given that this is one of the first books providing authoritative analyses of the field, we envisage that this book—comprising theoretical and practical perspectives—will become a primer of sorts. For this first-mover advantage, we are grateful to Palgrave Macmillan for believing in this book project (especially Rebecca Wyde).

Reference Arbaugh, J. B., & Benbunan-Finch, R. (2006). An investigation of epistemological and social dimensions of teaching in online learning environments. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 435–447.

Part I Faculty Lived Experiences & Programme Design

Exploring Social Learning Theory in Synchronous Design for Engagement in Online Learning Lynn Gribble and Janis Wardrop

1 Introduction The move to online learning during the COVID pandemic and the subsequent desire expressed by some students to continue learning online raises the question of how can we ensure our students have a social learning experience when they may not meet or see each other face to face? The social cues and clues between and among students are largely absent in an online environment, providing few incidental moments that build rapport between peers. In addition, there are few opportunities to connect or meet informally and fewer gatherings at ‘the local’ to share stories and experiences. Yet both contribute to an environment in which social learning can occur. If our experiences over the past 24  months have taught us nothing else, creating a successful online learning experience requires more than simply posting materials on a learner management system or providing content for learners to access. We contend that

L. Gribble (*) • J. Wardrop University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_2

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creating social learning opportunities that are consciously woven into the fabric of an online course will facilitate student to student(s) learning and provide better learning outcomes for all. In designing for social learning in online learning environments, the first consideration is whether to design for synchronous or asynchronous learning. This was particularly important when the move to online learning was necessitated by the pandemic in courses where face to face delivery and social learning were key design components of the student learning experience. However, during the immediate crisis that educators faced in 2020, there was a strong push to equate the move to online learning as a move to asynchronous delivery of course material and experiences to accommodate students to continue learning as they relocated to home cities, learned to work from home and routines were generally disrupted. For teaching staff, in the confusion and speed to move to online learning, there was pressure to pare back learning to the mere delivery of content, rather than attempt to redesign in order to deliver existing learning outcomes. In any online delivery, it is important to recognise that asynchronous learning environments require the student to have particular learning skills. They need to be a self-regulated learner (Zimmerman, 2008) with enhanced learning capital (after Bourdieu, 1986), which provides a strong foundation to being self-directed, engaged and proactive in seeking out advice and information. They also need to enjoy reflection over extraverted learning (Bishop-Clarke et al., 2007) with and through others. In addition, many contemporary models of asynchronous delivery still replicate the pedagogical foundations of early models of distance education—providing content to a self-directed learner with the only ‘interaction’ that is personalised being the feedback (often directive and corrective) on assignments. Asynchronous discussion forums, introduced with the advent of the internet and online learning environments, offer the promise of interactive, anytime, anywhere discussions but more often resemble a list server feed from the 1990s with task-like comments by students to address the assessment requirements or chat like text messages that can be shallow and off topic. In contrast, synchronous online learning environments allow students and teachers alike to harness their own learning preferences, catering for

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both extroverted and introverted learners. Synchronous learning also enables psycho-social engagement across the cohort and brings order to what is often experienced as the loneliness of online learning (Kaufmann & Vallade, 2020). Similar to face to face learning, successful synchronous online learning environments require the creation of safe spaces and mutual trust where students learn together and are encouraged to interact with each other. By considering what students enjoy about attending classes, such as the rich discussion and conversations that evolve thinking and application based on the sharing of experiences and different ways of understanding, we can engage our students in social learning regardless of location. In this chapter, we present a personal reflective narrative of our experiences of the decisions that needed to be made and the actions taken when presented with a five day window to ‘move it all online’ as borders closed and lockdowns were introduced. By focusing on synchronous online environments that engage students through developing psycho-­ social engagement, we have built and utilised strategies to create a genuine community of learners over the past two years. Students want to come to class and engage with the teachers and each other, and we as teachers want to engage with them. Our challenge therefore is to design and create participatory activities that encourage students to be present and engaged in their learning.

2 Designing for Adults to Learn Online In a university setting, classrooms are filled with adults at various stages of development. With student numbers growing and globalisation making classrooms melting pots of life experiences, the learning environment and experience needs to be designed and maintained to maximise student experience. The link between learning and play as a tool for discovery and curiosity has been widely discussed in early childhood and primary schooling (Nilsson et al., 2018, Vygotsky, 1987). In adult education, this is more generally seen as the use of experiential learning, whereby students explore and discuss what they have observed and experienced in a reflective process to make meaning (Lewis & Williams, 1994). At the same time, it must be recognised that by the time our students enter the

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classroom, they may have been subjected to many years of ‘chalk and talk’ rote style repetition, or ‘skill and drill’ methods of information dissemination that has been culturally ingrained (Tan, 2011) or the corporate ‘death by PowerPoint’ experience (Duffy & Henry, 2016). Given this, when designing our classroom learning, rather than perpetuate this poor learning environment (Duffy & Henry, 2016), we seek to reinvigorate the learning experience to consider how adults might best learn. Designing based on how adults process and make meaning (Knowles, 1978; Kolb, 1984) means learning is an interplay between the curriculum, a student’s own experiences and the articulated experiences of others. This creates a space for students to ‘learn’ through engaging in dynamic sharing and reflecting on what they hear, read and do, and comparing it to their own previous experiences and understanding, rather than teachers treating them as ‘empty vessels’ to fill with content. Importantly, in designing this way, “the student experience counts for as much as the teacher’s knowledge” (Gessner, 1956, p. 160). Therefore, designing an environment built on adult learning principles requires triangulating these components in the learning experience to encapsulate student voice and experience, and draw upon their shared examples for consideration. The role of the student changes from ‘learner’ to a conduit of information and experience. By being central to the discussion, leading, questioning and sharing experience, each student has a central role to contribute to, and assists in making meaning of the content matter. This design can also provide students, connection with each other as sources of knowledge to be shared and utilised, making learning both social and dialogical.

3 Social Learning Theory Applied to Online Learning In an online environment, it is easy to create a one-way, teacher-lead environment or if students engage back, a dual channel between teacher and student. But this does not replicate the multi-dimensional, organic and iterative social learning environment that is a corner stone of the social sciences. Rather than explicit rules, much is learned by social

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observation as noted in Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory. Creating environments where students observe and copy desired behaviours can be useful in many situations, including teacher to student and student to student behaviour, learning processes, safety protocols and social norms. Therefore, this type of learning environment needs to encourage students to be attentive to the behaviours occurring in the classroom, enabling replication of the social cues and clues being used. In this way, positive behaviours can be replicated, retained and reproduced, which then provides motivation to learn. In face to face environments, observation is both a tacit and explicit experience; in the online environment, however, ensuring that students observe the desired behaviours requires greater planning. As such, teachers must adopt deliberate strategies to facilitate learning environments that allow students to observe each other demonstrating the desired behaviours, and in doing so, encourage engagement with each other. The role of social learning, therefore, is for students to recognise the outcomes achieved through the desired behaviours, and alter their own behaviour (retention and reproduction) to match the requirements, thus motivating and optimising their learning through others. The role of the teacher online is to highlight expected and successful behaviours, while creating opportunities for these to be displayed. In doing so, the student learns how to learn by observation and replication of the desired behaviours. Regardless of the teaching mode, the design must ensure exemplar students can be explicitly observed in the classroom, which may also provide a sense of motivation to ‘mimic’ the desired behaviours. As discussed in our narrative below, our practice rather than favouring only the extroverted students, saw most, if not all, students joining in, demonstrating a greater acceptance and willingness of the students to display the desired learning behaviours. Social learning theory also supports a learning design which considers the student as central to the nature of the experience. In an online classroom where students often remain faceless and soundless, teachers must deliberately highlight individual student responses to make up for the lack of visual cues and clues, the nods and the smiles between students and teachers, to emphasise what is expected and ‘approved’, as happens in a face to face classroom. Specifically, student interactions must be designed for, and draw attention to, providing what Cialdini (2006)

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might call ‘social proof ’ to others as to the expected behaviour. In order to create an online social learning experience, the desired behaviour must be explicit and its replication must be supported. Teachers can seek behaviours such as open contribution and communication in socially acceptable ways, sharing of appropriate examples, asking questions and deep diving into content to provide observable moments to be replicated. Therefore, the teacher must signal the specific cues and clues of what is expected between students not just teacher to student. In creating observable moments, reward systems can be utilised. Moving beyond Skinner’s (1953) view on reward and punishment, social learning theory understands how internal mental states such as intrinsic reward may encourage learning. Hence, students achieving their learning goals, or feeling accomplished may be enough reward for the most motivated student; the less confident student may need more. As such, external cues can be used to signal the start of that internal recognition of reaching the desired outcome. Further, Bandura (1977) also noted the importance of mental states to support and encourage the development of self-efficacy. Mental states such as openness to learning, focus on the task at hand and, up to a point, optimism about the situation at hand, all support students in their journeys to develop self-efficacy. It is this self-­ efficacy—enacting certain behaviours in learning—that supports students in taking action rather than remaining reticent, that is, someone who is likely to ‘lurk’ and can easily hide in an online space. Creating and maintaining mental states can also include consciously ‘shifting’ into learning mode (Ashford & DeRue, 2012; Heslin & Keating, 2017) and active learning. These create the best opportunity for success and can be as important as keeping students interacting with the materials and putting aside study time. However, as noted, it can be hard to do this on your own, hence students need to interact with each other in order to transform through exposure to differing views and opinions.

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4 Dialogic Learning In rich dialogic learning environments, discussion is facilitated, encouraging students to move beyond their existing schemas and experiences to incorporate broader and differing views (see Kim & Wilkinson, 2019; Major et al., 2018; Shor & Freire, 1987 among others). The central role of dialogue in learning has been agreed upon for many years. While there are several different pedagogical approaches and perspectives that have contributed to a perceived lack of conceptual clarity, there is at least agreement that dialogical approaches have a positive impact on student learning (Calcagni & Lago, 2018; Howe & Mercer, 2017; Kim & Wilkinson, 2019 among others). In online learning environments, much of the focus for the past 20  years has been on bringing dialogical approaches to asynchronous learning environments (see e.g. Sun & Gao, 2017; Delahunty, 2018). These studies and thought pieces add further weight to the importance of dialogue as a learning technique. With the help of the recent advances in information and communication technologies that make synchronous online learning a possibility, the challenges of dialogical pedagogies in asynchronous environments can be overcome. Synchronous online learning methods that adopt a dialogical approach reduce the lag between thought, expression and feedback replicating the more traditional face to face dialogic learning environment. For dialogic approaches to flourish, a classroom culture of mutual respect and acceptance is vital (Burbules, 1993; Wegerif, 2013). It also requires an understanding among participants that learning is a collaborative experience, an exchange of ideas between all participants in the class, and a shift away from traditionally assumed power relations between teacher (expert) and student (novice) because of the ‘sage on the stage’ approaches to teaching (King, 1993; McWilliam, 2008). But it is not only our students who have to adjust their mindset from ‘sage on the stage’, to ‘guide on the side’ or even ‘meddler in the middle’ approaches to learning, educators themselves need to be confident to both adopt these practices and deal with the increased anxiety it can induce in our students. Hence, online learning does not mean that we ignore the benefits that social learning and dialogical approaches bring to our students. It does

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require us, though, to more consciously and deliberately build these pedagogical devices into the learning environment that we may subconsciously take for granted in a face to face learning environment.

5 Methodology The use of personal narratives has gained prevalence since 1989 as accounts of “a past experience in the order it happened from the point of view of a narrator who interprets the significance of the experience” (Langellier, 1989, p. 245). They are also noted for use in the social sciences, and “have a significant place in research related to professional practice, including teaching with technologies” (Beckmann & Gribble, 2021, p.  1). For instance, Kara et  al. (2020), Sellers et  al. (2021) and Anderson et al. (2020) all used narratives to explore the effects on teaching and professional practices when the shift to online learning because of the pandemic occurred. Using narratives is reflective, which is the foundation of scholarly teaching practice being “based on knowledge of what works, applying the literature … and … risk taking in … new or adapted pedagogical approaches, and the evaluation of their effect on student learning” (Benson et  al., 2013, p.  224). Therefore, for evaluating our design on student engagement and social learning, personal narrative was applied as it provided the opportunity to reflect on our adapted practices underpinned by the literature while evaluating the outcomes. The five perspectives of a personal narrative allow information to be explored as story-text, storytelling performance, conversational interaction, social process and/or political praxis. All five enable reflective accounts to be put forward for peer review of educational practice (Langellier, 1989). Of particular importance for the use of personal narrative is “the context of the reflection and the depth of thought and inquiry that it encourages” (Oliver, 2013, p. 85). As such, we now turn to a narrative to enable our peers to be a part of the process as suggested by Moen (2006, p. 60).

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6 Our Personal Narrative and Reflections In March 2020, as the COVID pandemic swept the globe, Australia moved to close its national borders. Many international students were called home by their families and/or their educational institution (when on exchange). For students resident in Australia, state governments introduced lockdowns to minimise movement and interaction among their populations as a means to control the spread of the virus, shutting down university campuses as physical places of learning. Almost overnight, academics across the country were instructed to move learning online. For many, years of educational innovation was thrown out the window, with a return to ‘delivering content’ seen as the priority. Our cohort of largely international students with little work experience and studying commerce are also often undertaking their first course. Add to this, the course in question, ethics and sustainability is a compulsory course in the program. The role of the course is to ensure that students are welcomed to the faculty, they commence their learning journey as a transformational experience and they are introduced to a collegiate dialogical learning environment where they participate and engage. As borders closed, we explored the course design. Recognising that our courses had been designed to incorporate social learning, we were determined to stay true to the core educational principles in our move to online delivery. It was also important to consider the objectives of our learner group—master’s level students—who seek to increase their professional networks and opportunities, in addition to building disciplinary expertise. As observed in previous cohorts, students had always enjoyed the interaction with each other and the learning that had occurred through these interactions. In addition, given that our students had signed up to learn face to face, and were equally perplexed and anxious about events evolving around them, it was important that we tried to replicate, as best as possible, their expected face to face experience. With the closing down of social environments, we very much saw the adoption of a synchronous online experience as a way to support our students by facilitating social engagement. Rather than feeling alone, isolated and disconnected by being online, synchronous learning provided the space

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and design to actively connect, support and engage our students with each other, the content and us. Over the past two years, we have grappled with the challenge of supporting students to connect with each other without a physical opportunity to build connections. Students may go an entire term without knowing what another student looks like or sounds like. So, along with all the challenges of moving learning online, we also grappled with the issue of trying to maintain the opportunities that social learning environments bring to each student in their development in a technologically mediated environment. We identified at least two problems in creating this social learning opportunity, the first being how can students build rapport with each other without physical presence? The second, and related, question was how to create opportunities to connect, and have voice in a language that crossed both formal and informal reactions and discussions? However, in order to connect students with their peers, there was another barrier often less visible but equally challenging, and that is the temptation when online to multitask and be distracted by the competing demands for attention (such as email, Instagram, or private we-­ chat groups with students known to each other). This is a particular challenge when students ‘attend’ class without turning on (or not having access to) a webcam. With student attention and learning behaviours no longer constrained by the social conditioning of peers in a physical classroom, social learning opportunities rely on each student being ‘present’ in their learning and fully engaging with each other and the teacher. While there are many challenges to online synchronous delivery, such as, varying time zones, connectivity and technology capability, this form of delivery provides students with a guide on the side, a sage on a stage and a peer within reach, as and when needed. In addition, isolation can possibly be reduced as attending class together (albeit remotely) and sharing experience often creates social cohesion or glue (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). Further, we recognised that some students, regardless of the learning medium, will step up to be the spokesperson and in the online environment, they provide the litmus or temperature of the room in an otherwise void of dark screens.

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6.1 Creating Social Learning To create a social learning environment, we first had to connect students to each other, to ‘see each other’. We developed a series of tactics to facilitate the building of a class cohort. One approach to linking students was a ‘who is similar in response?’ mechanism that allowed us to draw out themes and similarities between responses, such as, who was drinking coffee and having breakfast at that moment. In this way, we identified and connected students to each other, resulting in social connections between them. In addition, naming and praising students who were active participants in activities and discussions gave clear indications of the positive learning behaviours we were seeking, as suggested by social learning theory (Bandura, 1977). Further, we rewarded and encouraged the replication of the wanted and observable behaviours to motivate others to do the same. Throughout the class, students were encouraged to keep interacting with each other in the same way, we wanted students to answer each other rather than rely upon the teacher for information. Hence, when a question was posed in the chat box, rather than the teacher immediately answering, students were encouraged to answer each other, and rewarded for doing so with visual representation of being a teacher’s aide, by way of a virtual coffee emoji as a reward. In doing so, knowledge sharing and peer to peer learning created additional ‘guides on the side’. When we observed the positive learning behaviours we were seeking, students were rewarded with positive reinforcement, such as drawing attention to their comments, stopping to explain or extend on a comment, or with a quick ‘nod’ at their contribution such as dropping an emoji in the chat. Rewards in an online class are simple to set up, such as dropping a coffee cup emoji for being a teacher of others (like a teacher’s aide award), stars (for exemplary answers) and hugging faces (to show the joy and approval of such behaviours). These actions reward learning and encourage the reproduction of the featured behaviour by the student as well as others in the class. They also provide each student the space to own their learning and socially connect by finding the person whose behaviour most aligns with what is desired and whose experience accords with their own. While this type of learning could be seen to favour the ‘extroverted

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learner’, even the quietest student now had the opportunity to interact and we observed that most of our students (> 90%) did so, and frequently. The number of interactions spoke loudly to us, meaning that even introverted learners seemed encouraged to join in such practices. As we identified, social learning is known to support motivation too (Bandura, 1977). Our students tell us that beyond time management, motivation is one of their greatest challenges to studying, despite selecting and signing up for the course. It is clear that the idealised notion of what study is and what it leads to are insufficient to support the process and the time required to successfully complete their studies. It would seem that our duty is to create social learning to better support their motivation. Given the situation of learning in lockdown or remotely, the social aspects of learning become even more central to the design of interaction.

6.2 Clear Rituals and Signals to Create Social Spaces Online communities in social media are often connected by a common need, cause, problem or enemy. Similarly, to build a community in an online classroom, we need to search for what connects the cohort, although assuming a shared interest in content alone can be misdirected. Students enrol in courses for a variety of reasons (very interested in content, very little interest in content, are studying because they want to further their ambitions, studying because of family expectations, etc.). Therefore, facilitating ways to recognise and acknowledge the variety of reasons why they are together as a cohort allows students to feel that they have an ‘equal right’ to be an active member of the cohort. Building a social community to support learning and each other requires students to have a sense of belonging and connectedness. As social learning occurs through the process of observation and interaction, social interaction had to be encouraged from the time the online classroom opened, contextualising the ‘learning space’ where engagement is expected. In our classes, we created clear rituals to start the class. Playing music, using the chat box to create conversation and verbally welcoming the students to class each week made arrival a social experience. By

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introducing prosaic topics such as the local weather conditions, framed as ‘chit chat while waiting for others to join the class’, students not only saw the geographical dispersal of their peers in the class, but often also found a sense of connection when another student noted that they were in dialling in from the same city. Introducing our pets as ‘furry teaching assistants’ who would be asleep in our teaching environment elicited conversations about their own pets or favourite animals. It also encouraged discussions about screen fatigue. Our pets and talking about our physical environment and shared experiences also broke down barriers between student and teacher, building rapport and a relatedness in our collective experiences. Over the course of the term, rather than just sitting quietly, waiting for the class to begin, we noticed that the students had started talking with each other and bringing their pets to say ‘hi’ as well. This paved the way for students to interact at a personal level, signalling who they were, beyond a name on the screen. We also suggested their avatar could be anything—a photo of who they were or even a dinosaur if they preferred—it was all about showing or representing who they were and how they wanted to be seen. As the avatars changed, so too did the conversation, from simple hellos and location or weather discussions to food, and encouragingly, we also observed students get to know each other, and share how they were feeling, even occasional writing in their mother tongues about their struggles, and others offering support and connection outside of class. As they got to know each other, we got to know them, and psycho-social learning environments were created. Our role was complex; rather than our being the centre of the interaction, we had to be the connectors for interaction. Simple individual responses to each hello in the chat captured student attention from the start, but our role was also to provide links to what we could see, such as ‘Danny you have a cat like Sally’. This encouraged students to engage and share early. We were, thus, able to create learning environments that were seen as spaces where students are supported and encouraged to actively participate and engage, not just with the course material but with each other as well. Some students had only been exposed to a classroom where there is just one voice, that of the teacher, or at best, theirs is the loudest voice in

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a room where the most extroverted learner takes centre stage. One of the benefits of online learning is that, unlike the traditional classroom that often allows only one voice, like a spotlight on who is talking; the online classroom, however, can be filled with many voices. We wanted to hear everyone’s thoughts and experiences. To allow for multiple voices there needed to be multiple channels. An online classroom can come alive when there is use of polls, chat boxes and even extended responses though external response systems such as Socrative or Mentimetre. Our aim was to give many opportunities, often simultaneously, to say what was on their mind in as many places as possible. We also needed to ensure these were seen and heard by others, requiring us to upskill to manage multiple channels at once. Further, we had to encourage students to join in and facilitate them to connect with and learn from each other. The opportunities for concurrent multi-channel communication through a rolling dialogue among and between students and teachers via chat boxes, polls and other interactive platforms, where students can see and hear each other, mean that students can communicate in ways that are most comfortable to themselves. We witnessed that over 97% of the class engaged in polls and instant responses, with as many as 93% logging into external platforms to provide extended responses. All students would draw on or post to a white board, while only 2–5% would turn on their microphones to speak. One important aspect of creating a social learning space is to reduce the perceived power distance between participants and teachers. It is not a teacher who holds the power, nor the answers. In classrooms where there is cultural diversity among the student cohort and between the student cohort and the teachers, cultural practices and beliefs add an added layer of complexity. As Woodrow (2001), Selinger (2004), Zhang (2013) and others have demonstrated, cultural norms and values are an important factor when understanding student engagement and learning activity. Students’ own expectations of who a teacher is, and their role in learning can undermine educational efforts where the student expects a ‘sage on the stage’ but encounters a ‘guide on the side’ (or vice versa). As a quick, visual attempt to reduce the perceived power distance between teacher and student, we adopted the use of emojis to quickly acknowledge student contributions and bring a light hearted informality to our

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interactions. Our use of emojis provided ‘permission’ for students to adopt the practice, particularly when students communicate peer to peer, friend to friend, building relationships and connection. Emojis became a student-led language that created a sense of fun, reducing the power of distance between parties and providing a talking point beyond content. For example, one student wanted to be identified by a dinosaur. This led to great interaction between everyone and it was then used frequently as a form of acknowledgement and recognition. Well used emojis can provide a sense of who someone is, like a type of avatar but simpler and easily inter-changeable, based on what is at hand or top of mind—they make interacting fun and can provide a game-like interaction. Once a person posts an emoji, a form of contagion appears, with others quickly following suit. Attention is quickly attained, and each week, this type of interaction between students increases; they seem to remember each other’s emoji preferences as well. The behaviour is both retained and strengthened. Emojis provide emotive cues and clues that are otherwise absent from the faces of our now (often) faceless students as hidden keyboard warriors.

7 Conclusion It is unlikely learning environments will return to those typical in 2019. The wide use of online learning is clearly here to stay, and as such, the problems of creating learning environments that engage our students will remain. Designing synchronous learning environments that consider social, psycho-social, experiential and dialogical learning recognises that learning is not a solo activity. We can create more opportunities for social learning and design in ways that encourage, reward and require interactivity. By designing learning spaces that encourage and reward attention in a manner that clearly heralds what behaviours are required, students (and their teachers) can reap rewards of a transformative experience whereby everyone learns from and with each other. An explicit design that is underpinned by dialogue can be delivered online without webcams and microphones through the use of multiple tools. Supporting our students

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to learn how to learn online is a type of social learning that can be observed, replicated and rewarded. While the cues and clues may not be as ‘richly present’ as what can be enabled face to face, the online learning space has the potential to evolve and include positive social learning opportunities and provide social connection for the otherwise faceless keyboard warrior.

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On Becoming a Qualitative Researcher: Transformative Learning Theory in an Online Research Course Kathy D. Geller, Joy C. Phillips, and Kristine S. Lewis Grant

1 Introduction Transformative learning is an andragogical approach to teaching adult learners that fosters the conscious use of critical thinking and reflection, the personal willingness to question assumptions, and the recognition of the complexity inherent in the work and community situations in which we are engaged (Cranton, 2016; Leaver et al., 2021; Taylor & Cranton, 2013). Transformative learning fosters a developmental approach that is based on engaging students to question assumptions, challenge the ways things are done, and embrace differences in worldviews and preferred actions (Fisher-Yoshida & Geller, 2009; Mezirow, 2000). While created

K. D. Geller (*) Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. C. Phillips • K. S. Lewis Grant Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_3

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and applied initially to traditional collegiate education, the principles of transformative learning have been employed in a range of settings to inform culturally responsive learning interventions that foster inclusivity, participatory action research targeting identity development performative interventions to transform organizational culture, and trans-cultural leadership programs that develop adaptable leaders (Fisher-Yoshida et al., 2009). In this chapter, we describe how these principles have been integrated into a two-term research course that introduces cohorts of 12–15 doctoral students to qualitative research theory and methods (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2019; Creswell & Poth, 2018) and qualitative research skills— such as observations (Janesick, 2016), interviewing (Seidman, 2019), and coding and analysis (Miles et al., 2020; Saldaña, 2021). The course incorporates a range of authentic learning experiences (e.g., collaborative peer review teams, pilot studies, and journal reflections) that provide meaningful knowledge and support skill development for becoming a qualitative researcher. The chapter reviews transformative learning theory and introduces five specific transformative learning practices that support an understanding of the qualitative researcher’s role in meaning-making. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the implications for teaching and learning qualitative research methods in other academic contexts.

2 Theoretical Framework Transformative learning theory emerged from an extensive study of women who first attended college in mid-life (Mezirow, 1981). Analyzing their stories, Mezirow and his research team found that these participants described experiences reflecting aspects of Kuhn’s paradigm shift (Chang, 2017; Kitchenham, 2008) and Freire’s (1970) emancipatory learning expressing transformed views of the world. These views reflected enhanced conscientization and critical reflection (Mezirow, 2000). From this research, Mezirow (2000) presented perspective transformation as a ten-­ step process that started with a challenge to one’s understanding and led to recognizing the dilemma between one’s existing beliefs and current experiences (p.  22). When faced with this dilemma, he identified that students critically reflected on and assessed what they had believed to be

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“truth.” In parallel, through discourse with peers, these students experienced becoming open to new ways of constructing their understanding and experienced transformations in their perspectives. Transformative learning theory, studied for more than 40 years, offers a commitment to adult learning and development (andragogy); it integrates the conscious use of critical thinking and reflection, requires a person’s willingness to surface their mental models, and questions the implicit assumptions that inform their beliefs and actions. When applied to the design and delivery of knowledge, transformative learning theory supports students’ recognition of the complexity inherent in their work, community, and life situations (Cranton, 2016; Fisher-Yoshida et  al., 2009; Leaver et  al., 2021; Mezirow & Taylor, 2009; Taylor & Cranton, 2013). Application of transformative learning practices to support perspective transformation has been employed with success in a broad range of learning settings (graduate education, community, and corporate settings) and delivery methods (hybrid, virtual, and international) (Fisher-Yoshida et  al., 2009). Transformative learning theory—actively applied in doctoral education, and specifically, in preparation for doctoral inquiry and research—fosters an expansion of the learners’ worldviews that may be reflected in the questioning of their assumptions, seeing circumstances through a broader range of perspectives, reflecting critically on the way things have been done, and embracing differences in actions and worldviews (Fisher-Yoshida & Geller, 2009; Mezirow, 2000). Merriam and Baumgartner (2020) reframed Mezirow’s ten-step process as having four main components: “experience, critical reflection, reflective discourse, and action” (p. 170). Geller (2005) identified specific teaching practices that when applied to the design of learning environments actively support learner perspective transformation: (1) self-­ reflection, (2) critical thinking, (3) empathic dialogue (discourse linked with empathic feedback), (4) praxis (reflection-on-action), and (5) cultural responsiveness. Table 1 provides a crosswalk among these three modes of thinking about transformative learning: (1) Mezirow’s ten-steps, (2) Merriam and Baumgartner’s four components, and (3) Geller’s five practices. This table

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Table 1  Transformative learning: from theory to practice

Mezirow’s (2000) 10 phases of transformative learning (p. 22) A disorienting dilemma

Merriam and Baumgartner’s (2020) components of transformative learning (p. 170) Experience

Self-­examination with feelings of fear, anger, guilt, or shame

Geller’s (2005) practices for transformative learning (pp. 100–111)

Qualitative Qualitative course learning course content activities experiences

Cultural Researcher’s responsiveness philosophy

The “ologies” epistemology, ontology, axiology Journal prompts: • Qualitative Traditions • Praxis with Pilot Study • Sense-­making through Analysis Observing a still life:

Self-reflection

Integrative Journaling

Recognition of one’s discontent and the process of transformation are shared

Critical thinking

Qualitative observations

Perspectives and perceptions

Exploration of options for new roles, relationships and actions Planning a course of action Acquiring knowledge/skills for implementing one’s plans

Empathic dialogue Peer to peer feedback

Qualitative interviewing skills

Mock interviews:

A critical assessment Critical of assumptions reflection

Provisional trying of new rules

Reflective discourse

Critical friends process

Protocol Development

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued)

Mezirow’s (2000) 10 phases of transformative learning (p. 22) Building competence and self-­confidence in new roles and relationships

Merriam and Baumgartner’s (2020) components of transformative learning (p. 170) Action

A reintegration into one’s life based on conditions dictated by one’s new perspective

Geller’s (2005) practices for transformative learning (pp. 100–111) Praxis Reflection on action

Qualitative Qualitative course learning course content activities experiences Pilot Study

Cultural What have I responsiveness learned Self-reflection about myself Critical thinking as a Empathic qualitative dialogue researcher? Praxis

Data collection Analysis

Summative reflection

Source: Authors’ own

also introduces course activities to support the application of transformative learning in a graduate, online, qualitative research course.

3 Qualitative Course Sequence: Design of the Two-Term, Online Delivery East Coast University, a Tier I research institution, follows the quarter system; each course is designed for ten-week delivery. The two-term qualitative course sequence is taught over 20 weeks with a short break between terms. Conceptually and practically, the delivery of qualitative research focuses on three core content areas: (1) Introducing students to five qualitative traditions—case study, phenomenology, narrative, ethnography, and grounded theory (Creswell & Poth, 2018); (2) Guiding students to define their researcher’s stance by introducing the philosophical perspectives and surfacing conscious and previously unconscious perspectives; and (3) Supporting the students’ application of theory to practice in a qualitative pilot study—design, delivery, analysis, and final report. Table 2 presents course descriptions and learning outcomes that provide

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Table 2  Qualitative research course descriptions and learning outcomes Term 1: Qualitative Research Design Introduction of qualitative research using real-world problems and real-world data to gain experience with following research methodologies, such as phenomenology and case studies, to gain skills in participant observation, interviewing, archival research, and historical analysis. Multiple theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches for qualitative research will be discussed. In this course, the student will: 1. Develop a familiarity with the study of a phenomenon “in its natural setting with a goal to explore how people make sense of their world and their experiences” (Merriam and Tisdell 2016, p. 15). 2. Demonstrate knowledge of their own epistemology, ontology, and axiology as both a person and an academic as conveyed in the written researcher’s stance. 3. Distinguish between and demonstrate knowledge of four qualitative traditions: case study, phenomenology, narrative, and grounded theory. 4. Design and conduct a pilot study on a problem of practice that aligns with one of the identified qualitative traditions, which is reflected in the problem statement, purpose statement, and research questions. 5. Demonstrate the ability to effectively collect data, including observations, interviews, focus groups, and artifact collection for one of the qualitative research approaches. 6. Recognize and manage their own biases, assumptions, and the need to suspend judgment during data collection and analysis.

Source: Authors’ Own

Term 2: Advanced Qualitative Research Analysis Introduces students to advanced qualitative research. Students will read about and practice data collection, data analysis, and reporting conventions used in qualitative research. The course will focus on: (a) producing transcriptions of data collected (e.g., interviews and observations) and (b) applying data collection and analysis methods. Students will gain proficiency in the core research skills required for an action-oriented doctoral dissertation that will help prepare them for future research collaborations and workbased projects. In this course, the student will: 1. Maintain a reflective journal to build awareness of their biases and assumptions, develop understanding, insights, and the application of epoché. 2. Practice verbatim transcription. 3. Explain the importance of researcher observations on the surrounding environs. 4. Apply a range of coding approaches to code transcriptions based on the selected qualitative research methodology. 5. Analyze data to identify patterns and emerging themes. 6. Build skills in the application of qualitative findings to inform results, interpretations, and conclusions. 7. In both oral and written forms of communication, articulate and report research outcomes that will inform a Problem of Practice for organizations and communities 8. Describe potential ethical issues that may occur when conducting qualitative research.

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the context for the descriptions of activities and practices that are discussed in the following sections.

4 Learning Activity: Researcher’s Philosophy From the outset of instruction, students are invited to explore their philosophical assumptions (epistemology, ontology, axiology—the “ologies” as we call them) and interpretive frameworks (e.g., post-positivist, constructivist, pragmatist, critical theorist) to understand and develop a personal understanding of their qualitative stance (Creswell & Poth, 2018).

4.1 Learning Activity: Journaling Students reflect on what they are learning in multiple ways. One prominent activity is journal writing. Students post weekly journals in the learning management system. In these reflections, students respond to prompts to compare qualitative traditions, describe their experiences in selecting and applying one qualitative methodology in the conduct of a pilot qualitative study, and reflect on their experiences as emerging qualitative researchers.

4.2 Learning Activity: Qualitative Observations Early in the first course, students participate in two qualitative observation activities. In the first activity, students conduct a “cold” observation of an active physical scene. Without any specific guidance, students record what they see, hear, feel, and think; this activity helps surface preconceived notions about what they perceive to be important. A second activity is presented as a group observation of a still life scene, allowing students to broaden their awareness of what and how things can be observed (Janesick, 2016).

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4.3 Learning Activity: Qualitative Interviewing Skills Development To help students develop and sharpen their qualitative interviewing skills, we include a team assignment, “Mock Interviews with Critical Friends.” Students develop a pilot study protocol. Participating in three-person teams, each student rotates through three distinct roles: interviewer, interviewee, and observer. This role-play builds students’ awareness of protocol question viability, the need to probe for further understanding, and possible biases reflected in their questions, probes, and dialogue.

4.4 Learning Activity: Pilot Study During this two-course sequence, students create and conduct a qualitative research pilot study. In the first course, students select a qualitative research method, identify research questions based on their topic of interest and method, develop interview protocols, and conduct individual and a focus group interview. Because it is a course assignment, Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval is not sought. Students transcribe, analyze the collected data in the second course, and write the final pilot study report.

4.5 Learning Activity: What Have I Learned about Becoming a Qualitative Researcher The culminating learning activity asks students to provide a summative reflection on their experiences as an emerging qualitative researcher. Students describe how their knowledge about and attitude toward qualitative research has been influenced across the two terms; what they have learned about the constructivist perspective and the researcher’s role in meaning-making; and what they have learned about their assumptions and biases related to their research topic.

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5 Application of the Transformative Learning Practices to Course Experiences Table 1 presented Mezirow’s (2000) ten transformative learning phases, Merriam and Baumgartner’s (2020) four transformative learning components, and Geller’s (2005) five transformative learning practices aligning them with course activities (column 4) and course experiences (column 5). This section is organized by Geller’s transformative learning practices (column 3) discussing them through the lens of course experiences (column 5).

5.1 Practice 1: Cultural Responsiveness The centrality of culture, and its tie to a person’s frames of reference and mental models, has been noted in multiple research theories and areas including social identity theory, cross-cultural communication theory, learning pedagogy, and business globalization to name a few. Hofstede (1997) described the challenges inherent in cross-cultural communication noting that “the recognition that I carry a particular mental software because of the way I was brought up, and others brought up in different environments carry a different mental software for equally good reasons” (p. 230) is reflected in who and how we are. He stated that socio-cultural beliefs, values, and perspectives acquired in our family of origin, along with our cultural assimilation, become the basis for the mental models and frames of reference that guide our interactions with others. Writing in the same time period as Hofstede (1997) and drawing on her research conducted in US public education, Ladson-Billings’ (1995) study of African American students’ classroom experiences called for teachers to build cultural competence through the application of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). Ladson-Billings (2006) described the educator’s role as: Helping students to recognize and honor their own cultural beliefs and practices while acquiring access to the wider culture where they are likely

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to have a chance of improving their socioeconomic status and making informed decisions about the lives they wish to lead. (p. 36).

To broaden the focus in more recent work, Ladson-Billings updated CRP drawing on Paris’ (2012) representation of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP), noting that “rather than focusing only racial or ethnic groups the [CSP] framework pushes educators to consider global identities” (cited in Aronson & Laughter, 2016, p.  166) and diverse interests. Gay (2018) relatedly described the educator’s role in culturally responsive teaching (CResT) as drawing from the “cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective” (p. 31). She identified the importance CResT plays in validating “every student’s culture, bridging gaps between school and home through diversified instructional strategies and multicultural criteria” (Gay, 2018, p. 38) The 2021 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International Diversity Manual framed the need for Schools of Business to foster an appreciation for cultural differences within and across borders, noting “unprecedented challenges confronting our world today require solutions with the power to connect people and institutions across borders, and cultures, languages and ethnicities, religions and economic backgrounds, and disciplines.” The AACSB report further noted, “Achieving true diversity, inclusion and belonging happens only when community members move beyond tolerating differences to embracing how those differences contribute to innovative, engaged and meaningful business practices” (AACSB Diversity, 2021). Mezirow (1991) similarly described that learners’ frames of reference and habits of mind emerge from their socio-cultural beliefs, values, and perspectives. Taylor (2000) in related research noted, “Because context seems to play such a significant role in shaping transformative learning, it would seem just as obvious that a participant’s culture would have an impact as well” (p. 310). Kasl and Yorks (2016) introduced a focus on the “paradox of diversity,” noting that diversity can offer the “dual potential for negative or positive impact on learning” (p. 163). While interaction between people with different perspectives can lead to new learning, sometimes “people’s life situations can be so divergent that they literally

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inhabit different worlds and cannot imagine that each other’s perspectives might be valid” (Kasl & Yorks, 2016, p. 163). When our students enter the two-term qualitative sequence, they have just completed a course on equity and social justice that applies aspects of critical research (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Forty percent of our doctoral graduates’ dissertation research topics focus on aspects of social justice issues related to culture, gender, race, sexual orientation, and ability. The online course design draws on CSP to ensure that faculty members are conscious of cultural implications in our interactions with students from minoritized, marginalized, and international backgrounds. Similarly, this cultural awareness becomes a focus for many of our students in conducting qualitative pilot studies with their participants. Within the study of qualitative research, we direct attention to understanding the self and the other through the introduction to the researcher’s stance, wherein students consider their alignment with the interpretive frameworks and identify their philosophical assumptions. In the first qualitative course, students are challenged to surface the philosophical assumptions that will inform their research approach—unpacking what they know (epistemology), what they believe (ontology), and what they value (axiology). They struggle to make sense of these concepts, as their academic knowledge is developed initially through readings (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Further knowledge development is integrated into Zoom session presentations and considered in peer dialogue groups. These conversations challenge students to surface how their knowledge, beliefs, and values inform the development of their research question and choice of qualitative methodology in developing a pilot study. In the second term, these students reflect on how their understanding of the “ologies” has been affected by conducting the pilot study. Miranda, a doctoral student, described her application of her interpretive framework and philosophy in the final paper: As a researcher, I comprehend the world through a social constructivist or interpretivist paradigm. I understand the world through the messiness of life—through the ever-changing mix of human relationships and the intriguingly different ways that those individuals see truth (Gergen, 1985). Because of the numerous components of my life, I understand that there

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are multiple realities and not one single, observable truth (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I experience the world as a social constructivist because I am a citizen of two nations, the US of America and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma … My epistemological approach for this study drew upon my family heritage as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation … My ontology, related to my stance as a social constructivist permeated this study’s design, as it was represented through the multiple voices I sought to hear from through interviews and observations … My axiological stance guided my design, as I value listening and honoring the perspectives of all participants. (Miranda, 2021)

5.2 Practice 2: The Conscious Use of Activities that Promote Learner Self-Reflection Literature on reflection draws on over 100 years of research from the social science disciplines. Multiple sources (Harvey et al., 2016; Leigh & Baily, 2013) have noted that writing on reflection, critical reflection, and reflective practice is essential to learning. Dewey (1910) alluded to these concepts in How We Think and described that reflective thought is constituted by “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it” (p.  6). This early Dewey work is frequently cited as a central tenet of many of today’s published definitions on reflection. Mezirow (1991) broadened Dewey’s statement and further defined reflection as an “examination of the justification for one’s beliefs” (p. xvi). Taylor (2009), writing with Mezirow, described critical reflection as an essential practice positioned to allow one to challenge deeply held assumptions and beliefs that have emerged from one’s family of origin and prior life experiences. Taylor (2009) noted that “Critical reflection refers to examining the presuppositions underlying our knowledge of the world” (p.  8). Reflective thought, reflection, and critical reflection, as presented by Dewey (1910), Mezirow (1991), and Taylor (2009), require that a person is willing to engage in self-reflection to surface the beliefs and assumptions that guide their choices, actions, and inform future options.

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Journaling is the primary learning activity used to facilitate students’ self-reflection. In the first course, students use journaling to critically assess qualitative methods and design, reflecting on how the various methods apply to their research interest and their plan to conduct a pilot study. In the second course, they critically reflect on the conduct of their pilot study, drawing from personal interview experiences, coding activities and analysis, and describing surprises that emerge. Personal reflections surface the assumptions, beliefs, and presuppositions that have informed the student’s initial topic of interest and influenced their research question(s). Jason, a doctoral student, noted: I always had the perception of qualitative research as fluffy and less scientifically sound than quantitative research. I do see now that it can be valuable as long as efforts are taken to mitigate any potential biases of the researcher … I do think that I was able to keep my biases in check for this pilot study, but I was definitely not impartial, and it is a little frightening to think of how that could have skewed the scientific merit of the study had I not worked so hard to be as neutral as possible when analyzing the data. (Jason, 2021)

With enhanced self-awareness, students become better positioned in their roles as emerging qualitative researchers to query, listen, and be open to the experiences of others.

5.3 Practice 3: The Application of Critical Thinking Skills Self-reflection and critical reflection are foundational to the process of critical thinking. As Brookfield (1987) described: When we become critical thinkers, we develop an awareness of the assumptions under which we, and others, think and act. We learn to pay attention to the context in which our actions and ideas are generated. We become skeptical of quick-fix solutions, of single answers to problems, and of claims to universal truth. We also become open to alternative ways of looking at, and behaving, in the world. (p. ix)

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Hooks (2010) noted that research on critical thinking has led to multiple definitions, “All encompass the understanding that critical thinking requires discernment. It is a way of approaching ideas that aims to understand core, underlying truths, not simply the superficial truth that may be most obviously visible” (p. 9). Critical thinking is a key accreditation objective of AACSB (2017). AACSB acknowledged, “a considerable void exists in the business education literature concerning how critical thinking is developed in students and how it should be taught and measured” (Dahl et al., 2018, p. 106). As faculty, we recognize that creating assignments to enhance critical thinking skills further prepares our students for the dissertation journey. We also believe that these practices inform our students’ tacit work, as we draw from the application of experiential learning theory (Kolb & Kolb, 2005) and transformative learning theory (Phillips et al., 2021). These practices focus on the faculty’s responsibility to: “Help learners … function as more autonomous, socially responsible thinkers” (Mezirow, 1997, p. 10). In Janesick’s (2016) observation activity, students participate in an observation of a still life scene. While originally designed for face-to-face delivery, the use of photographs of a still life scene (e.g., a dining room with a table, walls, doors, and windows, and a range of personal mementos on the table) taken from multiple angles allows this activity to work well via Zoom. Within breakout rooms, students working in small groups begin by silently observing and taking notes on what they see in their photo (usually there are four groups viewing a scene from different angles). Then, students viewing the same photo from the same angle read their notes aloud and compare, making notes of the similarities and differences in their observations. Returning to the entire group, each small group shares the similarities and differences in their individual approaches to the observation activity. After sharing observation descriptions, the learning community reflects on and considers the differences presented through the participants’ perspectives; discusses how individual learning styles are reflected in what each person saw, how it was voiced (level of detail); how it was framed (as

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a list, a story, a poem), and how it was presented (level of affect) (Kolb & Kolb, 2005). Consistently, students are surprised by what others report, and learn that where one is positioned in a setting is reflected in what one observes. This prompts dialog that critically considers the powerful role of perspective and perception in what is seen, and the truths that emerge. Pat, a doctoral student, noted: The process of observing the still life photograph felt like “an anthropological analysis” (Geertz, 1973, p. 7). Looking at the smorgasbord of cultural artefacts delighted my senses, and I found myself actively practicing restraint in making value judgements … Can meaning-making (interpretation) ever be separate and apart from observation in fieldwork? As last week’s readings reminded us, it is critical that as researchers, we acknowledge and examine our biases. (Pat, 2021)

5.4 Practice 4: Empathic Dialogue (Peer-to Peer-Feedback) Kasl and Yorks (2016) noted, “Dialogue is the process that creates communicative learning. By presenting ideas and encountering others’ points of view, learners can clarify, expand and attune their thinking” (p. 162). Buber (1947) defined dialogue as a space “where each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation” (p. 19). Drawing on the diverse values, beliefs, and experiences of group members by a focus on inquiry and understanding, dialogue fosters deepens and broadens understanding to better inform action. Dialogue requires an empathic connection. Freire (1970) described dialogue as founded “upon love, humility and faith … [that] becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust … is the logical consequence” (p. 90). Freire (1970) noted, “True dialogue cannot exist unless dialoguers engage in critical thinking … which discerns an individual’s solidarity between the world and the people … [and] perceives reality as a process of transformation” (pp. 92–93). Kasl and Yorks (2016) described the power of dialogue when participants are diverse, noting, “Open

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sharing of different experiences, perspectives, and capabilities can lead to changed meaning perspectives. As they come to new understanding of the experiences of the ‘other,’… [they] realize how their own pre-­conscious reactions mediate their openness to others” (p. 162). Dialogue applied in an online learning environment provides the means to surface and embrace differences allowing the complexities of situations to be understood in new ways that lead to new choices and options (Geller, 2005). Empathic dialogue serves a crucial role in the process of becoming a qualitative researcher. To promote peer-to-peer dialogue, discourse, and empathic feedback, the faculty members draw upon a mechanism that emerged in education reform known as “the critical friends” process (National School Reform Faculty [NSRF], n.d.). “A critical friend is typically a colleague or other educational professional … who is committed to helping an educator improve” (https://www.edglossary.org/ critical-­friend/). Peers are guided to act as “critical friends” for each other as they apply a structured approach to providing both warm and cool peer-to-peer feedback. Warm feedback highlights strengths and compelling ideas. Cool feedback asks “what if ” questions and supports the consideration of possible unconscious biases or assumptions. The critical friends’ concept has been widely adopted as a valuable tool by members from diverse organizational settings (Fahey & Ippolito, 2015). During the interviewing skills practice session, students apply the Critical Friends Process in the “Mock Interview Triad.” Based on peer feedback (warm and cool), students identify issues with their interview questions and behaviors that will better support their developing interviewing skills. Students also gain insight into how the researcher’s voice informs the shared experiences of research participants. Students reflect on their performance as a researcher, as well as that of their peers. Drawing on the virtual environment in which this role-play activity is conducted, teams record a 20-minute reflection on their experiences. In the recorded debriefs, students often praise a peer for something that they did well in the interviewer role and indicate that they too plan to adopt the practice. Peers acknowledge when they had a similar challenge and share the steps they plan to take to address it. As students practice the critical friends’ dialogic approach, they learn that issues can be brought to

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the surface when conversations are handled constructively, supportively, and professionally. Sydney, a doctoral student in the class, reflected: My bias and assumptions influenced my probing questions, which was something I first noticed during the critical friends’ triad assignment last term. After that assignment, I drafted a much longer list of probing questions than what I originally had in my initial protocols. Despite this awareness and my extra step, this bias still carried over into the actual interview. (Sydney, 2021)

5.5 Practice 5: Praxis (Reflection on Action) Course design and knowledge acquisition are framed through reflection-­ on-­action. The concepts of praxis and reflection-on-action were derived from the classical work of Habermas (1971), Gadamer (1981), and Schön (1983, 1987). These scholars distinguished their ideas by contrasting them with the concept of technical rationality that emerged from the development of the scientific method during the Enlightenment era. Basically, technical rationality translates into an individual separating “the mind (e.g., subject, knower, consciousness) from the thing (e.g., that which is to be known, the object of consciousness). In contrast, Habermas (1971), Gadamer (1981), and Argyris and Schön (2003) have argued that knowing comes from engaging in praxis and results in a type of ‘“practical wisdom’” obtained through action-oriented self-­understanding (Schwandt 2007), or reflection in- and on-action” (Schön, 1987, pp. 25–26). Schön (1987) posited that we frequently conduct our familiar activities without having to “think about it” (p. 26) by relying on knowing-in-­action, where tacit knowledge or skills are employed without conscious thought. He described that these actions are performed “spontaneously [through] skillful execution” (p. 25) in ways that one may not be able to verbalize. When things do not go according to expectation, an element of “surprise” is introduced, which one may “brush aside … [or decide] selectively” (p. 26) not to address. Alternatively, an individual may respond to surprise by reflecting in two distinct ways: (1) reflecting-in-action in the present moment, or (2) reflecting-on-action retrospectively. By reflecting-in-action, one may be able to change what is happening in the moment. In contrast,

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while reflection-on-action does not change the situation, it can help one identify what and how they may have contributed to the outcome. In our doctoral program, students engage in praxis through reflection­in- and on-action by designing and conducting a qualitative pilot study. In the pilot study design, the students select a qualitative research design, clarify the research question(s) that will guide their work, and develop interview protocols (individual and focus group) for conducting the research. To support the students’ pilot study development, faculty encourage them to become conscious of how their research stances are reflected in their choice of topic, development of research questions, research design, and other elements of the research process. This experiential activity informs students’ understanding of the qualitative researcher’s role. This knowledge becomes more prominent after they have collected interview data and struggled to make sense of what participants have revealed. Students frequently recognize biases and assumptions at this stage and identify leading questions that influenced their data collection. These musings have prompted some students to revisit and revise their researcher’s stance. Miranda, a doctoral student, noted: One thing that stood out when I returned to the beginning sections of my pilot study was the biases and beliefs that I brought to my research. It was very helpful to review my researcher’s stance and add to it as I noticed my biases emerge throughout the research. It brings to mind the idea that “I don’t know what I don’t know.” (Miranda, 2021)

We use these concepts of cognition, meaning-making, and knowledge building as important components of our qualitative research courses. Experiential and reflective activities are designed to promote competence and self-confidence. By promoting reflection-on-action, we encourage students to think deeply about their course experiences as the activities unfold and as they conclude. My perspective on finding the “truth” or “reality” has changed … I think it has to do with trying to find a definitive “truth” which will not be defined the same way by different people. Getting to that truth, I think is more of

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a journey than I had originally expected. … I really appreciate these different perspectives. It is what makes finding the truth interesting. (Taylor, 2021)

6 Implications We have discussed in this chapter how synchronous and asynchronous online teaching can provide an excellent learning environment; however, as we argue, careful and deliberate instructional planning and delivery are necessary to assure the desired skills acquisition and knowledge transfer. As higher education faculties across the globe have pivoted from face-to-­ face to online instruction, many have struggled to adapt to teaching in this two-dimensional world. To address this experience and perceived knowledge gap, our work has been informed by Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991, 2000) and Kolb and Kolb’s (2005, 2018) representations of experiential learning. The fully online course format presents advantages and disadvantages— many of these highlight dualities. An advantage includes admitting students from across the globe to the entirely online doctoral program rather than restricting admission to a geographic area. While most students come from the continental US, we also regularly have students from China, Korea, Abu Dhabi, the US Virgin Islands, and other places in the world. This diversity enhances students’ focus on cultural sustainability. An advantage for both faculty and students is that the online format eliminates commute time. Emerging research from ApolloTechnical (2022) suggests that faculty who work remotely work more hours and are more productive. A disadvantage for faculty is that virtual work is more likely to become a 24/7/365 activity. Faculty teaching virtually needs to establish boundaries to honor aspects of their private lives while maintaining a commitment to respond to students’ queries, requests, and assignments. Students attending a program or a course online must juggle family and home responsibilities. Parents’ struggles have been exacerbated by frequently homeschooling their children during COVID and require faculty sensitivity to established deadlines. An advantage of incorporation of synchronous class sessions is that students are able to interact with their peers and the instructor in real-­ time. Timing, however, can be challenging for those in global locations,

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thus requiring consideration in the scheduling of Zoom sessions. The synchronous approach supports richer discussions and skill building activities that can lead students to deeper content understanding and the support offered by communities of practice. While faculty members provide students who are absent from Zoom sessions with recordings of the session and sometimes with an alternative assignment, these students frequently are disadvantaged by not participating in live discussions. Instructors’ review of student work reflects that students who participate only asynchronously do not appear to gain the knowledge transfer desired and produce work that is not as strong as those students who attend the synchronous sessions. Faculty who are considering using transformative learning theory as the conceptual framework for their online course design should be aware of the implications for faculty engagement. Online faculty who are accustomed to being the “sage on the stage” will need to adopt the role of “guide on the side.” Transformative learning involves a discovery process that requires faculty to facilitate student learning, allowing space for mistakes, reflection, and growth. Faculty will need to have a real and active presence in the online course to pose questions, challenge students’ thinking, acknowledge accomplishments, and encourage reflection. Their review of assignments requires a commitment to establishing a dialogue through detailed commentary on each paper. Online faculty need to be prepared to engage the whole student. Practicing qualitative research is not a merely intellectual exercise. Doctoral students often pursue research topics and questions with personal and professional significance. Helping students to uncover and unpack their biases and subjectivities is essential to preparing them to conduct an ethical, rigorous, disciplined inquiry in the dissertation process to follow. Whether applying transformative learning theory in the design of an online qualitative methods course, or another subject, the faculty role is an integral component in the successful facilitation of the learning experience for students.

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7 Conclusion This chapter offered an in-depth discussion of course activities and experiences that support the application of transformative learning theory to the design and delivery of online synchronous and asynchronous learning. Our discussion balances the interaction of theory and practice to illustrate how faculty can deliver course content with an approach that fosters critical reflection and critical thinking. This chapter addressed the educational, technological, and psycho-­ social factors at play in online instruction in graduate education. The students’ academic needs were met by engaging in an array of activities– supported by readings, videos, one-to-one meetings with faculty, and planned dialogues. The described approaches with accompanying student reflective quotes highlight the perspective transformation that students experienced related to self, other, and the role of the qualitative researcher. While not all students believe they are suited to become qualitative researchers, most students acknowledge that participation in the two-term course sequence helped them understand the purpose and process of qualitative research. Further, students reported that they became better prepared to be critical consumers of published qualitative studies. Throughout the chapter, the role of faculty as facilitators of learning was in evidence. In applying the andragogical approach of transformative learning theory, the faculty evidenced commitment to providing both warm and cool feedback, established space for group and individual interactions with students, and reinforced learning through the incorporation of scaffolded approaches that framed scholarship as being both iterative and recursive. Their actions consciously supported the development of critical thinking and an inclusive learning environment. This chapter also highlighted several technological approaches. These include using the Zoom platform for synchronous class sessions, a learning management system for collecting and managing course information and assignments, and group meeting tools that students use outside class. Given the proliferation of emerging software, the technological context will likely continue to change rapidly. The current and expected

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technological changes point to the need for ongoing training and professional development for all faculty who teach online. Finally, this chapter has underscored how online instruction in higher education and specifically graduate education can address both student and faculty’s psycho-social needs. During the global pandemic, our students have struggled to meet professional, family, and personal obligations. Meeting synchronously via Zoom provides a place for faculty a and students to actively, foster peer-to-peer interactions, and establish supportive and effective communities of practice.

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Teaching Courses Online: Practical Implications from an International University Teachers’ Survey Alessia Paccagnini

1 Introduction One of the most important aspects of the majority of the educational experiences at universities is the continuous engagement of students in the learning process by attending face-to-face lectures. 2020 will be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (World Health Organization, 2020), which has remained a disruption and an emergency on several fronts. This pandemic has created fundamental challenges for all sectors, including the educational system. To cope with this emergency, many academic institutions—particularly those from the higher education sector—have proposed online or hybrid teaching designs when campuses have been totally or partially closed during lockdowns. Even though online teaching and learning were already implemented in several institutions, they became more popular and adopted to deal with the COVID-19 emergency.

A. Paccagnini (*) University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_4

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This chapter discusses the results of an online international survey among university educators (a sample of 503 respondents from around the world) to get a picture of their experience and approaches in an online teaching and learning environment.

1.1 What Can We Learn from This Experience of Online Teaching? This study answers this question by proposing an empirical overview related to survey data and producing practical implications for designing future courses by the university management. This novel dataset has been collected among international educators (henceforth, university teachers) at the university level. The respondents are based mainly in Europe, North America, and South America and they teach undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and Social Sciences (Economics, Political Science, and Sociology). This chapter contributes to the current literature by discussing the challenges and opportunities of adopting online delivery with new evidence of how university teachers adapt their teaching design due to a disaster such as the recent pandemic crisis. Marasi et  al. (2020) and Naidu (2021) argued that the COVID-19 disruption was an essential shock for university professors facing non-­ traditional learning and new teaching scenarios at very short notice. For this purpose, this chapter focuses on the latest tools, the advantages and disadvantages, and the future perspective introduced by online teaching to replace, or be combined with, in-person education. This study has two primary purposes: first, it presents an overview of distance learning, with a review of different online teaching strategies, focusing on the challenges and opportunities that will be documented in the survey; second, it discusses the novel evidence provided by the international survey, focusing on how university teachers from different countries adapted their design to deliver modules during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is generating innovative practical implications for potential teaching delivery, including the use of online resources when full, face-to-face lectures are not possible. This chapter gives an overview

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of how university teachers and administrators from all over the world and on different continents have dealt with problems caused by COVID-19, which forced them to change how they taught and face new challenges. The main findings show that university teachers prefer synchronous lectures to asynchronous ones. The immediate and urgent need for online teaching enables teachers to learn and utilize several new instruments to involve students, such as glass boards, tablets, new interactive educational platforms, and online quiz apps. Teaching online offers the opportunity for students and teachers to stay safe during a pandemic, and its flexibility is one of the most significant benefits. However, university teachers believe that students are not fully engaged in their courses because they interact less than they do in face-to-face lectures. One of the primary disadvantages of online teaching for university teachers is an increase in workload and, as a result, frustration. Also, problems with technology, less fairness in grading, and spending too much time in front of a screen are all big problems with online teaching. The main contribution and unique selling point of this survey are to provide a new state-of-the-art picture of possible online teaching strategies and suggestions for university teachers who need to adopt a non-in-­ person approach (or a fully non-in-person teaching design), providing strong evidence of the global level. In addition, these results are intended to help both teachers and students understand how university courses can be taught in a “new normal” environment. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the main literature on teaching within an online framework. Section 3 illustrates the international survey, Section 4 discusses the evidence provided by the survey, and Sect. 5 offers concluding remarks.

2 Literature Review Section 2 examines the history of online teaching and learning and the general challenges and opportunities it presents, emphasizing new aspects introduced during the COVID-19 crisis. As discussed in Sumner (2000), what we know today as online learning is the result of a long journey in distance education that has been

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around for four generations: (1) correspondence study, which Sir Isaac Pitman started; (2) multimedia distance education, which used broadcast media, cassettes, and the first computers; (3) computer-mediated distance education, which used educational platforms and CD-ROMs; and (4) interactive online learning. There are two online teaching and learning delivery strategies: synchronous and asynchronous. Virtual platforms provide these two types of online learning, typically enabled by learning management systems (Britain & Liber, 2004). Among these are Moodle, Brightspace, and Blackboard, which are commonly used in higher education institutions. These learning management systems contain tools for uploading and sharing course material, downloading and reviewing students’ homework and exams, and continuing online virtual classes with discussion and forums. Since COVID-19 broke out, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom have become famous for business and educational meetings and the learning management systems that universities offer. Synchronous delivery is a real-time process. This means that students and teachers can connect live in a simulated environment and participate in real-time online communication and conversations regardless of their physical location (Clark & Mayer, 2016; Snart, 2010). Synchronous delivery can provide students with immediate feedback and allow them to engage in a live interaction. So, this kind of learning needs to be online and have an excellent infrastructure (Snart, 2010). Asynchronous delivery does not require students’ real-time online presence, so learning takes place in their own time and at their own pace (Gagne et  al., 2005). Asynchronous learning can give students control over their time and knowledge and the ability to learn at their own pace. On the other hand, students cannot obtain immediate feedback from teachers or communicate with classmates (Snart, 2010). In the same way, university teachers who cannot get feedback from their students quickly, which would be guaranteed with synchronous delivery, may have the same problems. In a comparative study, Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2005) investigated the differences between in-class and online learning environments. Yang (2021) also talks about how in-class learning environments are often (a) limited by the location and presence of the teacher and students,

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(b) shown in real time, (c) watched by an instructor, and (d) linear in how they teach. On the other hand, online learning environments are unbound and dynamic, tend to include a varied range of pedagogical practices, and are frequently marked by active learning student-centered pedagogical methods (Barker, 2003; Keengwe & Kidd, 2010). Although in-class learning environments are more hierarchical, students’ questions can be answered quickly (Black, 2002). There has long been a controversy about the efficacy of internet learning versus in-person learning. Empirical analysis has advocated (McFarland & Hamilton, 2005; Parkhurst et al., 2008) and rejected (Driscoll et al., 2012; Logan et al., 2002) the relative efficacy of online delivery. Regarding skill development, research indicates that online teaching can be just as effective as in-person teaching (Bowman, 2003; Tucker, 2001). Moreover, several studies also argue that student satisfaction is not significantly different when comparing in-class and online learning. In particular, it happens when the online courses are developed with pedagogically sound practices in mind, as well as adequate educational, technological, and peer support, such as online discussion forums and interaction (Allen et al., 2004; Driscoll et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2011 and York, 2008). 2.1 What are the main advantages and disadvantages of online learning? Online learning offers flexibility (Parsad et al., 2008). Students in an online course must take more responsibility for their learning and be more proactive in the learning process (Logan et  al., 2002; Yang, 2021). According to Worley and Dyrud (2003), students who choose online courses and enjoy learning online are more autonomous and prefer a more flexible learning environment. Furthermore, in the case of the asynchronous course design, students can learn at their own pace, learn course material repeatedly for in-depth comprehension and learning, take breaks when they are exhausted, and maintain their timetable (York, 2008). Clark-Ibáñez and Scott (2008) discovered that students found the online learning environment to be less daunting and that it provides a more comfortable environment for those who are shy or lack confidence, especially those who may be frightened by the public speaking component of an in-class setting. Urdan and Weggen (2000) point out that online learning makes failing in front of a group less embarrassing.

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However, the literature on online teaching has generally found this teaching format less effective than face-to-face delivery (e.g., Brown & Liedholm, 2002; Figlio et al., 2013; Joyce et al., 2015; Alpert et al., 2016; Bettinger et al. 2017). The main concern about the efficiency of online environments is that online learning cannot wholly replicate the level of interaction that happens within an in-class lecture (Rovai & Barnum, 2003). According to Bok (2009), students seem to be able to learn more in class, where they can benefit from spontaneous and open discussions with their peers and teachers. Moreover, according to Summers et al. (2005), it is true that online platforms provide students with several interactive opportunities (discussion boards and continuous assessment, among others). Still, these options are not comparable to real-time in-class interaction. Online learning is at a serious disadvantage due to its limited opportunity for interaction. As discussed by Gallagher and McCormick (1999), a lack of interaction may cause students to feel isolated and disconnected, in addition to having a worse learning process. Moreover, asynchronous online learning is based on self-regulation, and not all students are mature and equipped with the skills to be able to succeed in this learning delivery. When talking about massive open online courses (MOOCs; see Banerjee & Duflo, 2014 and McPherson & Bacow, 2015 for more information), these problems with students not being organized have been called into question. Consequently, students who are unfamiliar with student-centered approaches may find themselves at a disadvantage (Driscoll et al., 2012). However, several researchers emphasize the importance of having an online learning community (Sun & Chen, 2016). As shown by Cox and Cox (2008) and Bryant and Bates (2015), there is a strong correlation between having a sense of community with interaction and the effectiveness of online learning. An efficient online learning community fosters a sense of belonging, in which students feel comfortable sharing valuable information, establishing common learning objectives, getting to know one another, and developing trust (Yuan & Kim, 2014). The key to creating a high-quality online course is to include “a significant amount of interaction” (Driscoll et al., 2012), both between students and between students and instructors (Clark-Ibáñez & Scott, 2008, Sumner, 2000).

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While interaction is necessary, integrating it into the online classroom has remained one of the most difficult challenges in developing and providing successful online courses (Brooks, 1997). In particular, students who have spent the majority of their education in a classroom setting must communicate with their peers and instructors when transitioning to an online learning environment. Students can still benefit from peer learning while also receiving feedback and encouragement from the teacher in this manner (Brooks, 1997; Jaffee, 1997). This is especially important right now when many students are stressed out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another important aspect of teaching online is how to assess students fairly. Recent research into online comparisons with traditional economic and financial courses has shown that online students do not perform as well as their peers who attend face-to-face classes (see, among others, Coates et  al., 2004, Anstine & Skidmore, 2005, Farinella, 2007, and Calafiore & Damianov, 2011). In particular, Calafiore and Damianov (2011) present an analysis of the determinants of academic achievement in online economics and finance classes, indicating they improve student achievement during these courses, while online courses and university policies are structured to motivate students to spend more time online. Harmon and Lambrinos (2008) propose that proctored online exams could equalize the incidence of academic dishonesty between online and face-to-face courses. 2.2 What are the main challenges and opportunities of online teaching during COVID-19 times? As documented in Adedoyin and Soykan (2020), Dhawan (2020), Means et al. (2020), and Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021), there are several challenges and opportunities in adopting online teaching and learning approaches in the case of a disaster such as the COVID-19. Among the challenges, it is possible to mention the technical difficulties, particularly internet bandwidth limitations, when synchronous lectures are delivered. The digital gap is also crucial for both the students’ and teachers’ sides (Dhawan, 2020). The transition from face-to-face to online learning increased the distance between “rich” and “poor” students, worsening the academic performance of students who might be affected by resource differences (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020). The urgent

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necessity to move to online teaching has made the transition to novel technologies possible for university professors who were not used to teach. This raised the workload in preparing materials and interacting with students, and a significant component of instructors, when remote, was not ready to deliver high-quality lectures. In addition to the problems with technology, the stress of the pandemic and finding a quiet place where people and pets won’t bother university professors while they teach and help students are also significant problems (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020). How to accurately evaluate students is a crucial component of online teaching and learning during COVID-19. For instance, Rivera-Mata (2021) provides evidence of how online assessment has not increased the level of cheating. He claims that cheating and unfair exams are not exclusive to online evaluations. Teaching in an online environment presents new challenges and opportunities. Rivera-Mata (2021) suggests rethinking pedagogical approaches and focusing more on ongoing assessments, such as (individual and group) assignments and projects, rather than a final exam. Ilgaz and Afacan Adanir (2020) did a study at Turkish state universities. They found that most students think online exams are effective, easy to access, and reliable, while others complain about time limits and technical problems that can happen during online exams. As documented in Adedoyin and Soykan (2020), Dhawan (2020), and Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021), there are several opportunities for adopting online teaching in the case of a disaster event such as COVID-19. One of the most important advantages of adopting online education is designing courses when face-to-face interaction is impossible and making them available to learners in any circumstance (Smedley, 2010). For example, as illustrated in Dhawan (2020), online deliveries were successfully implemented during previous disasters (such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes). This new expertise could be implemented in future events when needed. Furthermore, the acceleration in adopting novel technological tools has increased the use of online platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype), social media groups, and forums (WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, and Piazza), incentivizing interaction among students and university lecturers (Pokhrel & Chhetri, 2021).

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Moreover, asynchronous and recorded synchronous lectures improved self-paced learning (Amer, 2007). The transition to online classes and materials increased digital innovation in curricula, proving innovative pedagogical and teaching approaches (Dhawan, 2020; Pokhrel & Chhetri, 2021). Van der Spoel et al. (2020) write about the experience of online teaching in the Netherlands at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They show how the need to move to online education quickly improved the technological transition that will be built into future curricula.

3 Survey Design I created an online survey using Google Forms1 and distributed it through my research network via email, newsletters, social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter), and appropriate teaching and learning online forums. As a result, I received 503 completed surveys from university teachers who delivered online lectures at the undergraduate and postgraduate (Master and Ph.D.) levels in the second term of the academic year 2019/2020 and/or in the academic year 2020/2021. The survey shows how the respondents belong to institutions based mainly in Europe (41%), South America (35%),2 North America (17%), and Asia (4%). Africa and Oceania represent the remaining 3%. While the survey did not ask for the country, it provided a geographical indication of the continent. The presence of a large number of observations from South America is attractive, as it is possible to include the reality of delivering online teaching in a continent where internet and technological infrastructures are less developed than in European and North American countries. The study aims to examine how university teachers have adjusted their teaching designs in such a pandemic period to offer quantitative courses, and explore their perceptions about teaching online. The survey includes  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdjVAD9KlK51EOEgkqNoQah0bZQKJ y3Z4IPU1gwCPlbHyCLQ/viewform?usp=sf_link. 2  I would like to thank Andrea Ugolini, Assistant Professor at Rio de Janeiro State University— UERJ, for disseminating the survey among his colleagues in Brazil. 1

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multiple-choice questions, with only one option per question, and checkbox questions, with the choice of more options together. In detail, the survey consists of 19 multiple-choice and checkbox questions and a final open question. In some of them, there is also the opportunity to add further options (e.g., in the case of degrees where the university teacher teaches the course). Among multiple-choice questions, I ask where the participants are based and whether they have taught asynchronous or synchronous lectures or both. The survey has been designed to be easy to fill out, and multiple-choice questions are practical for the respondents and create a descriptive analysis of the results. In Sect. 4, the results of these questions are shown and discussed with bar charts with percentages. Also, concerning checkbox questions, I ask what tools the university teachers use for communicating and teaching during online sessions and the advantages and disadvantages of teaching online. Again, using checkbox questions, the survey allows for the choice of more options. In Sect. 4, the results of these questions are represented in bar charts. As I anticipated, the survey also has a section for additional comments where people can make more suggestions and give feedback, which helps interpret the results provided by the multiple-choice questions.

4 Survey Evidence Section 4 analyzes and discusses the main results reported in the survey. How did COVID-19 change the teaching delivery? In 2020 and 2021, the survey documents how university teachers taught mainly online, and around 37% of them delivered their courses online and in an in-class format, while 62% of lectures were only online. According to the respondents, 27.45% of online delivery was implemented through synchronous classes only, while 10.45% was implemented through asynchronous lectures only. A large proportion of the cases, 62%, involved a blend of live lecturing and recorded material. Before COVID-19, only 12.5% of respondents taught an entire course online, and 15% taught some lectures in a virtual environment.

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What are the tools of online teaching? How do university teachers interact with students? Regarding details of how the courses are taught, respondents confirmed that, in addition to textbooks and compulsory readings, they mainly used slides or wrote notes and formulas on a tablet or glass board, as depicted in Fig. 1. Moreover, online educational platforms (such as Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet and media provided by their university) were used to communicate with students, along with online forums and interactive apps, such as Kahoot! and Mentimeter, to create quizzes and polls. However, fewer than 50 respondents used only email, as documented in Fig. 2. Regarding interactions with students during synchronous lectures and meetings, only 7% of the respondents indicated that all students had the camera turned on, as shown in Fig. 3. On the other hand, 24% of the respondents say that students never switched on the camera. The majority of responses (56%) suggest that students sometimes kept the camera on, while 9% of the respondents stated that students turned on the camera when they wanted to communicate during meetings. However, in the survey’s other comments section, respondents emphasized how the quality of their Internet signal was sometimes poor, especially during lectures and meetings with students, particularly in South America and Africa.

Software

Video

Glass board or Tablet to write formulas/notes

Slides

0

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Fig. 1  Teaching tools. (Source: Author’s own)

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Only Emails

Interactive apps

Educational platforms

Online Forum 0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

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Fig. 2  Interaction with students: Tools. (Source: Author’s own)

Somemes some students

None

Only when they want to talk

All students 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% Fig. 3  Interaction with students: Camera on. (Source: Author’s own)

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Furthermore, despite being enrolled in European and North American universities, several students returned to their home countries during the pandemic. As a result, they experienced problems with synchronous lectures (different time zones and poor quality Internet connection). What are the advantages and disadvantages of online teaching? The main benefit of having online courses, as shown in the above portion of Fig. 3, is the feeling of safety and flexibility. Around 400 people selected these two options. These choices demonstrate how, during this pandemic period, health issues play an essential role in our lives and how the flexibility of online teaching makes it easier to stay safe at home. Besides, respondents value the ability to learn new skills and tools, as well as the reduction of commuting time. Furthermore, online teaching makes it easier for university teachers to schedule meetings with students and allows them more time to devote to their research. However, fewer than 40 respondents believe that online teaching enhances students’ engagement and will enable teachers to dedicate more time to leisure activities. All this positive evidence corroborates the recent literature, Adedoyin and Soykan (2020), Dhawan (2020), and Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021), highlighting the advantages of online teaching and learning. In addition, the Survey stresses how switching to an online environment enhanced the ability of university teachers and students to learn new tools, as also discussed in Dhawan (2020) and Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021). According to around 400 respondents, the main disadvantages of online teaching are having fewer interactions with students and spending too much time in front of a screen, as shown in the below section of Fig. 3. Among the other drawbacks, university teachers agree that delivering online lectures increases the teaching workload while decreasing student engagement. Another critical aspect is the perception that online assessments do not assess students fairly. Furthermore, 260 respondents emphasize that technical issues can jeopardize delivery, making online teaching a disadvantage. However, it appears that students and teachers agree on the general frustration and painful situation caused by online delivery. Last but not least, approximately 160 respondents expressed how difficult it is for both sides to be focused during online lectures. Adedoyin and Soykan (2020) also stress similar disadvantages,

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particularly how difficult it is to sit in front of a screen for numerous hours when you cannot focus due to distractions. Do university teachers like online teaching? Will they consider it in their future teaching design? According to Fig. 4, 45% of university teachers prefer teaching online, even though they believe it is not the same as face-to-face instruction. Furthermore, while 40% of respondents dislike teaching online, they find it useful for its flexibility. A small

Fig. 4  The advantages and disadvantages of online teaching. (Source: Author’s own)

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Yes, it was the same as teaching face-to-face

I prefer to teach online than in person

I hate it! No, I prefer in person but I find it useful for the flexibility Yes, even if it is not the same as teaching face-toface 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

Fig. 5  Do university teachers like online teaching? (Source: Author’s own)

percentage of university teachers believe that teaching online is the same as teaching face-to-face (3%) and some (5%) prefer online delivery to in-person teaching. However, 7% of respondents dislike giving online lectures. According to Fig. 5, more than 350 university teachers said they would consider teaching some classes online to have more flexibility in future course design. Only 79 respondents stated they would not consider online lectures if they could choose, while 61 said they would prefer online delivery to in-person teaching. Also, some people who answered said that online teaching could be a way to give tutorials. Among other comments, the respondents stressed that, concerning other online courses, they intend to change their assessment methods to include more assignments or projects (individual or group) that will engage the students. In addition, the final online, open-book exam was discussed as a critical point of online delivery. However, among suggestions for changing the future teaching design, respondents in the survey did not mention reducing and/or changing topics. Still, they suggested additional Q&A sessions to engage students alongside asynchronous and synchronous lectures (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 6  Future teaching design including online delivery. (Source: Author’s own)

5 Concluding Remarks The pandemic crisis of COVID-19 has changed our way of living and how we teach, particularly at the university level. The transition to online teaching has significantly impacted students’ active learning and engagement. Therefore, an international survey on online education during the academic years 2020 and 2021 was undertaken. The 503 respondents were mainly from Europe, North America, and South America and were university teachers of undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. courses. The survey aimed to document how university teachers adjusted their teaching design, adopted new tools and methods during the COVID-19 emergency, and perceived online teaching. However, the overall feeling that has emerged is that while online education is flexible, it cannot replace face-to-face interaction between teachers and students. The following are the main findings: (1) synchronous lectures are preferred over asynchronous lectures; (2) university teachers have learned to use a variety of new tools for engaging students, such as glass boards, tablets, interactive educational platforms, and online quiz apps; (3) online education keeps students safe during the pandemic, and its flexibility is a

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significant benefit; (4) university teachers believe that students are not fully engaged in their courses because they interact less online than when they are in face-to-face lectures; (5) for university teachers, one of the main disadvantages of online teaching is the increased workload and resulting frustration; (6) other significant disadvantages of online teaching include technical issues, less fairness in assessing students, and excessive screen time; (7) because of the great flexibility of online delivery, this teaching format can be considered in the design of future courses and modules. In future online deliveries, two crucial factors should be considered: achieving more student engagement and reducing frustration for the university teachers and the students. Several respondents, for example, recommend that Q&A sessions could be used to encourage student interaction and engagement in addition to asynchronous lectures. In addition, the flexibility provided by online teachings, such as the use of pre-recorded videos, new learning tools, and online office hours, will be able to boost the active learning process for students in face-to-face delivery. This study suggests an important pedagogical message with practical implications for university management. First, the results represent an international perspective because the respondents are from different continents. Furthermore, the high percentage of respondents from South America reinforces the global aspect of the research, as these responses provide evidence of the reality of less-developed technological and internet infrastructures. For this reason, the message discussed in this research can be generalized and applied to different countries. Second, the identified disadvantages of online teaching can be addressed through improvements in future delivery design, particularly when lectures gradually return to the classrooms. Fourth, because of the flexibility of online education, this delivery strategy can be considered in designing future courses and modules. Finally, what we learned during this pandemic will help us improve and change how we teach in the years to come. Acknowledgement  I want to thank Professor Terry Barrett and colleagues in the UCD course Getting Published in Teaching. I want to thank my friends and colleagues who helped me fill out the survey and circulate. All errors are my own.

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Flourishing Or Languishing? Exploring the Lived Experiences of Faculty Negotiating the Challenges of Synchronous and Asynchronous Delivery Rachel Germanier and Ruth Puhr

1 Introduction and Review of Literature The challenges faced by faculty and the broader higher education community in the twenty-first century due to rapidly changing social, political, economic and technological contexts have been the subject of much anxiety amongst higher education professionals and a significant body of research (Barnett, 2008; Cohen, 2021; Feather, 2015; Henkel, 2010; Locke et  al., 2016; Whitchurch, 2013). In this context, it is almost impossible to overstate the impact that the global COVID-19 pandemic has had on the professional practice of faculty in higher education. For some, the challenges of the past two years have stimulated innovation and generated opportunities for exploring and improving practice, while for others, the experience has been, at times, devastating to their sense of self

R. Germanier • R. Puhr (*) Les Roches Global Hospitality Education, Crans-Montana, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_5

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(Marek et  al., 2021). The adaptive resilient teaching professional is a practitioner who does not surrender when faced with disruption and possesses nuanced self-awareness and agency without feeling isolated or alone (Pilkington, 2016; Turner et  al., 2016), but the impact of COVID-19 has been linked to a widespread increase in individual and collective languishing (Grant, 2021). Flourishing and languishing, as conceptualized by Keyes (2002), lie at two ends of a mental health continuum, where flourishing is a state of positive psychological, social, and emotional well-being and functioning while languishing is characterized as “emptiness and stagnation” (p. 210), a “joyless and aimless” feeling of “muddling through your days” (Grant, 2021). Seligman’s (2011, 2018) theory of well-being proposed five building blocks that enable flourishing: Positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA). Research suggests that the PERMA model has valuable contributions to make to understandings of flourishing in the workplace (see Donaldson et al., 2022). This chapter explores the lived experience of faculty in an international higher education institution in Switzerland specialized in hospitality management, as they negotiated the different measures implemented to ensure continuity of learning for students during the pandemic. A survey of 31 faculty at the context institution conducted in December 2020, revealed resilience and pride, as well as determination to succeed going forward. We were curious to see whether these attributes, which resonate with grit as conceptualized by Duckworth et al. (2007), would prevail beyond 2020. In this study, we return to eight of the survey respondents one year later to investigate their lived experience during the 8 months before the survey and the 12 months since. As an increasing number of students return to on-campus face-to-face learning, we examine the lived experience of faculty to ascertain the potential transformative effects, both positive and negative, of the synchronous and asynchronous approaches developed to meet the needs of remote and HyFlex teaching on post-pandemic practice. While traditional face-to-face teaching involves faculty and students sharing a synchronous physical classroom and remote teaching involves synchronous and asynchronous virtual interaction, HyFlex saw a partial return to the classroom and multi-mode delivery to three populations of students (see Fig. 1). Both remote and

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Synchronous Remote

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HyFlex

Asynchronous

Synchronous remote Asynchronous remote

Fig. 1  Remote and HyFlex, synchronous and asynchronous teaching. (Source: Authors’ own)

HyFlex models required adapting approaches to every aspect of faculty teaching practice. Our research questions seek to better understand the various ways in which faculty adapted, the sense-making processes of flourishing and languishing faculty, and the lessons that can be carried forward in a post-­ pandemic context: • How did faculty adapt to meet the challenges of synchronous and asynchronous teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic? • How do flourishing or languishing faculty members make sense of their experience of teaching in a crisis? • How can exploring faculty members’ lived experiences provide insights to guide post-pandemic higher education management practice?

2 Research Design and Methods Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is an idiographic form of qualitative research ideally suited to the study of the meaning-making processes of individuals as they negotiate experiences particular to specific contexts (Mayoh & Onwuegbuzie, 2015; Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012; Smith & Osborn, 2008). Although popular in the field of health psychology where it is appreciated for providing participants with the opportunity “to express their views about strength, wellness and quality of life” (Reid et al., 2005, p. 21), its use in higher education teaching is nascent (see Holland, 2014) with recent studies tending to focus on

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student rather than faculty lived experience (Beligatamulla et al., 2019; Kettell, 2020; Yale, 2019) Small and homogenous samples are recommended for IPA to provide rich, nuanced, idiographic data (Alase, 2017; Smith & Osborn, 2008). After receiving ethical approval from the context institution, we invited 28 faculty who had taught throughout the two years to participate in in-­ depth interviews exploring their lived experience teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Only 28 faculty who had taught throughout the two years were invited to participate. Those who responded positively (n = 9) took part in interviews which lasted an average of forty minutes. We leveraged the advantages of insider research, including trust, cooperation and a shared understanding of the complex and challenging context (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002), as the interviewer had worked alongside the participants throughout the pandemic. The interviewer conducted a pilot interview to refine the questions and prompts. Interviews were prefaced with reassurances that honest, frank answers were welcome and would not be judged. A visual cue of a timeline (see Fig. 2) was utilized to remind participants of critical incidents associated

Fig. 2  Visualization of COVID timeline. (Source: Authors’ own)

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with synchronous and asynchronous approaches in remote and HyFlex teaching, including overlapping semesters, repeated periods of working from home, vacations, and the introduction of learning management system enhancements. Theories of flourishing, resilience, and grit informed the interview protocol (Butler & Kern, 2016; Duckworth et al., 2007; Seligman, 2011, 2018). A list of adjectives associated with positive and negative emotions gleaned from the literature (Clark et al., 2014; Dredge et al., 2014; Rodell & Judge, 2009; Spencer & Rupp, 2009; Watson & Clark, 1994) was provided to facilitate interviewees’ meaning-making processes as they recollected their lived experiences and to stimulate their reflections when asked how they felt during the different stages of the time period (see Fig. 3). Participants’ lived experiences were discussed in detail with the help of the timeline and the list of adjectives. The use of the latter to facilitate interviewees’ discussion of positive and negative emotions proved both stimulating and nebulous, as some struggled to find the relevance or meaning of the terms presented. For example, words associated with engagement and meaning and key characteristics of flourishing were nettlesome and needed explaining. Some of the prompts were not

Fig. 3  List of adjectives for interviewees. (Source: Authors’ own)

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mentioned by the interviewees. These included positive emotions such as joyful, alert, and proud, as well as negative terms related to guilt and anger. However, some of these, including pride and joy, proved valuable in the interpretative coding process. The interview protocol was semi-­ structured in four sections, with the first three following the chronology of the experience. Each of these focused on probing recollections, as the following extract illustrates: In July 2020, we returned to school after a month’s break and started teaching to three groups—those in the classroom, those remote and present and those watching the recordings afterwards—the HyFlex model. There were some students on campus, but the majority were remote. Looking at these terms (show list of adjectives) as a guide, • How did you feel when you heard this was how teaching would now be? • How did you manage it? –– How well do you feel you integrated the 3 groups into your teaching? –– What did you do well? –– What did you struggle with? • How did you feel coming into school during this time?

The fourth section of the interview covered a reflection on the whole 20-month period of remote and HyFlex teaching. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and anonymized by the interviewer. One transcript was discarded as it was fact-laden and lacked insights into personal experience. The remaining eight participants included a balance of genders, a variety of ages and nationalities, and representation of the disciplines taught at the context institution. All demographic data that might reveal participants’ identities were removed from the transcripts during the anonymization process. The names attributed to the participants are pseudonyms chosen by the participants themselves. The transcripts were independently coded by both authors in MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020, a software program designed for computer-­assisted qualitative and mixed-methods data analysis. We chose MAXQDA as it allows easy organization of coded data without losing

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sight of the raw data and provides many possibilities for visualizing coded data. The PERMA model of flourishing (Butler & Kern, 2016; Kern, 2014; Seligman, 2011, 2018) provided an initial basis for both the interview protocol and, later, the coding system. This was augmented by an iterative, open, inductive coding process where events, relationships, and processes of concern were identified and explored for their meaning. The authors conducted a detailed case-by-case analysis of the coded data. Exploratory notes, made during the coding process, were used to generate experiential statements for each participant and both techniques are features of IPA (Smith & Nizza, 2021). These were carefully analyzed with the help of illustrative document portraits, code maps and coded segments in MAXQDA. We then conducted a cross-case analysis to cluster and identify connections between the eight participants before returning to the individual transcripts and delving deeply into their personal idiographic stories. As insider researchers, we were particularly aware of having been entrusted with sometimes deeply personal and emotional recollections and we exercised care and respect in both our handling and interpreting of the data.

3 Results: The Flourishing— Languishing Cline We wrote a personal experiential overview to encapsulate the qualities of each individual’s lived experience, by taking the experiential statements and illustrating them with quotes to ensure that the participants’ voices remain in the foreground. These overviews were then used to formulate individual profile titles. The titles integrate an adjective and noun to interpretatively capture the essential characteristics of each profile. Our analysis revealed highly individual profiles on the flourishing-languishing cline with seven flourishers and one languisher, detailed below.

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3.1 Flourishing Individual Profiles The Upbeat Fixer. An upbeat interview infused with confidence, efficacy, and enthusiasm. Adapting to both remote and HyFlex delivery were relished by Gerard who found the experience “peachy” and “joyful.” He took this further by proactively engaging in providing technical support to colleagues: “they have been very helpful to me, and I try to do the same.” When he expressed concern for students, he immediately identified possible solutions and tried to address issues, typifying his action-­ driven, solution-oriented lived experience. The only crack appeared with mask-wearing, which he found frustrating and uncomfortable, saying “it’s really difficult. You sometimes can’t breathe, besides everything else. And I see no reason why [we should continue wearing them].” In addition to his singular contribution, and his awareness of his own improvement, “I feel like I’m much better off … because of the new things I’ve learned,” Gerard was incredibly proud of the collective achievements: “I think everyone deserves some appreciation … staff, management as well as students. It’s been a really difficult time, but I think we’ve managed very well … we deserve applause for that.” Ultimately, his optimism for the unknowable future was palpable: “I’m absolutely ready for it … bring it on.” The Maverick Beacon. A very resourceful interviewee who quickly realized the “obvious”—that “there was a tremendous amount of work to do,” Max was confident in his clarity of vision and proud of the results of his efforts. Highly student-focused and pragmatic in his approach, he forged his own path, “didn’t feel bound” to adhere to institutional guidance, exclaiming, “I don’t just do everything I’m told if I can see a very good reason for not doing it.” He relied instead on his own analytical instinct and his determination to provide a calm, reassuring presence for students. Although his attitude remained buoyant and determined, he struggled with his own diligence and the investment it required: “I wish I cared less because I work too hard, and I care too much, and that’s not good.” Entirely self-sufficient, Max explained, “I don’t really need contact with other faculty,” and he did not feel the need to avail of a shared community, albeit acknowledging the value of support mechanisms for others.

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The Analytical Shepherd. Like Max, Robert vividly recalled his analysis of the situation in early 2020 and his certainty of the decisions which needed to be taken. Working from home, with unstable internet connectivity and surrounded by family, presented insurmountable challenges for Robert: “The students were upset”; both he and the students felt “disappointed,” and this left him feeling “discouraged, yeah, nothing, nothing good.” Despite opening with frustrations, this interview turned quickly to a determined, competent, and enthusiastic overview of his experience: “I adapted to the measures. Fast. So, it didn’t cost me time.” Once lockdown restrictions were lifted, Robert returned to an empty campus to deliver his remote classes. He qualified his return to campus as “excellent, excellent” and there was real resilience: “I find a way,” a recognition of support, and a relishing of providing support to others. Connecting meaningfully: “I want to be positive for the students,” provided moments of joy and energy and the interview was infused with an insistence on the importance of being available to each student and of identifying and responding to their individual needs. The Buoyant Experimenter. Despite feeling “clearly anxious at the beginning,” experiencing a loss of self-confidence, “a lot of frustration [and] … emotion,” Patricia was composed, resilient, resourceful, and self-aware. Her willingness to embrace change and her openness to learning enabled her to overcome technical challenges: “step-by-step I built a new teaching approach … discovered new tools.” She explained: “I quite changed my way of teaching,” and she fondly remembered the students’ enthusiasm for “my way of doing it.” This resourcefulness became a recurring theme for Patricia. The return to campus and HyFlex teaching provoked a new loss of confidence, but this was quickly surmounted with a renewed transformation. The effort required forced Patricia to evaluate her approach to holidays: “I needed, I really needed a holiday,” “just for me, for my family … completely different than other holidays.” Afterwards, she was “rejuvenated … ready to start … with a high level of energy. I felt strong.” She recalled being “delighted to see my colleagues” after a “proper, proper break.”

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Although predominantly self-sustaining, Patricia took solace from knowing that we were “all in the same boat” and she felt “completely supported.” The Solidary Professional. Sylvia had a difficult journey but emerged as a flourisher. Anxiety and a sense of being exposed and vulnerable were palpable in her recollections of the outset: “the first feeling was panic, stress, uncertainty, am I able to do it?”. She recounted a detailed process of methodically following guidance and rationalizing with herself “and then I said, [it’s] the same as I was doing in class, I just have to talk in front of a computer.” There was a marked shift in the language as a profound sense of belonging and solidarity emerged—she recalled her daily rituals using “we” rather than “I”: “we wake up in the morning, we come here, we go in the classroom,” and her achievements were shared: “we adapted quickly, I think this was amazing … for all of us … not only me.” Metaphors used suggested a theatrical vulnerability, and a strong sense of her professional persona: “this show must be perfect,” “we need to perform really well,” and, again, remembering how she coached herself: “don’t look there, look at the camera.” The performative awareness even extended to students’ family members potentially eavesdropping. HyFlex was particularly challenging: “I struggled … it’s like you’re losing control.” Although she explained how she innovated successfully to engage remote students, she modestly emphasized the achievements of others: “the teachers are really good because they managed. Everyone went through this … they really went for it … brave.” When probed, she continued, “you have to trust yourself … you can do [it]. Perseverance … interest … be humble.” The Gritty Survivor. Coco struggled to recall the details of what happened when, but her emotional recollections were remarkably vivid and told a moving story of triumph over adversity. Her fight not to surrender is best illustrated in her own words, presented here in chronological order and illustrating her journey through turbulence to flourishing: “Too much new, suddenly and not prepared.” “Overwhelmed.” “I just tried to hang on.” “Keep going.”

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“Everybody was doing what they could to keep us going … I never felt let down.” “It was nobody’s fault.” “Everybody had the same problems. We could laugh about the same mistakes.” “I was so anxious that something would go wrong. I couldn’t improvise.” “It was the limit to what I personally could manage.” “I did not feel competent, I did not feel joyful … I could not concentrate … just too much to understand.” “I knew people were there to help … we tried to help each other the best we could.” “Teaching is like being on stage … it was overwhelming … I was nervous … I was worried … I was stressed … I was tired.” “I almost didn’t have the strength to do it … I had to force myself, to do things that shouldn’t be so difficult.” “The holidays … very relaxing … very, very important.” “I reset my mind.” “HyFlex … and that tak, tak, tak, you just need a few minutes more in class. And that’s the future.” “Open here, open there, click here, that’s fine” “I can do it, it works, we need it.” “Proud, I feel very proud … I’m ready for whatever… I’m ready to adapt again.”

The Fragile Pioneer. Jean-Luc’s journey was characterized by emotional extremes. His early confidence: “I knew what to do straight away,” was fuelled by a “clear vision” based on prior experience and a conviction that “the students trusted me … I knew how to handle it and how to lead the students.” This quickly became a burden when his enthusiasm for innovative methods and tools was not met with consistent enthusiasm from management: “It was my responsibility to follow up with all these students.” On the one hand, he “felt very, very supported … to take risks … without fear of being … judged … reprimanded,” and “it was really validating.” This affirmation contrasted with a critical frustration regarding many aspects of institutional decision-making in the context of relentless uncertainty. Not taking a holiday “to recuperate” resulted in a deep exhaustion: “I kind of just gave up … it was too much,” and he felt

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that the early collegial spirit became “fragmented.” Despite the evidence of struggling, Jean-Luc’s resilience pulled him through: “it’s the best thing we’ve had in my career … a focus on what we should do … to get our hands dirty,” and “it got us to ask questions—what is the cult of the teacher? … how do we teach?” He closed with an upbeat “I can, I know that I can, I can deliver both remotely and in the classroom now.”

3.2 Languishing Individual Profile The Dedicated Load-bearer. Juanita embarked on the journey with a realistic and quite confident outlook. She was “not surprised” and “didn’t feel overwhelmed or stressed” because she felt prepared. She “really liked it at the beginning … with the students, we were in the same boat. I think it worked quite well,” and she successfully used digital tools to maintain meaningful relationships. The compromised return to campus, with masks, limited contact, and ongoing uncertainty led to discouragement and exhaustion. Faculty were “not able to have a coffee together … something in the air is not the same,” and “we lost the complicity … the spirit of the group.” Although she always found “a way to laugh,” she felt “responsible,” “angry,” and “frustrated” with the unwillingness and inability of some colleagues to adapt, and this generated a weight of embarrassment and responsibility that she could not shake. Despite this, she did not see herself as doing “something extraordinary. I just do my job.” Burdened by the relentless “uncertainty” and “pressure” of “one more thing” and “another thing to do for tomorrow”, she declared: “I feel I am going to drown [under] my responsibility.” Despite feeling “supported,” “interested,” and “engaged,” Juanita was the only participant whose trajectory concluded closer to the languishing end of the flourishing-­ languishing cline.

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4 Cross-case Analysis and Discussion: En Route to Flourishing The lived experience of all interviewees teaching remotely and in HyFlex from March 2020 to December 2021 can be conceptualized as a journey. For seven of the eight interviewees, this journey has resulted in various types of flourishing, but all followed a similar curve with three distinct stages as shown in the illustration in Fig. 4. The first stage covers the starting point and the early weeks of remote delivery. This was followed by a longer challenging second stage of struggling, learning, and adapting. In the final stage, those who flourished emerged with increased strength, competence, confidence, and pride.

4.1 Setting Off: Two Trajectories Despite the superficial similarity in participants’ lived experiences, they fell into two contrasting groups in their recollections of their experiences of moving to remote synchronous and asynchronous teaching. Some can be characterized as feeling unprepared, stressed, and even overwhelmed. Patricia recounts feeling “completely discouraged and nervous,” while

Fig. 4  An illustration of the journey to flourishing. (Source: Authors’ own)

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Sylvia remembered this period as “really scary” adding “we were panicking.” Coco found it “too much new … suddenly.” In contrast, others began their journey with a self-assured frame of mind. Jean-Luc felt he “knew how to deal with the situation,” and both he and Robert spoke of their confidence from the outset. Max acknowledged that it was stressful but claimed “it was pretty clear … what had to be done” and Jean-Luc “had a clear vision … straightaway.” In both groups, a realization of the daunting task ahead was juxtaposed with excitement: Gerard was “happy, excited, and energized,” Patricia remembers that both she and the students “became enthusiastic,” and Robert found using Teams to teach “fantastic.” Jean-Luc shared this enthusiasm for the “opportunity” to create innovative course material.

4.2 Finding a Way: Navigating Turbulence Regardless of how their journey started, all participants found themselves struggling to adapt to the demands of the unpredictable situation as it evolved. For Coco, who had overcome the difficulties of a lack of preparation at the beginning of fully remote teaching, the new technical challenges of HyFlex delivery resulted in floundering: Just panic, complete panic, perspiration, panic, complete panic because you think, okay, you come, you prepare your class, you do whatever is written on my … piece of paper. And then either the camera’s not working, or the connection isn’t working. Something didn’t work. And then I didn’t know what to do.

Impeded relationship-building with students was a source of frustration for many: “it’s hard to say what your relationship is with the students when you’re online, especially if you don’t get them to turn the camera on” (Max). Some bemoaned, “they don’t put their camera on, even though I asked, and they don’t really participate” (Patricia), and “they just don’t do it” (Coco). Sylvia likened this to “losing control because you don’t see them anymore,” but empathized with the students: “they don’t want to show their faces … and it’s tiring.” However, for Max, students

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having their cameras on presented a distraction: “I have to teach … I need to concentrate … why have the camera?” For all participants, as the protracted nature of the global pandemic continued to disrupt a return to exclusively face-to-face synchronous teaching, their ability to cope with the sustained demands on their energy depended heavily on having planned holidays. For Jean-Luc, who had started with such confident optimism, the relentless effort required resulted in extreme exhaustion: “I couldn’t actually cope with it … there’s no time to build your energy back up … we couldn’t see where the next holiday was coming from.” Other participants found reserves of energy in planned vacations and leave. Figure  5 provides an example of coding from Patricia’s transcript in which feelings of exhaustion (coded in red) before a vacation were replaced, during and after a restorative break, by an energized, optimistic, and even delighted approach to work (coded in green) resulting in positive relationship experiences with family and colleagues (coded in blue and purple). For most, mask-wearing, when on-campus teaching resumed, was a tiresome barrier. Participants referred to masks as “annoying,” making it “difficult to breathe,” and “tiring.” Patricia added that masks compromised her ability to gauge the understanding of synchronous face-to-face students. Sylvia saw mask-wearing as an improvement on “not seeing them at all” when synchronous students were remote. Participants also commented on not recognizing face-to-face students when they met

Fig. 5  The positive impact of planned vacation on flourishing. (Source: Authors’ own)

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them outside without masks: “students say ‘hi’, and you think—‘who’s that?’” (Max) and “Oh, you have that face?” (Juanita). The added pressure of negotiating synchronous delivery to face-to-face and remote students simultaneously in HyFlex delivery was a major stumbling block: “I’m losing them—they think [I’m] useless” (Sylvia), although this was not consistent for all participants as several quickly found solutions and Jean-Luc relished in his ability to engage with his “different publics.” It is interesting to note that asynchronous teaching was rarely mentioned. This may be due to participants’ complete absorption in relationship-­building with their two synchronous audiences amidst the challenges of managing technology and wearing masks. In this context, meeting the needs of asynchronous students did not stand out in most participants’ recollections.

4.3 The Fog Lifts: The Emergence of Flourishing Over time, a deep sense of accomplishment emerged, provoking strong indicators of flourishing. The PERMA model (Butler & Kern, 2016; Seligman, 2011, 2018) provides a clear framework with which we interrogated both the qualities of flourishing and the extent to which our participants shared these qualities. We integrated Seligman’s PERMA building blocks with Butler and Kern’s balancing of positive and negative emotions. Flourishing, as conceptualized by the PERMA model, was embodied for participants through the themes outlined in Table 1. These themes Table1 Emergent Authors’ own)

themes

mapped

to

PERMA

building

Emergent themes from coding in IPA Pride / Confidence / Happiness /Optimism Investment (manifested as extra work) / Determination Support / Community / Connection / Concern Doing right by the students (professionalism & responsibility) Finding solutions / Growing competence / Self-efficacy

blocks.

(Source:

PERMA building block Positive emotion Engagement Relationships Meaning Accomplishment

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emerged from the coding process and confirmed the flourishing trajectories of most participants. In addition, we found several synergies between the PERMA pillars as the following examples illustrate: Pride in the community demonstrates the synergy between positive emotions and relationships and was articulated by many participants with Patricia, Jean-Luc and Coco all using the “same boat” metaphor which resonates with the collaborative agency of the adaptive resilient teaching professional (Pilkington, 2016; Turner et al., 2016). Additionally, finding solutions was an accomplishment which required significant engagement, manifested in the investment in extra time, and this was fuelled by the imperative of doing right by the students which provided purpose and meaning for all participants. Languishing is conceptualized as interacting with a surrenderstruggle continuum by Eisele (2020). At the surrendering end of the continuum, one gives up easily and lacks the energy and motivation to seek solutions to problems, while struggling involves striving and a belief that one can overcome problems. This theory of languishing offers a nuanced tool to better understand Juanita’s experience. Despite her lack of flourishing, Juanita does not surrender. Her struggle might be further explained by the four factors of resilience proposed by Wright and Richmond Mynett (2019), of which “seeking to employ external resources,” (p.  2), is one. Thus, her propensity for self-reliance, when combined with her tendency to feel personally responsible for the professional behavior of others, qualifies Juanita as a struggling languisher. Additionally, our predominantly negative coding for emotions throughout her transcript is redolent of Grant’s (2021) description of languishing as feeling “despondent [and] drained.”

4.4 The Influence of Gender We acknowledge that there may be many influencing factors which impacted individual variations in lived experience. The stereotypical perception that women take care and men take charge (see Prime et al., 2009;

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Prowse et  al., 2020), was evident in our cross-case analysis, but some nuance came to light in the behaviors recounted. Prime et al. (2009) suggest that a stereotypical feminine attitude includes supporting, mentoring, and networking behaviors associated with developing and maintaining relationships with students. Our data concurred, and found that men tended toward a calming, reassuring, figurehead position, suggestive of taking charge. Although both genders took analytical stances associated with stereotypical masculine problem-solving, our female participants were more self-reflective, while our male participants’ reflections tended to be externalized in a critical-analytical stance toward management.

5 Findings & Recommendations In response to our first research question, we found that the idiographic and cross-case multi-stage analytical process of IPA revealed that, even in a homogenous context, and despite a seemingly similar journey, faculty adapted in a range of individual ways to meet the challenges of synchronous and asynchronous remote and HyFlex teaching. This complex individuality is an important finding because it informs our recommendations. Our second research question explores meaning making. We characterized faculty’s idiographic navigation of the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) experiences into eight individual profiles: the upbeat fixer; the maverick beacon; the analytical shepherd, the buoyant experimenter; the solidary professional; the gritty survivor; and the fragile pioneer. Our cross-case analysis suggested that gender plays a role in the reflective processes through which faculty made sense of unstable and uncertain circumstances during the pandemic. We addressed the stifling impact of managerialism in higher education (Kehm, 2015; Lewis, 2014; Sutton, 2017) in our third research question. Our interpretative study indicated that a novel culture of experimentation and creativity was facilitated by a deliberate simplification and streamlining of administrative and managerial processes, enabling faculty to adapt and adjust their approaches and methods in ways which suited them. In addition, faculty felt reassured by a supportive presence which

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was consistent on many levels: temporal, an informal drop-in session every evening; embodied, the same go-to person throughout; and mediated through synchronous and asynchronous digital tools. A key recommendation of this study to higher education management is, therefore, that agency, combined with timely and tailored support, is crucial enablers of adaptability and resilience, facilitating flourishing. The implication of this recommendation is that management should have the confidence to empower faculty, despite perhaps seeming counterintuitive to concerned managers in a crisis. We also recommend that a crucial role of management is ensuring that planned periods of rest and rejuvenation are not disrupted. Vacations should be safeguarded as a priority, especially in times of crisis, as our study found that recollections of the quality of periods of rest were key predictors of ensuring flourishing. Our final recommendation is that the instability and uncertainty that may typify a crisis should be negated, wherever possible, by a consistent and reliable anchor appropriately adapted to the situation.

6 Limitations and Recommendations for Further Research We recognize that an IPA study, carried out in an insider context, offers, by design, rich but heavily subjective insights. However, the small sample size from a single institution can be considered a limitation and we wonder at what point we would reach saturation with the range of distinct profiles if the sample were larger. In addition, our study did not address aspects of health which are integrated in conceptualizations of well-being in the workplace (see Butler & Kern, 2016; Keyes, 2002). A larger sample might reveal more individuals close to the languishing end of the cline and provide insights into factors which impede flourishing. Participants spoke gratefully about having had the opportunity to share their experience and appreciated that this difficult time would be “on record.” Further research might include a longitudinal study to explore the lasting impact of the pandemic on higher education teaching

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practice and, particularly, on the PERMA building blocks of flourishing. In addition, a comparative study with a less-supportive context would provide interesting insights into the value of support mechanisms in turbulent times.

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Marek, M. W., Chew, C. S., & Wu, W. C. V. (2021). Teacher experiences in converting classes to distance learning in the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 19(1), 89–109. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJDET.20210101.oa3 Mayoh, J., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2015). Toward a conceptualization of mixed methods phenomenological research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 9(1), 91–107. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689813505358 Pietkiewicz, I., & Smith, J. A. (2012). A practical guide to using interpretative phenomenological analysis in qualitative research psychology. Czasopismo Psychologiczne (Psychological Journal), 18(2), 361–369. https://doi. org/10.14691/CPPJ.20.1.7 Pilkington, R. (2016). Supporting continuing professional development (CPD) for lecturers. In D. Baume & C. Popovic (Eds.), Advancing practice in academic development (pp.  52–68). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/ 9781315720890 Prime, J. L., Carter, N. M., & Welbourne, T. M. (2009). Women “take care,” men “take charge”: Managers’ stereotypic perceptions of women and men leaders. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 12(1), 25–49. https://doi. org/10.1080/10887150802371799 Prowse, J., Prowse, P., & Perrett, R. (2020). ‘Women take care and men take charge’: The case of leadership and gender in the Public and Commercial Services Union. Economic and Industrial Democracy. https://doi.org/10.117 7/0143831X20943682 Reid, K., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2005). Exploring lived experience. Psychologist, 18(1), 20–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­78694-­6_3 Rodell, J. B., & Judge, T. A. (2009). Can “Good” stressors spark “Bad” behaviors? The mediating role of emotions in links of challenge and hindrance stressors with citizenship and counterproductive behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(6), 1438–1451. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016752 Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Atria Paperback. Seligman, M. (2018). PERMA and the building blocks of well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760. 2018.1437466 Smith, J. A., & Nizza, I. E. (2021). Essentials of interpretative phenomenological analysis. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0000259-­000

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The Global Leadership Program: Adapting a Leadership Development Program for Graduate Business Students in the Pandemic and Post-­Pandemic Periods Linda Dowling-Hetherington and Jacob Eisenberg

1 Introduction This chapter tells the story of a novel leadership development program, which was created in a leading European graduate business school just before the Covid-19 global pandemic struck. We explain how this program was adapted to respond to the new distance-learning circumstances and more recently, back to on-campus studies. We start the chapter by outlining the theoretical and pragmatic background behind the development of the cocurricular Global Leadership Program (GLP). The

L. Dowling-Hetherington (*) University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] J. Eisenberg Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_6

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leadership development of students can occur in a variety of ways and as Posner (2009) suggests, extracurricular or cocurricular activities (such as the GLP) along with credit-bearing leadership programs are some of the approaches adopted. Leader development occurs across an individual’s lifespan and takes place both through formal education and training channels as well as informal ones. Indeed, it may even begin prior to enrolling in formal education (Liu et al., 2021). Institutions of higher education play a role in developing future leaders (Onorato & Zhu, 2019) and preparing students to be future leaders who have an impact on the world has been part of the role of universities for many years now (Brooks et al., 2019). Students learn in different ways (Rastogi et al., 2019), which include a range of approaches, some that take place within a classroom setting and some that take place outside it; some are closer to lecture-based classes while others involve stronger emphasis on experiential learning. In a formal education context, leadership development can take place within the classroom through the curriculum and outside the classroom through cocurricular activities (Dunn et al., 2019). Many higher education institutions use leadership courses integrated into the curriculum, cocurricular programs or a combination of these to develop students as future leaders (McClellan, 2013). It has been argued, however, that leadership development that takes place outside of the classroom setting can be just as valuable as the leadership development that takes places inside the classroom setting (Buschlen & Guthrie, 2014; Nelson, 2010). Experiential and hands-on experiences help students learn about leadership (Brungardt, 1996; Buschlen & Guthrie, 2014; Conger, 1992) and can be further developed and enhanced during cocurricular and extracurricular programs. Higher education institutions have, in the past, been criticised for focusing predominantly on helping students to develop ‘hard/technical skills’ and less on the development of soft skills (Succi & Canovi, 2020, p. 1837). However, the more recent increased focus on graduate employment outcomes (Blackmore et al., 2016) and employability has led to the introduction of many extra and cocurricular activities, including the development of leadership programs (Jackson & Bridgstock, 2020). This has been especially evident in graduate business schools, where both students and staff place high importance on career development and progress and, indeed, these factors are included in most business schools’

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rankings and accreditation frameworks (Serra et al., 2021). While there is no universally accepted definition for the terms extracurricular and cocurricular (Caza & Brower, 2015), Jackson and Bridgstock (2020) differentiate cocurricular activities from extracurricular activities. They argue that while the former is provided by the institution and sits outside the student’s program of study, the latter do not involve the institution, apart from communicating particular opportunities to students. The value of extracurricular or cocurricular activities has been broadly recognised (Milner et al., 2016) in that students acknowledge the important role that these activities play in helping to develop their employability. Further, they engage in these activities to develop skills that are transferable to the workplace (Dickinson et al., 2020). These activities can also help students differentiate themselves from other students (Stevenson & Clegg, 2012) and result in improved employment outcomes (Blasko, 2002). Cocurricular learning activities have the benefit of being more flexible in their design and implementation compared to formal studies-based activities. Students may have the opportunity to engage with different ‘teachers’, leadership may be developed over a period longer than a semester, and students may have the opportunity to interact with a diverse and sizeable cohort of peers. From an institutional and organisational perspective, such activities may enjoy a more agile structure which allows program leaders to respond more readily to developing student needs and environmental challenges and opportunities compared to formal established programs. This is especially so in the context of a large state university. Given the importance of learning through experience (Kolb, 2014), higher education institutions can use cocurricular programs to provide graduate students with experiential learning opportunities that might not be available to them in a traditional classroom setting. In summary, extracurricular or cocurricular activities differ from traditional classroom education in that they provide more opportunity for students to apply their formal learning in an experiential setting and students can opt to engage in activities that meet their particular developmental needs and personal interests. The Global Leadership Program (GLP) is a non-credit bearing, year-­ long, cocurricular leadership development program designed for graduate business school students studying at UCD, the largest university in Ireland. The first author was the main person behind the program

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inception and design and led the GLP in both years, while the second author, who was involved in an advisory capacity, helped to design several aspects of the program and designed some of the student activities on the GLP. We now provide an overview of the program, explaining why it was introduced, how it was developed, who the program was designed for, the guiding design principles and how the program was designed for a virtual delivery in the context of a global pandemic. Also presented in this chapter is the student perspective on completing a cocurricular leadership development program during a global pandemic, lessons learned, and program changes implemented to support a return to on-campus learning.

2 The Institutional Context The GLP was created by the UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School (‘Smurfit’) within University College Dublin (UCD), the largest university in Ireland. Accredited for over two decades, Smurfit is been the leading business school in Ireland and holds the ‘triple crown’ of accreditation from EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA and is also consistently featured in the Financial Times and Economist rankings. Smurfit offers full-time and part-time graduate taught Master’s programs in a variety of specialist areas, such as an MSc in Finance, Marketing, Human Resource Management, Accountancy, Business Analytics, Management Consultancy and Supply Chain Management. An MBA and a suite of customised and open enrolment Executive Development programs are also offered, along with a PhD program. Each year, in the region of 1200 pre- and post-experience students from over 70 countries enrol to programs across Smurfit (approximately half of these students are international), with the majority of them enrolling on the MSc programs.

3 Introducing the GLP Commencing leadership development early in one’s career is important to maximise its effectiveness (Benjamin & O’Reilly, 2011). In developing the GLP, Smurfit considered the overall goals of the programme, the

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GOALS Competencies Development

PROCESS

3-Pillar Program Framework (activities)

Career Enhancement

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SUCCESS INDICATORS Engagement and Satisfaction

Employability

Fig. 1  The concept behind the GLP. (Source: Author’s own)

process and program framework through which these goals might be achieved and the success indicators (Fig. 1). Smurfit’s main goal was to provide a cocurricular framework where students could invest in developing their ‘soft skills’ in general and their ‘leadership skills’ in particular. The process for achieving these goals included engagement in experiential learning activities with external stakeholders and actors as well as with internal partners (students from other MSc programs in Smurfit). Through creating a structure and a process where students could engage in a broad range of cocurricular activities, Smurfit aimed to provide students with opportunities to develop their personal and interpersonal competencies, leading to a higher sense of meaning and engagement within Smurfit community. During the process, students were encouraged and assisted to become impactful organisational leaders to enhance their future career prospects. While various bottom-up cocurricular activities had organically grown in Smurfit over the years, this was the first time that an attempt was made to create a central sustainable platform for the provision of structured cocurricular activities for hundreds of students across more than 20 graduate business programs. Therefore, from its inception, a strategic and systematic planning process was an important part of the GLP’s creation.

3.1 Guiding Design Principles The design of the GLP was informed by two planning exercises. The first involved a review of how the Financial Times top 100 business schools helped students develop their leadership skills. Some schools embedded

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leadership development within their core curriculum, while others used cocurricular programs. For the latter, considerable diversity was evident in the types of leadership development activities students could engage in, the breadth and type of leadership development opportunities they offered students and in the degree to which entry to programs was on a competitive basis. The second exercise examined how Smurfit’s strategy would later inform the design of the GLP for the program team. The two exercises resulted in the following program learning outcomes: On completion of the program, students will have: (a) actively committed to, and engaged in, cocurricular leadership development activities that build on their strengths and address any developmental gaps. (b) used cocurricular activities as a means of collaborating with students from business disciplines across the full range of specialist master’s programs. (c) positioned themselves for their career post-graduation having availed of student leadership roles, developed workplace skills that are sought after by employers and invested time and effort in career planning activities. (d) reflected on their leadership development journey over the course of the program. To begin with, our program design was based on adult learning theory (Knowles et al., 2014) principles, thus reflecting the view that this theory should inform ‘curricular and cocurricular leadership development programs’ (Allen et al., 2021, p. 3): • Objective and Motivation: Adult learning theory suggests that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors may motivate adults and that they may also need to know why they should develop certain knowledge or skills. Students were motivated both by the desire to develop themselves and have a more meaningful academic experience as well as by believing that through completing the program they gain an ‘edge’ over other candidates in the graduate recruitment process.

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• Control and Autonomy: As adults are self-directed in their learning, flexibility has been embedded as a design feature of the GLP. Each pillar offers students a menu of activities they can choose from and this helps them create a personalised leadership development path in which they are more engaged. • Experience and Personal Background: Adults bring previous educational and work experiences with them into current learning situations. The flexibility built into the three-pillar approach affords students who have different types and levels of professional experience to structure the development journey that suits them. • Approach to Learning: A problem-centred approach to learning that is rich in experiential learning opportunities is appropriate in the case of adults who typically learn best through a combination of experience, observation and interaction with others. The GLP creates opportunities for students to apply what they are learning on their master’s program by curating a complementary set of cocurricular activities to engage in. For example, Digital Marketing students may manage the GLP social media channels. At the design stage, program leaders took account of the diverse student cohort that would likely enrol to the program, particularly with regard to the international profile and mix of pre- and post-experience students in Smurfit. When designing the program, we engaged in a reflective process through which we identified a set of dilemmas pertaining to program design (Fig. 2). Program designers considered how the program would facilitate the maximum number of students in developing their leadership competencies, irrespective of where they might be on their leadership development journey. Having explored the dilemmas and reflected how the program design would address them, the GLP leaders developed a core structure, on which the more specific program elements were built. The core pillars allow for flexibility and individualisation of the program experience, while maintaining certain structure and cross-program standards. Figure 3 presents the three core pillars that form the basis for the GLP: (1) student leadership, (2) workplace skills and (3) career planning. The framework intends to structure the path through which students step

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Standardization

Individualization

Structure

Flexibility

Challenge

Support

Fig. 2  Dilemmas considered at the design stage. (Source: Author’s own)

into leadership roles, develop organisational core skills and engage in career development activities, resulting in being better positioned to become future impactful business leaders with a global mind-set. To complete the program and receive a certificate at the end of the year, students are expected to engage in at least one cocurricular activity under each of the three pillars. An example of how the structure-flexibility dilemma was addressed was by avoiding having a prescribed list of cocurricular activities that students must engage in under each pillar. Instead, students use the framework in Fig. 3 as a starting point in identifying suitable leadership development activities that can be engaged in on a cocurricular basis. Under the student leadership pillar, students can take on a leadership role (e.g. Class Representative, Peer Mentor), engage in active citizenship (e.g. Volunteering, Fundraising for Charity) or engage in networking events (e.g. by organising an event for other students). Under the workplace skills pillar, students can focus on developing their communication skills

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Student Leadership

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• Leadership Roles • Active Citizenship • Networking and Industry Speakers

Workplace Skills

• Communication • Collaboration • Intercultural Competence

Career Planning

• Careers Coaching • Mentoring • Tech Skills

Fig. 3  The GLP three-pillar framework. (Source: Author’s own)

(e.g. participating in Toastmasters, attending writing workshops etc.), collaboration skills (e.g. organising a School-wide case competition, attending a leadership workshop etc.) or intercultural competence (e.g. completing Smurfit’s Intercultural Development program). Under the career planning pillar, students can avail of careers coaching, participate in the Alumni Mentoring Program or develop their ‘tech’ skills (e.g. Bloomberg certification, Python training etc.). While being aware of the challenge of maintaining student engagement in a non-credit bearing program while students are focused on success in a demanding year-long Master’s program, we also drew upon Goal Setting Theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) principles in the GLP design by setting specific and challenging goals and by building in periodical milestones that provide student feedback and encourage them on their journey. Feedback was provided both through ad-hoc activities (e.g. at end of a workshop or during an event organising project) as well as through formal deliverables in the form of three required written reports (see Fig. 4). This design aspect is an example of how the GLP balanced challenge and support.

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Application Stage

Autumn Term (September -December)

Progress Report (April)

Spring Term (JanuaryApril)

Program Completion

Preparation of Final Reflective Report (June)

Fig. 4  Program deliverables. (Source: Author’s own)

4 Envisioned Pre-Pandemic: New Challenges, Emerging Opportunities Places on the program were offered to students on a competitive basis and 297 were subsequently enrolled on the program. This level of interest surpassed the target enrolment numbers, indicating the high level of student interest, commitment and motivation. This also suggested to the authors that the program design resonated with the students. The virtual teaching and learning context impacted the design and delivery of the program in several ways. It meant that opportunities for students to engage in some cocurricular and experiential learning activities were curtailed. Opportunities to network with industry practitioners, volunteer with local charities, undertake a leadership role in a university club, society or sporting organisation were limited. The pillar most negatively affected by the restrictions was the leadership pillar; Smurfit had to take a more proactive and supportive role in identifying and creating suitable activities and projects that students could get involved in. The challenge of engaging virtually in a cocurricular program was captured very well by one student who said: I think that the pandemic made it more challenging to do many things; there was much competition for people’s time and attention, for example, in the events and webinar space. It got to a stage that you could spend your life on Zoom and still not attend everything and people just got exhausted with the whole thing. A big part of engaging in co-curricular activities is to meet new people and network. Taking part in a lot of these activities remotely was less appealing as it was more difficult to network and develop connections.

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While the GLP was conceived in a global pre-pandemic era and was expected to consist of a host of physical, mostly on-campus activities, by the time the program was launched in September 2020, it was approximately six months after the first confirmed case of the Covid-19 virus in Ireland. Given the Covid-19 public health restrictions imposed by the health authorities, it became clear that the program would have to be adapted to a mode of virtual delivery. There was considerable uncertainty as to whether the program’s original goals could be met in such circumstances, whether students would be attracted to a virtual program in the first place and sufficiently motivated to see it through to completion. The global pandemic meant that students needed to be sufficiently agile, resilient and adaptable in order to be effective in such an environment. Both staff and students were working in unchartered territory, facing more barriers to effective learning than in normal pre-pandemic times. Students were not attending campus daily and, therefore, they were not able to rely on the informal peer-to-peer reminders and casual communication that was typically shared among students while being present on campus. Consequently, clear milestones and program deliverables helped in ensuring that students made steady progress on the program. During the pandemic, many students reported feeling a sense of disconnection from other students (Leigh & Edwards, 2021). A unique aspect of Smurfit is the high percentage of international students, which has hovered around 50% across all masters’ programs. Approximately 65% of those enrolled in the GLP were international students, many of whom remained in their home country for the program’s duration. In the context of reduced connection to peers, faculty, staff and place that most students experienced, the international students faced even more difficulties. The GLP adjusted to these needs by providing students with formal opportunities to build a network of ‘connections’ with peers and industry practitioners. These events and activities, often student-led, included leadership workshops, trivia quizzes, bingo nights and hosting virtual industry speaker events. The opportunity for students to build relationships with other students and to work collaboratively to develop their leadership skills was significantly reduced as many students were based in different time zones. It quickly became clear that the sudden move to a

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virtual learning environment meant that students had to be more proactive and creative in seeking out suitable opportunities to engage in cocurricular activities.

5 Completing the Global Leadership Program during a Global Pandemic: The Student Perspective To supplement the perspectives of GLP staff, we present an overview of how the program was evaluated at the end of its first year (2020/2021). We also give an insight into the student perspective on why they chose to participate in the program and what it was like to complete it in an entirely remote way during the Covid-19 pandemic.

5.1 Evaluating the GLP Program Of the 297 students who initially enrolled on the program, 216 students completed the program at the end of the 2020/2021 academic year (a satisfactory completion rate of 73%). At the end of the program, students were surveyed using an online survey (Qualtrics.com) to formally evaluate the experiences of students who successfully completed all of the program requirements. 60 students completed the survey, giving a 28% response rate. The data gathered helped Smurfit to enhance the program and ensure it met student and employer needs with respect to the development of leadership skills. The survey explored student motivations for participating in the program and whether the availability of the GLP incentivised students to engage in cocurricular activities as follows: • how clearly program requirements and expectations were communicated to students, • whether the breadth of cocurricular activities available to students was adequate, • whether the support and communication from the program team was adequate,

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• • • •

whether, and how, students benefited from the program, what they enjoyed most and least about the program, the program strengths and areas for improvement, the advice they might offer to students embarking on the program in the future and • how they would rate the program and whether they would recommend it to a friend.

5.2 Motivations for Enrolling on the Program Four themes emerged in students’ reasons for participating on the program. In declining order of emphasis these are: (1) to develop leadership competencies and gain a competitive career advantage, (2) to broaden the development of their skills and experiences beyond their formal studies, (3) to challenge and motivate them to do more and to step out of their comfort zones and (4) to connect and network with peers. Table 1 captures these themes from students’ direct quotations.

6 Challenges of Completing a Cocurricular Leadership Development Program during a Global Pandemic Overall, students were among the most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic (Brammer & Clark, 2020). Completing the GLP in an entirely virtual format was challenging for many students (‘the remote aspect of it was definitely the most challenging’), with some finding it difficult to build meaningful relationships and connections with their fellow peers (‘it was more difficult to network and develop connections’). The pandemic impacted on the informal opportunities to interact with other students outside of the classroom and to interact with industry practitioners who might typically visit the campus for guest speaker events and careers fairs. Participating in the program virtually meant that students very often worked in isolation on their own leadership development activities and they found it difficult to network with other students. They

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Table 1  Why participate in a cocurricular leadership development program during a pandemic? Reason to participate

Student quotations

1. To develop leadership competencies and gain a competitive career advantage

• ‘to engage with a program that offered a tangible framework to create my own personalised leadership development plan’. • ‘to learn more about being an effective leader’. • ‘to be able to demonstrate leadership experience to future employers’. 2. To broaden the development • ‘to gain the full experience of studying in a of their skills and experiences school like XY, where so much is about beyond formal studies building skills and relationships outside the classroom’. • ‘to gain as much experience as possible and take every opportunity offered to me during my time studying in XY’. 3. To challenge and motivate • ‘it was a way to challenge myself to do them to do more and to step new things/push myself to move out of my out of their comfort zones comfort zone and grow’. • ‘acts as a motivation to take initiative to organise events and participate actively in extracurricular activities’. • ‘It pushed me to undertake cocurriculars I may not have otherwise’. 4. To connect and network • ‘a big part of engaging in cocurricular with peers across the School activities is to meet new people and network’. • ‘connect with people who have similar aspirations’. • ‘interact with more students and make valuable connections’. Source: Author’s own

acknowledged that the ‘lack of face-to-face interactions made it challenging to put into practice some of the skills’ gained. Many students mentioned wanting to have ‘more interaction between participants’, ‘more opportunities to connect with other students’ and ‘more face-to-face events’. Students’ geographical dispersion combined with navigating a very different learning environment from what they are used to made collaborating with others particularly challenging:

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I think it would be beneficial if there were a group element to the program in that you have to pair up or team up with other students to complete one aspect of the pillars. This would help people to get to know each other and also improve the sense of community.

6.1 Factors that Contributed to the GLP Success Unexpectedly, launching the GLP during what could be argued as the most disruptive period in the history of higher education, might have added to the perceived attractiveness of the program. The strict public health restrictions in place throughout the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that students had considerably more time to invest in their graduate studies and in cocurricular activities. They were no longer commuting from home to the university campus and the usual social and sports activities that graduate students might typically engage in were no longer available to them. The pandemic also led to a considerable degree of uncertainty in the graduate labour market given the challenging market conditions that businesses were operating in. These factors combined meant that there was, perhaps, a greater incentive for students to embrace any leadership development opportunities they were presented with in the form of cocurricular activities. Despite the challenges, overall, the program was a success with students acknowledging that the GLP gave them the opportunity to use their ‘own initiative to build and enhance leadership skills’ and that the program was ‘a great way to demonstrate that you are willing to go the extra mile and that you take personal and professional development seriously’. Overall satisfaction among the first cohort who completed the program was very high: • 98% of students (49 out of 50 students) indicated that they would recommend the GLP to a friend. • Almost 71% of students gave the program an overall rating of 5 and 27% gave the program a rating of 4 (5 being the highest score).

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Programmatic and Personal Support Flexibility and Student-focus

Structure and Design

Community

Key Success Factors

Reflection

Fig. 5  Key success factors. (Source: Author’s own)

Based on the student survey, we identified five core program features that contributed to its success (Fig. 5).

6.2 Structure and Design Students responded positively to the three-pillar structure of the program, ‘the variety of activities’ they could participate in and the ‘clear objective setting’ built into the structure. The clear articulation of what was required to successfully complete the program was also welcomed by students: the ‘requirements are very well laid out with examples of what to participate in’ and ‘deliverables are well presented and communicated throughout’. Despite the virtual delivery format and the constraints presented by the pandemic around engagement in certain cocurricular activities, the majority of students who completed the evaluation were ‘extremely satisfied’ with the breadth of cocurricular activities available to them: 67%, 75% and 70% in the case of the student leadership, workplace skills and career planning pillars, respectively.

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6.3 Flexibility and Student-Focus Complementing the structured aspects of the program, students appreciated the flexibility built into the program and how it enabled them to create their ‘own pathway’ to ‘tailor the program to suit them’ and to ‘focus on the student’s needs and skills’ that they wished to develop. They valued the fact that the program and its activities were ‘student-led’ and these activities encouraged students to use ‘their own initiative to build and enhance leadership skills’.

6.4 Programmatic and Personal Support Students appreciated the support that was offered to them whether that was in the form of ‘resources, readings, opportunities’, the alumni mentoring program (‘I have never had the opportunity to discuss my own personal development with someone in such an open, honest and candid way’), the one-on-one support available from the program team or the opportunity to drop in to a virtual coffee catch-up with the Program Lead and other students participating on the program.

6.5 Community The GLP provided an opportunity to build a sense of community and ‘a sense of togetherness among all the participants’. It was particularly important to find ways to proactively generate that feeling of ‘being part of the XY community’ and to find ways to build ‘collaboration between students to encourage and support each other’.

6.6 Reflection The final report provided students with an opportunity to reflect on their leadership development journey and the skills and experiences gained. Students valued this opportunity for reflection:

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I enjoyed reflecting on what I had learned through the year because you rarely have time to do that. Taking time to write down what I hoped to complete and what I completed gave an understanding of where I am against where I want to be.

7 Achievement of the GLP Outcomes On completion of the program, it was clear that students demonstrated a strong commitment to and engagement with a range of cocurricular leadership development activities. The high program completion rate of 73% indicates students’ commitment in the context of a non-credit bearing program. Based on the student feedback and the Program Team’s observations, we conclude that the aforementioned learning outcomes of the program were achieved. The two main goals related to developing competencies and enhancing students’ future career prospects are closely related and often appeared intertwined in the students’ comments and observations, as quoted in this chapter.

7.1 Competencies Development and Career Enhancement 98% of surveyed students indicated that they had benefited from the program and 87% indicated that the GLP encouraged them to engage in more cocurricular activities compared to their time studying at undergraduate level. 50% of students indicated that potential employers they had spoken with had been interested to hear about their engagement with the program. Of the 70% of students who had secured employment by the time they had completed the GLP, almost 60% felt the GLP had helped or may have helped them to secure this employment. Students reported a range of benefits that collectively helped enhance their career preparedness. These benefits included:

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• an enhanced focus on leadership development • a greater degree of personal confidence • creating more space for self-reflection around current leadership skills and development needs and • building a professional network.

7.2 Leadership Skills Students saw the GLP as ‘the push you need to better yourself’. They reported developing skills around communication, time management, collaboration and team building, conflict management, relationship building, active listening, planning and organisation, emotional intelligence, empathy, and self-awareness. The main benefit was improving my leadership skills and having evidence that I had done so. This definitely helped me in securing my job for this September as the GLP was the main topic of conversation in the interviews. GLP offered me an example for pretty much every professional-skill question such as leadership, organisation, time management, flexibility, communication etc.

7.3 Confidence Students also reported that the GLP gave them the ‘courage to engage in different cocurricular activities’ and that their ‘confidence and interpersonal skills’ were significantly enhanced through their participation in the program. Completing the program virtually also helped some students to learn ‘how to present online’ and they became ‘more comfortable communicating virtually’.

7.4 Networking Some students acknowledged how the GLP had: (1) enabled them ‘to interact with my course far more’ than they would have done otherwise, (2) helped them in ‘interacting with’ and ‘getting to know people within the college from other courses’, (3) enabled them to meet ‘so many people through

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the program’ that would not have been otherwise possible during remote learning during a global pandemic and (4) helped them feel ‘part of a community’.

7.5 Additional Programme Outcomes The programme successfully addressed the school’s concern about the limited opportunities for students, across school programs, to network and collaborate. During the GLP, students from many different masters programs came together to organise networking and guest speaker events and attended leadership workshops. Although not an explicit goal, we explored whether the program has directly impacted the academic performance of students. A few studies have found that experiential and active learning activities have a positive effect on students’ academic performance (e.g. the powerful meta-­analysis by Freeman et al., 2014). While there aren’t sufficient numbers to conduct a formal statistical analysis, preliminary data indicates that the overall program grade point average (GPA) achieved by students who completed the GLP in 2020/2021 is marginally higher (3.6) compared to the overall average GPA for MSc students across the entire School (3.5).1 This chapter concludes with an overview of the lessons learned and how the program was adapted for the return to on-campus program delivery for the 2021/2022 academic year.

8 Lessons Learned and Program Changes Implemented to Support a Return to On-campus Learning There is no doubt that the pandemic resulted in considerable disruption to higher education worldwide with the rapid need to pivot to online learning in March 2020. During this period of disruption, the focus has  Due to information system limitations, the total sample which the GPA reported for includes the GLP students. Therefore, the actual GPA difference between GLP graduates and non-graduates is larger than reported here. 1

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been on what higher education institutions needed to do in order to facilitate students to complete their core study programs. However, there has been much less focus on the impact of the pandemic on cocurricular activities. Yet, 67% of students surveyed indicated that the pandemic had impacted their ability to engage in cocurricular activities, with a further 18% indicating that it may have had an impact. The inaugural GLP cohort demonstrated that, while cocurricular leadership development activities can be adapted for a virtual learning environment, the success of such programs very much relies upon community and network building, collaboration and interaction among students, and crucially engagement in applied, experiential learning activities. Based on the positive feedback received, admission to the GLP was opened up to all MSc students across Smurfit in the 2021/2022 academic year, which led to a significant increase in enrolment, with 545 students enrolling in the second program cohort. With many of the public health restrictions having been removed by that time and having returned to on-campus teaching, the Program Team addressed many of the limitations imposed by the remote teaching and learning environment. To adapt the GLP to the post-pandemic period, several enhancements were made to focus much more on student reflection both at the start and end of the program and on building community, connection, collaboration and co-creation with students (Fig. 6). The experience of running the program and student feedback pointed to the need to create an additional program outcome. From 2021/2022 onwards, a new outcome was added: students will have engaged in an initial period of self-reflection and evaluation of their strengths, developmental needs, career aspirations and personal interests. Throughout an individual’s leadership development journey, it is important to take time to reflect on one’s experiences (Roberts & Westville, 2008). Higher education programs are often criticised for providing insufficient space for students to reflect on their learning. Unlike 2020/2021 where reflection was integrated into the GLP only at the final report stage, the 2021/2022 program began with a period of self-assessment and reflection to allow students the opportunity to reflect on their current leadership skills. Students were provided with a four-step process to encourage this period of reflection and to highlight its importance in guiding them throughout their GLP journey (Table 2).

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Reflection

Community

Connection

Collaboration

Co-Creation

Reflection Fig. 6  Post-pandemic: an improved GLP model. (Source: Author’s own) Table 2  A student guide to understanding the key stages of the GLP Step

Activity

1. Self-­Assess Self-reflection is key when guiding graduate students to take and responsibility for the development of their leadership skills. It reflect helps students to identify the things that matter most to them in choosing a career and the areas that require development prior to graduation. 2.  Plan Once the initial self-assessment and reflection stage has been completed, students are encouraged to reflect on the outcome of this activity and what the various assessments and exercises might be telling them about their strengths and areas for development. Students then begin to identify cocurricular activities to engage in under each of the three GLP pillars. 3. Do Students formally begin their leadership development journey by engaging in cocurricular activities that will help address their development needs and career aspirations. 4. Review The final stage of the GLP calls for students to describe and and evidence the cocurricular activities that they engaged in and reflect the leadership skills they developed. Students reflect on how they hope to use these skills in their chosen career and also consider how they plan to continue developing these skills during the early stages of their career. Source: Author’s own

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8.1 Community Since the return to on-campus learning, more emphasis has been placed on facilitating students’ connections, networking and learning from one other. We strengthened the emphasis on creating ‘a more cohesive cohort by organising GLP specific events/workshops’ in a face-to-face setting.

8.2 Connection On-campus studying facilitated the scheduling of more informal small group academic advisory sessions, which also helped students to generate and share ideas for events, workshops, experiential learning projects and volunteering opportunities. A new ‘buddy’ system has also been introduced whereby a student from the 2020/2021 cohort was paired with a student from the 2021/2022 cohort for the purposes of exchanging leadership development experiences, learnings and ideas.

8.3 Collaboration A richer ‘group element to the program’ has now been adopted and the emphasis on facilitating inter-student collaborations for developing core leadership skills strengthened.

8.4 Recognition and Co-creation In 2021/2022, recognised as a program of excellence by the university, the GLP won a competitive grant under the university’s Academic Advising Project. This funding helped to increase the focus on students as partners and co-creators of the program. This approach has been brought to life through a number of initiatives. These include cross-cohort learning projects where GLP students collaborate with undergraduate business students and establishment of student-led groups focusing on activities such as webinars planning, charity fundraising and managing the program’s social media channels. Student-led focus groups have also been

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introduced to gather feedback from students on the program and any improvements the School could make to the program. As part of the end-of-program evaluation, program graduates were asked to provide advice for incoming students and that advice was incorporated into the guidance provided to new participants on admission to the program. Graduates’ advice included: Be brave enough to get out of your comfort zone. Dive in, try as much as you can, meet as many people as you can, and enjoy yourself. Embrace it and take time to reflect on what you want from a career and how the GLP can help to set your career path.

9 Conclusion This chapter presented an overview of the Global Leadership Program, a non-credit bearing cocurricular leadership development program for graduate business school students. We described what we learned from the two iterations of the program, the first one offered virtually at the height of the Covid-19 global pandemic and the second one offered when the university returned to on-campus learning. Key lessons learned include the importance of building community, connection and collaboration within the program and designing it through co-creation with students. In January 2021, around the same time that the GLP was running, Steph Lomas, who served as VP of Education at the UCLan (a major UK university) Student Union, published a list of the top five indicators through which students measure education success. These are, from fifth to first: • ‘Being able to give back’, • ‘Academic knowledge and accomplishment’, • ‘Careers and professionalism’,

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• ‘Emotional resilience’ and • ‘Confidence’ (Lomas, 2021). It is telling that most of the above indicators correspond to what the GLP students reported, indicating that: (1) most of the students’ perceived success factors lie outside formal studies and (2) many aspects of the GLP program can be applied to other academic contexts, beyond the business school in particular and can be applied to multiple academic disciplines.

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Part II Learning Approaches & Pedagogical Practices

Experiential Learning in an Online, Asynchronous Business Ethics Course Sheldene Simola

1 Introduction Since the original publication of Kolb’s (1984) highly influential work, experiential learning (EL) has become an increasingly important pedagogical approach in higher education. It is associated with positive attitudinal outcomes for students (Baden & Parkes, 2013; Che et al., 2021), as well as the acquisition and enhancement of analytical, leadership, communication and other professional skills (Bradberry & De Maio, 2019; Chmil et al., 2015; Earnest et al., 2016; Gitsham, 2011). Yet, despite its benefits across a diverse range of academic disciplines (Snow et al., 2019), the rapid pivot toward, and ubiquitous use of online learning associated with the COVID pandemic (Dhawan, 2020; OECD, 2020) reprised substantial questions about whether and how EL can be implemented within online courses (Murphrey, 2010; Snow et al., 2019). Moreover, given increasing trends toward both online (Dhawan, 2020; OECD,

S. Simola (*) School of Business, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_7

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2020; Roddy et al., 2017) and experiential (Austin & Rust, 2015) learning, the need for online EL is likely to grow. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to consider the question of how EL can be integrated into online courses. Specifically, this chapter will describe the implementation of Kolb’s (2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017) EL model within an online, asynchronous, undergraduate course in behavioral business ethics. Following a brief introduction to reflective narrative as method of course analysis, this chapter addresses five areas. First, the chapter provides an overview of Kolb’s (2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017) EL theory, including phases of the EL cycle; associated learning styles of students; corresponding teaching roles; and rationale for using the EL cycle. Second, the focus, content, and EL processes of the in-­ person version of the business ethics course are summarized. Third, the challenges associated with transitioning the in-person version of this course into an online, asynchronous version are discussed. Fourth, technologies and methods that enabled implementation of EL in the online, asynchronous version are described. Fifth, lessons learned and areas for future development are identified.

2 Method The use of narrative inquiry is an important methodological tool that can be used to contextualize and understand the actions undertaken by practitioners when implementing educational programs in complex settings (Riley & Hawe, 2005). Such methodology can foster clarity about the relevant theoretical foundation and its benefits; the milieu in which a program was implemented; and, emergent challenges and applied remedies. Though researchers might engage in such inquiry by soliciting the experiences of others who are implementing a given educational program, researchers can also document and reflect on their own course-­ related experiences, thereby facilitating development of their own teaching or courses and offering insights to other educators (Orem, 2001). This type of self-observation and self-reflection can be very useful when time constraints associated with an unanticipated, sudden shift in course delivery (such as that which occurred during the COVID

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pandemic) preclude a priori ethics review and approval to collect or report data from students. Hence, ultimately, this chapter reports observation and reflection undertaken by the author/educator in order to identify lessons learned about the implementation of EL in an asynchronous, online course in business ethics.

3 Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory Kolb’s (1984, 2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017) EL theory has long been recognized for its comprehensive, generative, and enduring qualities, as well as its relevance across diverse disciplines (Bennis, 1984; Kayes, 2002; Klimoski, 2005). It is founded upon various bodies of classical research, especially Dewey’s (1938) philosophical pragmatism; Lewin’s (1951) phenomenological social psychological perspective; and Piaget’s (1951, 1968, 1971) cognitive developmental theory. Additionally, James’ (1912) theory of radical empiricism was emphasized as rationale for using all four phases of the EL cycle, as opposed to using only the phase in which concrete experiences are provided to students (Kolb, 2015).

3.1 Kolb’s EL Cycle Kolb (1984, p. 38) defined EL as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” and identified an underlying, cyclical process. The EL cycle involves four phases, including participation in a concrete experience; reflective observation about that experience; abstract conceptualization of theory; and active experimentation involving the application of theory in responding to or planning for real world problems.

3.2 EL Learning Style Types The first two columns of Table 1 summarize the four phases of the EL cycle, and corresponding learning style types, respectively. As indicated, the first phase of the EL cycle (concrete experience) involves the learning

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Table 1  Experiential learning cycle phases and associated learning styles with activities in the ethics course Phase of

Learning Style Class Activities

Learning Cycle

Type

(Cycle Repeats Twice per Class)

Concrete Experience

Experiencing

to a key theme in behavioral ethics (Table 2) or

1. Activity for concretely experiencing a concept or process related

2. Problem-solving video vignettes depicting business-related ethical problems and errors (see Table 2) Imagining Reflective Observation

1. Reflective questions for activities on key themes or Reflecting

2. Reflective questions for problem-solving video vignettes2

Analyzing 1. Structured, interactive discussion of nature, implications of Abstract

Thinking

academic theory, concepts, research for activity/vignette2 e.g., potential barriers concepts pose for ethical effectiveness

Conceptualization

2. Naming and identifying additional real-world examples of academic concepts underlying the activity or vignette2 Deciding Active Experimentation

Real world application, analysis and future planning via applied Acting

problem solving and planning or process record and analysis2

(Concrete Experience) Initiating

Source: Columns 1 and 2 of Table are adapted from and identify the EL cycle phases and learning style types articulated by Kolb (2015) and Kolb and Kolb (2017) Column 3 Source: Author a See Table 3 for examples of questions within each EL phase

style type of experiencing significance through engaged participation. Similarly, the second phase of the EL cycle (reflective observation) requires the use and development of a reflecting learning style type for associating impressions and feelings with thoughts and ideas. When students take information obtained through concrete experience and

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transform that information through reflective observation, this requires a learning style involving imagining new insights and potential implications (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). In the second half of the EL cycle, when students discern information through abstract conceptualization, they rely on the systematic use of formal logic that characterizes the thinking learning style type. As students integrate reflective observation with information discerned through abstract conceptualization, they use the analyzing learning type, which involves organizing and synthesizing ideas into a coherent form (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). Subsequently, in the fourth phase of the EL cycle called active experimentation, the learning type of acting predominates. It involves intentional attempts at new tasks often involving other individuals. During the transformation of information gleaned through abstract conceptualization into knowledge through active experimentation, students rely on the deciding learning type, which involves applying theory to plan for or resolve real world problems (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). When the fourth phase of the EL cycle (active experimentation) is joined with the first phase of the EL cycle (concrete experience) to repeat the cycle, the learning style type is that of initiating, or beginning and managing new experiences or conditions (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). An additional learning style called balancing reflects the integration of all four phases of the EL cycle. It occurs when individuals are able to make decisions flexibly, based on consideration of the benefits and drawbacks of experiencing versus conceptualizing, and, reflecting versus action.

4 Teaching Roles Corresponding to EL Cycle Phases and Associated Learning Style Types For each phase of the EL cycle and its associated learning type, educators adopt corresponding teaching roles. These teaching roles facilitate movement among the EL cycle phases, and associated learning style types (Kolb, 2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017). Specifically, the facilitator role is salient as students engage concrete experience and transform that experience into knowledge through reflective observation. This role requires the

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professor to establish welcoming, kind, and supportive relationships with students to facilitate their comfort in discussing experiences and insights (Kolb, 2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017). The subject expert role is particularly important as students move toward integration of reflective observation and abstract conceptualization. Within this role, the teacher enables students to associate their prior reflections with prescribed course theory, concepts, and research. The teacher structures discussion; analyzes information authoritatively; and stimulates critical thinking (Kolb, 2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017). The standard-setter/evaluator role facilitates integration of abstract conceptualization with active experimentation. In this role, the instructor identifies specific indicators of knowledge and skill acquisition and devises projects through which to evaluate performance relative to these indicators (Kolb, 2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017). The role of coach is used for integration of active experimentation with concrete experience. Coaching involves individualized, collaborative assistance to students. Constructive questions, observations, and guidance are offered to help students plan and apply knowledge.

4.1 Rationale for Using the EL Cycle It is important to teach through all four phases of the EL cycle and to repeat the entire cycle throughout a particular learning program (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). This enables students to practice the learning style types associated with each phase, thereby facilitating more effective learning and greater flexibility across different types, as well as a deepening spiral of richer and more nuanced student knowledge, understanding, and skill (Kolb, 2015).

5 Focus, Content and EL Processes of the In-Person Version of the EL Course 5.1 Focus of the In-Person Version of Course The in-person EL course that was transitioned to an online, asynchronous EL course was a third year, undergraduate business course in behavioral (vs. philosophical) ethics. Although philosophical ethics are highly

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valued for their disciplined approach to identifying morally defensible courses of action, thereby comprising a critical component of a comprehensive ethics education (de los Reyes, Jr. et al., 2017), the current ethics course (one of several different ethics courses offered) focused on the behavioral aspects of ethical decision-making. Specifically, in contrast to philosophical ethics, which prescribe normative standards through which ethical decisions ought to be made, behavioral ethics identify predictable patterns of human behavior that occur in response to emergent ethical situations, as well as the conditions under which these patterns are likely to occur (De Cremer & Tenbrunsel, 2012). For example, whereas philosophical ethics assume the use of reflective, rational, conscious, and intentional reasoning in ethical evaluation and action; behavioral ethics identify the common tendency of humans to engage in very rapid, reflexive and emotionally laden judgments that occur below the level of conscious awareness or intention (Reynolds, 2006). Additionally, behavioral ethics recognize that reflexive judgments can be affected by various situational or contextual cues that can cause ethical considerations to become more or less salient (Reynolds et al., 2010; Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014). Hence, though common, reflexive processing can substantially impede ethical recognition, evaluation, and action. By exploring the range of factors that can impede ethical recognition, evaluation, and action, behavioral ethics can help students to overcome such factors, thereby improving ethical skills (de los Reyes, Jr. et al., 2017).

5.2 Content of the In-Person Version of the Course Table 2 summarizes the content covered in the behavioral ethics course. At the outset of the course, the nature of behavioral ethics (Reynolds, 2006) and key themes in behavioral ethics (Shalvi et al., 2015; Simola, 2016) were discussed. Subsequently, research findings on specific business-­related ethical problems and errors were considered. These included individual, group and situational factors impeding ethical recognition, evaluation and action in situations involving (dis)honesty (Simola, 2017); conflicts of interest (West & Zhong, 2020); and slippery slopes in which individuals have difficulty noticing small, gradual deviations from established ethical norms (Gino & Bazerman, 2009; Welsh et al., 2015). These also included

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Table 2  Course topics and content examples Topic

Content examples

• Dual processing model of ethical decision-making • Key themes from research within behavioral ethics (Dis)honesty Conflict of interest Slippery slope

•  Reynolds (2006) • Shalvi et al. (2015), Simola (2016)

Additional application: Fulfilling a simulated organizational ethics-related need Bias and discrimination Uses of language Behavioral ethics of justice and care Corporate crisis management Additional application: Resolving a simulated, organizational ethical problem Planning to manage future ethical challenges: • Anticipating and navigating such challenges • Potential of moral courage • Potential of virtuous silence

• Simola (2017) • West and Zhong (2020) • Gino and Bazerman (2009) • Welsh et al. (2015) • Integration of previous content • Pearson et al. (2009) • Divine et al. (2012) • Kouchaki et al. (2019) • Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004) • Simola (2011) • Bundy et al. (2017); Simola (2014) • Integration of previous content •  Palmer (2009) • Comer and Vega (2011) • Stouten et al. (2019)

Source: Author

types of bias and discrimination (Pearson et al., 2009; Divine et al., 2012); language uses that can obscure ethical issues (Kouchaki et al., 2019; Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004); and behavioral ethics of both justice and care (Simola, 2011). Management of ethically laden corporate crises was also considered (Bundy et al., 2017; Simola, 2014).

5.3 EL Processes for the in the In-Person Version of the Course At the outset of term, class focused on key themes in behavioral ethics. Subsequently, specific types of business-related ethical problems and errors were explored. Across all of these topics, classes were similarly structured, to reflect the four EL phases and corresponding teaching roles, thereby enabling different learning style types.

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EL Phases and Corresponding Teaching Roles Applied to Key Themes in Behavioral Ethics. At the outset of the class, prior to identifying or discussing key themes, the professor served as facilitator when offering a concrete experience of a theme (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). For example, prior to introducing the key theme that when it comes to ethical issues, human beings are not nearly as intentional and rational as they think (Simola, 2016), a picture of two similar objects was shown and students were asked to identify the ratio of the length (and width) of one object relative to the other (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009). Typically, students perceived one object to be significantly longer and narrower than the other. However, when formally measured, the two were of identical size, but looked different because of their positioning. Following the concrete experience tied to each theme, the professor served as facilitator during the reflective observation phase of the EL cycle. The professor asked various open-ended reflection questions in relation to the concrete experience activities related to key themes. Examples of these appear in row one of Table 3, and include “what do you imagine might have led the instructor to use this activity at the outset of an ethics course?” Common student responses for the aforementioned theme included identification of human tendencies to use quick, easy, yet often inaccurate heuristics in ethical and other forms of problem-solving, rather than time consuming, effortful, conscious reasoning (Reynolds, 2006). Following the concrete experience and reflective observation phases of the EL cycle, and in anticipation of the next phase of abstract conceptualization, the professor transitioned from the teaching role of facilitator into that of subject expert (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). The abstract conceptualization phase comprised a structured, yet interactive discussion of the academic theory, concepts, and research associated with the concrete experiences and reflective observations of earlier phases. Subsequently, the professor shifted into the role of standard-setter/evaluator in order to guide students through active experimentation, including application and planning for future ethical situations that might reflect key themes. Table 3, row one contains examples of questions used in these EL cycle phases. All four phases of the EL cycle were repeated across two or more themes within classes. As the fourth EL phase involving active experimentation was integrated with the first phase of concrete experience to facilitate

Examples of Questions for reflective observation

1. Problem-solving activities • What previous experiences demonstrating key have you had with the type of themes in behavioral problem we tried? ethics, for example, • When the activity first started, Thaler and Sunstein was there anything that you (2009) anticipated might happen? • What did you observe about what occurred? • Why do you imagine the professor might use this activity at the outset of a course in ethics? (In what ways might this be relevant to ethical recognition, evaluation, and action?)

Concrete experience activity

Examples of questions for active experimentation

• What did you do to try to • If you faced similar sorts of solve the problem? problems at some point in • In academic terms, what is this the future, what could you process or concept called? do in those situations to be • What factors might affect this more effective (in ethical process and how? recognition, evaluation, and • What things were successful action)? (or not successful)? • What are some additional, • What makes certain strategies ethics-related, “real world” more successful? situations in which this • Has your thinking about ethics process might be relevant? (ethical recognition, • Are there any other forms of evaluation, action) changed, workplace decision-making and if so, how? that might reflect these underlying processes or concepts?

Examples of questions for abstract conceptualization

Table 3  Examples of questions used within EL cycle phases for recurrent course activities

2. Problem-solving video vignettes of businessrelated ethical problems and errors, for example, dishonesty, conflicts of interest, slippery slope phenomena, bias and discrimination, language uses, and so on. (Simola, 2010, 2018)

Concrete experience activity

• Were there any parts of this situation wherein you had a “gut reaction” that something was concerning? If so, which? • What did you observe happening in this situation that was troubling to you? • Who were the stakeholders to this situation? If they knew what had occurred, what do you imagine that they might (i) think (ii) feel (iii) do (including things that might be deleterious)? • If this situation were to continue or recur, what do you imagine might happen?

Examples of Questions for reflective observation

Examples of questions for active experimentation

(continued)

• What ethical values are being • What specific steps could you violated in this situation, and take in the short-term to try how? to prevent the situation from escalating (for a range of • In what ways is this stakeholders)? problematic? • What would upholding versus • What specific steps could you violating these values look take in the short-term to try like? to mitigate any damage (for a range of stakeholders)? • Which managerial actions were successful or • What specific steps could you unsuccessful and why? take in the longer term to try to prevent this situation • What other factors might from happening again? have affected the way the (Think broadly in terms of situation unfolded, or policy, procedure, training, decisions that were made? system interventions, etc. • How might these factors have Also try to think on multiple affected these things? levels e.g., organizational, departmental, work group, individual).

Examples of questions for abstract conceptualization

Examples of questions for abstract conceptualization What do academic theory, concepts, or research findings indicate about: • How pre-existing emotions (unrelated to the situation) might have influenced your judgment or actions? • Information that emotions during or after the situation might signal to you. • What other researchsupported concepts and theories might have influenced the situation and the way you evaluated or responded to it?

Examples of Questions for reflective observation

(After students have described, in an anonymized way, an ethical situation they encountered in which they, themselves, were the ethical actor): • What was concerning about the situation? • What did you feel before, during and after the situation occurred? Might these have influenced or signaled something relevant? • Who were the stakeholders and what might they have been feeling and thinking?

• Think about researchsupported concepts and theories that might have influenced the situation and the way you evaluated or responded to it. • What could you do differently to overcome these in the future? • What specific researchsupported actions could you take to prevent similar future situations from occurring? • If you encountered this dilemma again, what could you do differently to enhance ethical recognition, evaluation, and action? • What are the implications of these for your future work?

Examples of questions for active experimentation

Source: Table adapted from Kolb (2015) and Kolb and Kolb (2017). The EL cycle phases in the heading for each column are those articulated by Kolb (2015) and Kolb and Kolb (2017). Questions appearing in rows were developed by the author for and within the ethics course. For discussion of EL cycle questions in another business course, see Butler et al. (2019)

3. Complete a process record and analysis of an actual, encountered experience with an ethical situation, for example, Simola (2019)

Concrete experience activity

Table 3  (continued)

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application of knowledge from problems within a previous theme to related ethical examples, the teaching role was that of coaching in which the professor offered constructive questions, observation or guidance to students (Kolb & Kolb, 2017). EL Cycle and Corresponding Teaching Roles Applied to Business-Related Ethical Problems. For subsequent sections of the course that explored behavioral research in relation to specific types of business-related ethical problems (e.g., dishonesty, conflicts of interest, slippery slope, bias and discrimination, etc.), all four phases of the EL cycle and corresponding teaching roles were repeated both within and across classes. The modules on specific business-related ethical issues began with a concrete experience by asking students to assume the role of manager while watching a brief video simulation in which actors depicted well-intentioned employees making various research-identified errors of ethical recognition, evaluation, and action within specific business-related areas (e.g., dishonesty, conflicts of interest, slippery slope, etc.) (Simola, 2010, 2018). Video simulations of this type have long been understood as a form of concrete experience within EL (Jarvis et al., 2004; Omer et al., 2017; Stanley et al., 2018). Subsequently, the professor assumed the roles of facilitator, subject expert, and standard-setter/evaluator, in order to guide students through EL cycle phases involving reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, respectively. Row two of Table 3 provides examples of questions asked within each of these EL cycle phases for each business-related ethical issue. As with key themes, the abstract conceptualization phase comprised a structured, yet interactive discussion of academic theory, concepts, and research associated with the concrete experiences and reflective observations of earlier phases. Active experimentation included application of material in planning for similar future ethical situations. Additionally, students were assigned take-home activities that also facilitated movement through all four EL cycle phases. For example, students were given a guided set of instructions through which to consider and construct a process record and analysis (Simola, 2019) of a specific, concrete experience in which they, themselves, encountered an actual ethical situation and in which they themselves were the ethical actor. A

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set of questions was provided to guide the students through reflective observation on the experience, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation (see Table 3, row three for examples). Individualized feedback on their submissions was provided by the professor. Finally, at two points in the course, students completed additional active experimentation assignments. One required fulfillment of a simulated but realistic ethics-related organizational problem (e.g., advise a company on whether to select and how to train employees with respect to ethical behavior; guide a company on the management of a complex, ethically laden crisis). The other involved devising active experimentation plans for managing future challenges by considering how to navigate inevitable future ethical storms (Palmer, 2009); or by anticipating and planning potential future enactments of virtuous silence (Stouten et al., 2019) or moral courage (Comer & Vega, 2011).

6 Challenges with Transitioning to an Online, Asynchronous, EL Course One key challenge when transitioning the ethics course from an in-­person to an online format was whether the online format ought to be synchronous (i.e., occurring for all students at a specific, recurring time each week) or asynchronous (i.e., allowing students to complete classes at diverse times that fit within their own personal schedules). Factors influencing the decision included the need to accommodate numerous students who were participating from varied, international locations in a broad range of time zones; and the need to be responsive to student requests for flexibility during challenges posed by the pandemic. In view of these factors, a decision was made to offer the course asynchronously, such that students could flexibly complete classes at times that fit within their own personal schedules, from within varied locations and time zones. This would also ensure ongoing availability of course materials for students who wished to access materials multiple times. Second, for effective online teaching, it is crucial to integrate three areas, including not only content knowledge and a pedagogical

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framework such as Kolb’s (2015) EL model; but also, technological competence (Koehler et al., 2013). Hence, planning and implementation of the online course involved various technological decisions. At the university through which the course would be offered, the online learning management system was Blackboard Learn (Blackboard Inc., 2021). However, a compatible platform that would enable implementation of asynchronous, yet recurrent EL cycles and corresponding teaching roles both within and across course modules was also needed. This would ensure that students could have the same concrete experiences and other EL phases as would occur within the in-person course. It would also ensure that large numbers of students, each of whom were completing classes at different times from different time zones, could engage interactively, and receive timely, individualized feedback for responses to questions associated with reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. In consideration of these needs, the YuJa Video Content Management System (YuJa, Inc., 2021) was selected for use within Blackboard Learn (Blackboard Inc., 2021). Applications of Yuja to enable EL cycle phases, learning style types, and teaching roles are described, below.

7 EL Processes Within the Online, Asynchronous Course in Behavioral Business Ethics The aforementioned technologies enabled the same focus, content, and EL processes that had been used for the in-person version of the course to be used for the online, asynchronous version. Additionally, insertion of activities and questions using these technologies could reduce student temptation to omit completion of classes. Applications of technologies were as follows. First, in advance of the online course, the instructions and stimulus materials or video simulations (Simola, 2010, 2018) for the concrete experience activities used across all aspects of the course were recorded into new videos through the YuJa, Inc. (2021) video platform. Then, also

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using the Yuja video platform, additional videos including narrated slides for use within the reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation phases for each topic were pre-recorded. Once all of the videos were completed, Yuja, Inc. (2021) enabled insertion of open-ended discussion questions to which students could respond throughout the videos, at the same points as would occur during an in-­ person class. These questions were added into the videos such that they would appear at certain points both in the audio of the recorded discussion and visually, in writing. When each question was posed within a video, the video would automatically pause to allow students to complete activities or think about questions and enter responses. When students entered a response and clicked “save,” the video would continue. Upon continuation of the video, immediate feedback automatically appeared in relation to the activity or question just completed. For example, for activities or questions within the concrete experience or reflective observation phases of the EL cycle, this feedback might involve common or insightful student responses and rationales, to which individual students could compare their own responses on that activity or question. For questions posed during the abstract conceptualization phase, the automatic feedback offered descriptions of relevant theory, concepts, or research findings pertaining to those questions. Once students completed an entire Yuja video in which they had saved their responses to activities and questions that had been embedded throughout, they clicked “submit,” and all of their responses for the EL cycle on that particular theme or topic were automatically transmitted to, and saved as, their own individualized response file for that particular video within the Blackboard Learn gradebook (Blackboard Inc., 2021). Through the Yuja (2021) platform, the professor was then able to read individual student responses for each video. In addition to the immediate feedback and information with which students could compare their own responses following their “save” of each response within the Yuja videos, the professor could also offer personalized feedback to each student. Take-home assignments such as process recording and analysis of actual ethical situations encountered by students (Simola, 2019); additional active experimentation focused on resolving ethics-related cases or

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business problems; and, activities aimed at helping students to plan for ethical challenges they might encounter in their future work were delivered via both Yuja (2021) videos and pdf documents. The professor read and replied to assignment submissions in a very timely way, offering detailed comments within a structured assessment format. In addition to these individualized forms of interaction and feedback, the professor was available for individual coaching with students via Zoom videoconferencing (Zoom Video Communications, Inc., 2021).

8 Lessons Learned Several insights were gleaned from the development and implementation of the online, asynchronous version of the EL course in behavioral ethics. First, the greater the development and clarity of theoretically grounded EL processes and materials for each module within the in-person version of the EL course, the easier is the transition to the online version. In this case, a course structure grounded in EL theory (Kolb, 2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017) already existed, as did an abundance of activities, video simulations, questions, and assignments for each EL cycle phase. Hence, during the sudden shift from in-person to online learning, the major tasks involved identifying and applying technologies that could facilitate continued use of pre-existing EL processes and materials, as opposed to the initial development of new EL processes and materials for use in an online course. Indeed, inasmuch as universal instructional design (Silver et al., 1998) is promoted to ensure accessibility of all course materials for all students, use of what is termed here a “universal delivery design” when developing new courses might also ensure ease of transfer of EL or other pedagogical approaches across different course modalities. Hence, when developing new EL courses, attention should be given not only to identifying accessible activities and materials for EL cycle phases; but also, to the ways that these elements might be implemented within either in-­ person or online course offerings. A second insight was to invest greatly in effective course organization and communication prior to the outset of the course. Specifically, there

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are many barriers to student engagement in online learning, and these can result in high attrition (Roddy et al., 2017). Barriers include poor organization and technical difficulties. Hence, for this online, asynchronous course, brief YuJa (2021) video segments were developed and included at the outset to help students avert potential technical issues and associated frustration. These demonstrated the steps students should take prior to each class to ensure that their online learning space enabled ease and speed of access to course materials, as well as ease and speed of submission for responses to activities and questions embedded within the course videos. For example, when almost all courses (and many other activities) are conducted online, very large amounts of data become stored in the browser cache and can cause technical difficulties during online learning. Hence, students were shown via brief video demonstration how to quickly clear their browser cache before each class. Similarly, in order to ensure smooth submission and verification of student responses to activities and questions embedded throughout YuJa (2021) videos, a video demonstrated how to enable third party cookies specifically for submission of responses through the Yuja platform. A priori system testing by the instructor coupled with inclusion of these video demonstrations on how to prepare an online learning space eliminated virtually all technical predicaments such that students were able to engage quickly and easily with the course. Third, when professors also offer post hoc, individualized review of student responses to activities and questions embedded within videos comprising the EL phases, it is crucial to be mindful of time requirements. As noted, the Yuja, Inc. (2021) system enables automatic and immediate provision of common or insightful student responses (or academically accurate information, within an abstract conceptualization phase) each time a student “saves” a response to an activity or open-ended question. However, if instructors also opt to read or provide post-­ submission, individualized feedback on every student response to each EL activity or question across all EL phases for every course topic, then the time commitment can be very high. Assistance from a qualified course teaching assistant will likely be necessary. As noted, time constraints associated with the sudden, COVID-related shift to online teaching precluded a priori research ethics review and

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approval to collect or report upon student data. However, the nature and quality of assignment responses (and grades assigned) were quite comparable to in-person versions of the course, which have previously demonstrated various positive student outcomes (e.g., Simola, 2014, 2019).

9 Summary and Directions for Future Research The purpose of this chapter was to consider the question of how EL could be integrated into online classes. The chapter provided an overview of Kolb’s (2015; Kolb & Kolb, 2017) EL theory and described an in-person version of an EL course in behavioral ethics that was transitioned into an online course. Challenges associated with transitioning the in-person EL course into an asynchronous, online version, and uses of the YuJa, Inc. (2021) Video Content Management System within Blackboard Learn (Blackboard Inc., 2021) to enable this were described. Lessons learned included the usefulness of having pre-existing, well-developed EL processes, activities and materials, thereby suggesting the importance of developing any new course with possibilities for “universal delivery design” (either in-person or online) in mind. Lessons also included the criticality of providing accessible, quick, clear video demonstrations for students on how to prepare their online spaces to avert technical difficulties. Additionally, the time commitment required to offer not simply automatic feedback to students as they save responses to activities and questions embedded throughout EL phase videos but also to offer post-­ submission individualized feedback was substantial. Hence, for the latter process, a teaching assistant will likely be needed. Unfortunately, time constraints associated with the sudden shift to online teaching precluded a priori research ethics review and approval in order to collect and report upon the impacts of the course on students. Hence, one important area for future research would be a formal assessment of the online course, possibly in comparison to the in-person version, from the perspective of student attitudes and learning outcomes.

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Although it was beyond the scope of the current chapter, another important area for future elaboration concerns ways of establishing an effective EL space and culture (Kolb & Kolb, 2017) within online courses. Exploration of the linkages between characteristics of the EL space (Kolb & Kolb, 2017) and specific pillars of student success in online courses (Roddy et al., 2017) would be useful in this regard. Of particular interest in relation to asynchronous (vs. synchronous) EL online courses are exploration of various methods for creating a learning community and sense of connection among course members.

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Weathering the (Covid-19) Storm: Insights from Business School Instructors on Integrating Experiential Learning into Online Courses at the Outset of the Pandemic Melanie A. Robinson, Marine Agogué, and John Fiset

1 Introduction [Another] part is, to some extent … can I do it? It’s a challenge—can you convert this to online. It’s like—ok, challenge accepted. I bet I can, I bet I can. I think the [materials] would look like this, let me see … Ok, that’s not working, let me try something else, let me try something else, yeah … So then, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s in defiance of this pandemic that you put together an experiential exercise that works online, maybe as well or better than it worked in person.— Participant S

M. A. Robinson (*) • M. Agogué HEC Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] J. Fiset Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, Canada © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_8

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Over the last two decades, experiential learning (EL), reflecting “the process whereby knowledge is created though the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 2015, p. 49), has become a popular teaching approach in higher education (Kolb & Kolb, 2005), as well as management education more specifically (e.g., Berggren & Söderlund, 2011; Clancy et al., 2021; Sheehan et al., 2009). Educators who integrate experiential learning into their courses are usually strong advocates for this style of teaching (Hawtrey, 2007) due to the positive effects that it has on students (Bevan & Kipka, 2012), as well as the passion and energy that it allows them to draw on in the classroom (Maranville, 2001). As such, for some educators, experiential learning is both a core element of their teaching philosophy and an integral part of their professional identity. The impact of COVID-19 on universities and all stakeholders in higher education has been considerable (e.g., Brammer & Clark, 2020; Greenberg & Hibbert, 2020; Leigh & Edwards, 2021). In a short period of time, many faculty members across the globe were faced with the challenge of adapting their in-person courses to a virtual mode of delivery in an effort to limit the spread of the virus (e.g., Christian et al., 2021; Hofer et al., 2021; Krishnamurthy, 2020). For educators who teach courses grounded in experiential learning, this shift also involved a reflection on how to best translate experiential elements—whether in-class activities, assignments, or even the overall format of the course—online. Notably, in a recent editorial, Greenberg and Hibbert (2020) discuss the many ways in which educators have been impacted by the pandemic. Among the points related to pedagogical loss, they note (p. 124) that “some of our editors mentioned their concerns over the loss of experiential learning opportunities.” Indeed, many assumptions about what is educationally possible, in particular regarding EL, were upended and reshaped during the early stages of the pandemic (Clancy et al., 2021). Importantly, EL benefits from being conducted within a safe space, described by Kisfalvi and Oliver (2015, p. 713) as consisting of “appropriate aspects, trust, respect, suspension of judgement and censorship, a willingness to share, and high-quality listening.” These elements are particularly crucial, as EL can stimulate strong emotions and reflexivity among students (Kisfalvi & Oliver, 2015). However, constructing a safe space in the context of an online course may be challenging—particularly

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when courses must be quickly adapted for virtual delivery—for several reasons, including, but not limited to, whether the instructor can see students and gauge their reactions, engagement, and participation. Thus, educators teaching courses grounded in EL were confronted with a very unusual situation—a situation in which classical pedagogical routines (Gibbons et al., 2017) break down in the face of uncertainty and a rapid, forced shift to online instruction. Organizational theory shows that the need for nonroutine responses arises when existing routines are perceived as inadequate to respond to the conditions of a new context, and, as such, do not suffice (Majchrzak et al., 2007; Suarez & Montes, 2019). In such situations, individuals and collectives may turn to heuristics, which are cognitive shortcuts that facilitate decision-making in uncertain situations (Gigerenzer et al., 2022; Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011; Kahneman, 2011), or to improvisation and innovation (Suarez & Montes, 2019) to determine potential actions. In so doing, individuals rely on their perceptions of the situation and challenge their existing assumptions. They then engage in what Suarez and Montes (2019, p. 592) call cognitive searching, which refers to the “mechanism whereby organizational members create or uncover possible courses of action, either by resorting to learned templates or by creating new ones.” Applied to the shift to online courses at the outset of the pandemic, this suggests that management educators reflecting on how to retain EL in their virtual courses may have had to deconstruct existing beliefs and expectations regarding its implementation in their classes.

2 Literature Review Kolb’s (2015) learning cycle suggests that, in order to maximize the insights that we draw from experiences, we should ensure to build four interconnected skills into learning opportunities, providing participants with a concrete experience, encouraging reflective observation about its meaning, finding ways to help participants draw conclusions and lessons that can be applied to different situations (abstract conceptualization), and, finally, offering the learner the chance to put these insights into action via active experimentation. Effectively planning, animating, and

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debriefing experiential activities can therefore be both demanding and emotionally resonant. Importantly, recognizing that some experiential activities have a greater potential than others to stimulate emotions and reactions, Wright et al. (2022) propose a 4-level typology that identifies the inherent risk of experiential activities based on two factors—the possibility of rousing negative emotions for participants, as well as the degree of skill required to adequately facilitate the experience in the classroom. Educators who incorporate EL into their courses often develop new activities or use existing exercises, simulations, or other course content to provide students with engaging experiences that serve as the basis for reflection and insight generation. However, the literature suggests that adapting such activities to new contexts can sometimes be challenging. For example, research suggests that running and adjusting experiential activities with large in-person classes can necessitate significant modifications to exercises and processes (e.g., Agogué & Robinson, 2021; Lund Dean & Wright, 2017). Furthermore, as discussed below, adapting EL to an online context has its own specific considerations—which may be magnified when the shift to virtual classes is spurred by unforeseen factors, such as a pandemic. Recent articles describing adjustments that can be made to experiential course elements because of the COVID-19 crisis (e.g., Butler, 2022; Christian et al., 2021; Satyam & Aithal, 2022) attest to this point.

3 Experiential Learning in Online Environments Online courses or programs that integrate EL have done so by balancing both asynchronous and synchronous content. Traditionally, foundational course content is transmitted asynchronously, while experiential learning and other activities designed to increase course engagement are transmitted via synchronous modules (e.g., Echambadi et al., 2022). This dual method of instruction, however, is not always possible due to geographical, time, and scalability constraints. As such, reflection on how to

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integrate EL in online classes has become an area of growing interest for management education scholars. Numerous researchers argue that online learning offers a host of benefits to both students and educators. For example, offering courses in an asynchronous format provides an inclusive means of instruction as students are given equal opportunity for participation, equitable contact with professors, and improved access for those who experience learning, accessibility, or geographic barriers (e.g., Holtslander et al., 2012; Rollag, 2010). In addition, with the advent of improved technology and computer-­mediated communication, students can meaningfully engage and interact with the instructor and fellow students in comparable ways to traditional in-person classrooms (e.g., Peterson, 2021). One primary method by which instructors attempt to infuse EL in online learning environments is through the development of virtual teams, defined as groups of individuals who work together on shared tasks or projects via technology-mediated communication and who are not bound by geography or time zones (Liao, 2017). In this way, students forced to move to an online classroom environment because of the COVID-19 pandemic can “engage in the active production of shared knowledge” (Gunawardena et al., 1997, p. 410) and be actively involved in the learning process (Beckem & Watkins, 2012). The formation of these teams also offers students the opportunity to work with others even when they are temporally and geographically dispersed (O’Connor et al., 2021). While the literature continues to demonstrate that incorporating EL into virtual teaching environments can be successful, achieve desired learning objectives, and improve student engagement (e.g., O’Connor et al., 2021), research in this area highlights several important considerations. First, many faculty members continue to hold negative beliefs about online learning, as many assume that a lack in-person interaction inevitably reduces classroom engagement (e.g., Comer & Lenaghan, 2013). These assumptions are difficult to eradicate and often contribute to viewing online learning in a negative light. For those who see the benefits of online learning, much of the work in this domain obscures the tremendous amount of initial time, effort, and resources involved in

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successfully preparing for and carrying out EL activities in this educational context. Indeed, because of the self-paced nature of these experiences, instructors must devote considerable time and attention at the onset of the course to clearly specify instructions, troubleshoot issues, and iteratively update material to continually improve course delivery.

4 Teaching in Times of Crisis: From Planning to Improvisation “Going online” as a response to the pandemic is not the first time that “emergency eLearning programs” have been considered as appropriate crisis-response measures. A similar strategy was observed in 2009, where most of H1N1 virus contingency plans involved shifting to online classes (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Yet, for most educators, virtual courses represent a completely novel way of teaching. Many educators were caught off-guard (e.g., Christian et al., 2021; Hofer et al., 2021), and both the rapid nature of the transition as well as the stressful and uncertain circumstances of the pandemic distinguish this moment from traditional online learning experiences. Indeed, Cutri et al. (2020) show that educators felt the crisis context contorted normal perceptions of preparation and readiness. Faculty readiness can be operationalized as the level of mental and physical preparedness to develop and implement online teaching (e.g., Adnan, 2018; Hashim & Tasir, 2014). Such readiness may be influenced by prior experience and levels of preparation (Scherer et al., 2021), which the context related to the pandemic failed to provide. Being ready for anything requires rethinking what educators typically do, and, as such, a reliance on classical pedagogical routines (Gibbons et al., 2017) is not always an option. Educators who perceive their existing routines as inadequate may lean toward improvisation and uncovering new ways of action (Suarez & Montes, 2019). This may require them to deconstruct shared beliefs and expectations—which may be particularly relevant in situations where EL is fundamental to their teaching philosophy—and potentially challenge the paradigms they hold towards experiential learning.

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Given this, understanding the perceptions of instructors who normally integrate EL into their courses, as well as the process by which they adapted their activities and courses during the period of abrupt transition at the outset of the pandemic, is highly salient. Though many institutions have since returned to some degree of in-person instruction, the need for adaptation is ever present, via, for example, greater flexibility in course delivery and assessments. Indeed, the ongoing nature of the crisis and consistent waves of variants remain a concern, forcing universities to move their activities online, when necessary. We therefore contribute to the literature on experiential learning in online contexts by exploring the experiences of instructors early in the pandemic, as well as identifying mechanisms that may support educators who are interested in incorporating EL in virtual courses.

5 Methods 5.1 Sample and Procedure Recognizing that the approaches used by universities at the start of the pandemic varied across the world as a function of several factors (e.g., government regulations, Crawford et al., 2020), we constrained our data collection efforts to a single country, Canada. Using a qualitative design, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 instructors from nine Canadian universities to explore their reflections on, and experiences with, integrating EL into their online courses during the fall 2020 semester. We recruited interviewees via a snowball sampling technique, by contacting instructors who integrate EL into their courses, requesting referrals to other educators who draw on this approach, and by contacting the learning centers of several universities to ask if they could refer us to potential participants at their schools. In preparation for the interviews, we developed an interview guide. While the order and formulation of questions varied in accordance with the flow of our discussions, we opened with a general question, asking interviewees to describe a typical experiential exercise in one of their courses. We then inquired about the process of translating experiential

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elements to an online format as well as the reactions of students. We closed with two questions related the experiences of the instructors in integrating EL into their online courses (challenges and opportunities, as well as their perceptions of the process). Interviews were conducted online via videoconferencing platforms, in either French or English, at the preference of the interviewee,1 from October 2020 to January 2021. On average, discussions were 43.35 minutes in length (SD = 17.69 minutes, with a range of 22 to 88 minutes). Respondents included both part-time instructors and full-time faculty members, teaching business-related courses in a variety of fields, such as management, strategy, marketing, finance, and supply chain management. Interviewees incorporated several types of EL activities within their courses, including, but not limited to, in-class exercises, simulations, flipped classrooms, service-learning projects, and research projects in which students were tasked with collecting data.

5.2 Data Analysis The interviews were first transcribed, resulting in approximately 245 pages of textual data. The analysis proceeded in a series of stages. First, two authors read through the transcripts to get a preliminary sense of the key elements discussed across the interviews. The research team then met to reflect on these points. Next, using an inductive approach, one of the authors coded the data using open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1997) to identify key themes. The first-order codes were recorded within the transcripts, as well as on a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet included a list of all codes, roughly grouped by the subject of discussion (e.g., “Motivation to include experiential learning”, “Shifting experiential learning online”) or by key elements identified during the preliminary reading of the materials (e.g., “Risks”), with a column dedicated to each participant. As a code was used in an interview, a “1” was placed in the cell for the participant. A total of 165 first-order codes were created during this stage. Finally, we identified the most important codes that allowed us to answer our  All quotes included in this chapter were translated to English, where applicable, by the authors.

1

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research question and generated more structured meta-categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1997), as appropriate. This process allowed us to solidify our understanding of the key findings, described below.

5.3 Findings The educators that we interviewed used a wide range of experiential elements, often integrating more than one type of EL activity into their pre- and post-pandemic courses. All but two interviewees taught online during fall 2020. One respondent did not have classes scheduled for the fall but looked ahead to the winter semester. The second educator opted not to teach during the semester in which we collected our data. Though adapting the experiential elements of their courses required participants to both reflect on and often introduce practices to facilitate running their activities online, some educators felt that this shift was more challenging than others. Moreover, a wide range of EL activities were discussed during the interviews. As such, a “one size fits all approach” would not be appropriate for the analysis—as certain activities were more or less challenging to adapt in a given context. Our focus is therefore on the experiences of the instructors, exploring the myriad of considerations that they took into account as they prepared and delivered the EL components of their courses online. Two main findings emerged. First, in terms of the process of adapting the activities for their virtual courses, participants had to contend with a variety of time and logistical issues, coupled with ambiguities related to the pandemic and a mode of course delivery that they may not have been familiar with prior to that semester, to determine how to best translate the experiential elements online. This required instructors to invest a large amount of time into the preparation of their courses, as well as add more support systems for students. Second, educators were intensely mindful of the potential risks for their students of integrating EL into the online courses. In light of their previous experience with EL, instructors took several learning-related and personal/emotional risks into consideration as they reflected on the experiences of students and/or their decisions related to the activities they used.

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 ranslating EL Online: Navigating the Confluence of Time T Considerations, Logistics, and Uncertainty Given the pandemic, respondents described a number of ways in which they adapted the EL aspects of their courses, as well as reflected on their experience in preparing for the semester. Given the variety of activities used by educators, we focus on the most common general challenges and considerations mentioned across the discussions. A third of participants (n = 8) underscored the significant time that they invested in preparing and adapting their online courses. Clearly, educators devoted considerable effort to reflect on how to best translate the EL components of their courses online: It required a lot of time to adapt things to an online format, because courses that are really grounded in experiential, they often imply contact—visual, audio… but we are all two-dimensional. It presents a pretty considerable challenge.—Participant Q

Five interviewees mentioned that they had to consider what would be doable when preparing their courses. For example, when reflecting on whether to use an activity, Participant P noted: “That means minimum [notes a number of] groups, and then having everybody have a chance to sort of talk about their experiences, it’s going to take a lot of time.” While respondents maintained at least some (and sometimes all) of the experiential components of the courses, significant adaptations were often required (n = 11), whether to the activities themselves (e.g., by modifying instructions or the focus of parts of a project) or to the mechanics of how to animate them in class (e.g., dealing with or minimizing the logistical constraints of online asynchronous platforms when running their activities). For example: When I did my [first] role-play exercise (…), you know when it’s the first [you don’t know as much] who will jump in, how people will react, and all that. So, I didn’t dare, I didn’t dare say ‘ok, can you do it’ like I usually would. I asked [students] to volunteer to participate via the chat. Radio silence… So, I said: ‘Okay, here’s my telephone number’. Well, they called. And I had made sure that

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this was after the break because I wanted to talk to them during the break. So, they sent me a text on my phone. Now I had three people—one person volunteered spontaneously and [the others] I encouraged a bit. They contacted me on my phone while I’m teaching. Then I called them during the break and gave them the instructions like I would have done in class, and we discussed. It’s just… you know, there is a risk that I fall on my face. That tires you out a lot.—Participant M I thought there has been so much taken away from students—I mean, to learn online. And so, there were a lot of other activities that I just thought: ‘Ok, I can’t even attempt that one’. Like we used to do one that some of my colleagues did try to do online that I didn’t attempt .—Participant E

One practice adopted by a significant number of educators was to add more support systems to help students, such as additional office hours, and facilitate coordination for activities (n = 13). For example, when discussing the formation of groups for an experiential project in their course, Participant H noted: “[Students] have projects that they start early in the course, but they have no way to socialize. So, I had to create mechanisms like ‘speed dating’ so that they would meet enough colleagues to be able to form teams with them.” Finally, elaborating on the reasons why they incorporated EL into their courses more generally (not specific to the shift to online teaching), several instructors spoke of their drive to provide students with a meaningful assignment and the intrinsic motivation that it generates for the educator (n = 16), as illustrated below: If they see something concrete, they will enjoy it more. I did not see a lot of things [that were] concrete while I was a student and I thought that it was missing… don’t repeat the mistakes you’ve seen in the past. Do better.—Participant T Oh, it’s so selfish, I absolutely love to see that… when they’re like ‘AHH’, or like ‘Oh crap! I didn’t know’, or ‘I didn’t see it this way’, or ‘Wow, this is how it actually plays in real life’, and ‘Oh man, I didn’t think about it this way’. You know, that’s a high five in my books for like teaching moments or also just to get them engaged, and I absolutely love it. It can be very long just to have a class of students staring at you and I’m not that interesting… ‘Let’s listen for hours’ just

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sounds painful for everybody, so to see them up and moving in their seats, and seeing them learning and engaged, is a little bit of a high.—Participant D

Reflecting on the challenges of adapting EL online, several interviewees (n = 6) implied that it was frustrating to be faced with the possibility not being able to teach experientially in the way that they would like. Elements of the online environment appeared to clash with the methods that they use to create connection, support their students, and maximize learning. So, the fact that I am used to an open-door policy or a specific policy and now that I have so limited contacts with my students, makes me frustrated and makes my students frustrated.—Participant I Discussing the preparation of a class for an upcoming semester: [With] the emphasis [on] trying to do as much asynchronism teaching as possible due to remote connectivity issues, I honestly…. I don’t know how it’s actually possible to do the teaching that I’m actually good at, so I feel like I will that I will try to make up for my lack of experiential learning by being just available to students, in terms of like, you know, to be able to just communicate with them. But I expect it to go not super well.—Participant D

 While Being Mindful of Potential Learning and Emotional … Risks for Students Interviewees were acutely aware of the impact of the pandemic and associated challenges of running EL online for their students. We group these considerations into two categories, reflecting learning-related and emotional risks. Importantly, almost all educators (n = 22) highlighted at least one of the key codes discussed below. Learning-related risks. This first category includes risks that threaten the degree to which stated learning objectives will be met, either due to a lack of interaction amongst participants or inherent difficulties of animating the activities. Notably, several instructors mentioned that the online environment is less conducive to EL (n = 9), given the lack of interaction.

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I think the difference from the student’s perspective is they don’t get the human, the human vibes, the soft, touchy stuff that they get in the classroom. It’s all (…) you’re a two-dimension person, you’re not a three-dimension person. And I think that is really… it empowers the learning experience, in my opinion. And I think the students like [it] too.—Participant A

Virtual courses also made it more challenging for some instructors (n = 3) to support their students, as compared to their in-person classes. When I would break them into their group I would say, okay, it’s 2:00—it stops at 2:45. And I will walk and answer all of your questions and help you with your [notes material] … that can’t be replicated online. Because, I mean, maybe one group will be intact at that point, and I’ll help them but most of the time (…) they go home and it’s done.—Participant O

Moreover, a portion of interviewees (n = 7) noted that constraints due to the logistics of online teaching (e.g., being able to observe only one breakout room at a time) obstructed their ability to discern the degree to which students were applying the material and, consequently, coach and help them develop their skills. With respect to [students’] learning curve, that was harder to evaluate. Because when the evaluation was 1-hour, each team member was able to take the role of facilitator. So, all of those interaction within the teams: how do students position themselves as facilitators during an exercise, how to bring added value, (…) and often students weren’t sure what to do… you know, the understanding of the role becomes less clear. And I could see these things in person and revisit [material] with them. Which being online doesn’t allow me to do. There’s a lot of information that I can’t see, that is only possible to see in person.— Participant N

This also impacted how they animated and debriefed the activities. The online forum limited the non-verbal cues that instructors were privy to, which is often an important source of information and avenue for discussion.

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When they’re talking to each other in person, I’ll see the dynamics within groups, that are things that I see that I will bring to the discussion. For example, when somebody doesn’t speak much but somebody else rolls their eyes—and I see that because I’m walking around. (…) When they’re doing this online, I can only be in one breakout room at a time, so I spend a few minutes there, but [the students] are conscious that I’m there and I have my eyes on them. The spotlight is on them, and they are self-conscious about it. And when I step out, I don’t see eyes rolling, you know… how do you want me to see eyes rolling?”—Participant F

This opinion, however, was not universal. Indeed, three interviewees noted that the online environment facilitated reading the room, which suggests that it depends on the preferences of the instructor. For example, one participant felt more comfortable stopping by breakout rooms and thus gathering information about how groups were approaching the activity to later use in the debrief: You could say I would hold back a bit in the classroom—you know, to really go next to a group and then listen to what they were saying… I felt less welcome. Now I don’t hold back and [when going to a breakout room], I’m like: “Hi! I just arrived; do you have any questions? Ok, I’m listening ”—Participant B

Emotional risks. This second category encompasses reflections on the burden that the pandemic places on students and the struggle to create connection with participants. Notably, students faced high stress and ambiguity due to the pandemic. This was not lost on educators, who highlighted the strain and discussed their concern (n = 10). Indeed, several participants discussed ways in which they took this into account when designing the EL components of their course, for example, when creating groups (“So I asked them what times zones they are in, and I created groups based on that”; Participant R) or reflecting on how much group-based work to integrate: What changed on Zoom is that I have the impression that the relationship within the group is not going as well. I’m hesitating, because we don’t know what’s going to happen and I have students who are parents [thus have a lot of responsibilities]. I’m hesitating to have them work in groups for the rest of the semester. Because I don’t feel the chemistry is there between them.— Participant M

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Instructors (n = 5) also lamented having less connection with students. This is different than finding it harder to read the room (for animating an activity—a learning-related risk). Here, the challenge is knowing your students personally. I don’t have the same degree of closeness—yes, closeness, proximity with the groups. (…) So last week, I had a class in which I had individual meetings with each group. I met with one group, then I went to another group, but I haven’t yet spent a lot of time with the groups. But mostly, I don’t know them… there’s a filter, there’s really a distance. (…) When I’m teaching [in person], I see (…) what type of boots they have, the size of their school bag—I know if they took public transportation to get to school, I know if they took their car… there’s all the non-verbal. (…) So, I know each person a bit more, and that helps me remember which group I’m speaking with.—Participant H

Indeed, for the educator who decided not to teach the semester in which we collected our data, learning and emotional risks appeared to be a key consideration. Even if there was no pandemic, I would have difficulty ascertaining the non-­ verbal because you only see the person’s face, and sometimes we don’t even see the person, people can close their videos. And it’s very hard to create a warm space amongst people.—Participant G

These connections—either with the instructor or fellow participants— help develop trust and build a safe space for EL. Two interviewees specifically noted that the lack of trust effects their decisions related to experiential activities: Normally what they have to do is give feedback to their colleague, because we are doing two things at the same time—we work on communication and then we also work on giving feedback as being a part of communication in leadership skills. And… as I was preparing for the lesson, I said to myself, s---, it doesn’t work. It just does not work. Why? I mean, this is a course that I know so well, I’ve been teaching this course for 12–14 years. Then I read again the [mandatory reading] on giving feedback and one of the first things the text says is that it requires a relationship… well I told myself: ‘No I can’t, when they don’t know each other’.—Participant W

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6 Discussion The arrival of the (ongoing) COVID-19 crisis was both intense and unexpected—upsetting established norms and routines across workplaces (e.g., Kniffin et al., 2020). In this study, we interviewed 23 instructors with expertise using in-person EL, to explore how they adapted the experiential elements of their classes as they shifted to virtual courses due to the pandemic. We found that instructors were forced to take a wide array of considerations into account, including class-related time constraints, the logistics and mechanics of the activities, and learning new technologies (among others), in order to determine how best to translate the EL components of their courses online. They invested a great deal of time and effort to select and prepare their EL activities, demonstrating resilience and innovation. Notably, interviewees were keenly focused on the potential risks for students of using EL in their courses. Whether reflecting on factors that might impact the degree to which the learning objectives of the activities would be achieved (such as challenges due to the lack of interaction in the online environment and difficulties in reading the room to collect material for the debrief ) or pondering the personal and emotional dangers for students (such as stress due to the pandemic and the lack of trust that impedes developing the connections required to properly facilitate EL), pedagogical and emotional concerns were at the forefront of many discussions. This suggests that to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, an unexpected event that forced many to redesign their EL activities with little preparation, educators whose courses center on this method relied on their extensive experience and associated implicit theories as a compass to guide their pedagogical choices. Given the limited time available to adapt EL elements for their virtual classes, these implicit theories helped instructors identify key questions (i.e., What do my students need so that the exercise provides them with an impactful and meaningful experience? What do I need to put in place for their well-being?), select or modify activities so that they were doable in the circumstances, and design strategies to both maximize learning and mitigate risks.

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In their qualitative study of the processes and responses of a climbing team ascending Mount Everest, Suarez and Montes (2019) showed that dynamic and difficult environments can push teams to abandon routines and instead engage in “nonroutine responses”, using heuristics and improvisation, as needed, to accomplish their goals. Though the context of the COVID-19 pandemic differs from a climbing expedition, both are nonroutine situations that spur the need for tremendous adaptation across workplaces, including higher education (Hofer et al., 2021). As such, we draw on Suarez and Montes (2019) work to help explain how EL educators identified key questions and constraints, as well as made decisions for their EL activities, in an uncertain and unprecedented situation. This helped them to prepare and adjust the experiential learning components for their courses. Notably, Gigerenzer et al. (2022, p. 183) “argue that effective leaders draw on their adaptive toolbox of heuristics to make decisions under different contingencies, consistent with the principle of ecological rationality.” In line with the literature on experiential learning, our findings also underscore the importance of considering the emotional and personal risks to students when applying EL in higher education, given that some activities have a greater potential to stimulate negative emotions than others (Wright et al., 2022). Indeed, while the educators in our sample had extensive experience using this method in their classrooms, the uncertainties related to virtual course delivery led many to revisit their strategies for introducing EL and adapt their activities.

6.1 Practical Implications While our data were collected in the first year of the pandemic, and many educators and universities have since gained significant experience with online teaching, our findings have several practical implications. First, institutions of higher education should consider developing more training materials to improve the classroom experience for faculty who plan to use EL in their synchronous or asynchronous online courses for the first time. This will allow educators to practice with the method before using it with their students, allowing them to adjust their strategies for the

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activities, fostering self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986). Moreover, faculty responsible for coordinated courses in which instructors use common EL activities might develop shared resources for the courses, so that colleagues can test the activities and share their experiences (Agogué & Robinson, 2021) before and throughout the semester.

6.2 Strengths and Limitations We interviewed 23 educators from a number of Canadian universities, allowing us to gather data from instructors teaching a variety of courses across business-related disciplines. Participants described different ways in which they integrated EL into the courses—as such, our findings are not limited to one type of experiential activity and may be transferable to several EL contexts across North America. However, our data were collected in one country and were likely influenced by the COVID-related regulations in place at the time of data collection. Moreover, the data were collected at a one point in time (the start of the pandemic), with instructors who had experience using EL within their courses. Given this, our themes may not be applicable to all educators in every geographical location.

7 Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has ramifications for all aspects of our society. In particular, given the changes faced by educators and institutions of higher education, we sought to explore how business school instructors adapted to this new reality by translating existing EL material to an online context. Drawing on research related to organizational routines, we clarify how under time and resource constraints, instructors drew upon personal experience and their implicit theories of EL to identify the learning-related and emotional risks (Wright et al., 2022) of this method, to assess how to best integrate EL into their online courses. Beyond the notion of including experiential elements in the course, these implicit theories also provide a basis for whether to rely on cognitive shortcuts

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(e.g., heuristics) or improvisation when determining the best way to adapt course materials online. Overall, our research provides an important examination of adaptability in higher education and offers important practical implications for EL in an online context. Acknowledgments  This work was supported by an Internal Grant provided by HEC Montréal, as well as funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC; Grant #430-2020-1035).

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Pedagogic Practices for Student Engagement During COVID-19 Pandemic in an Introductory Course of Economics Belén Pagone, Cecilia Primogerio, and Mariana Sajón

1 Introduction In March 2020, based on COVID-19 pandemic, a national lockdown was established in Argentina until July, where the lockdown was to be gradually relaxed in several stages to lead to a return to normalcy. However, the restrictions were extended several times, until November 2021, in all areas of the development of society but especially in the area of Education at all levels. In fact, the higher level of education was the last to return to full face-to-face attendance. The decision to close kindergartens, schools and universities generated feelings of uncertainty in society, especially in teachers, students, parents and managers, who are the most involved in the educational process. This abrupt and critical situation forced higher education lecturers to continually rethink and replan online synchronous and asynchronous

B. Pagone (*) • C. Primogerio • M. Sajón Undergraduate Business School, Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_9

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classes and evaluations techniques, as well as optimize students’ learning experience and motivation to continue their studies. This chapter recovers an experience carried out at the Undergraduate Business School of Universidad Austral, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, specifically in an introductory course of Economics. The goal was to review objectives and competences of the subject including collaborative work in teams, problem solving and critical thinking to deepen economic analysis, applied analytical capacity, recovery of previous knowledge and conection with new one. Moreover, new assessment practices to replace the traditional mid-­ term test were incorporated: peer evaluation based on a TIC-TAC-­ TOE. This teaching strategy enabled the teacher to propose different activity options in each box of the grid, when addressing the same content, distinguishing between those mandatory tasks that must be solved by everyone and the optional instructions that could be chosen to complete the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row. This tool also allowed obtaining various evidence of the learning and understanding that the students achieved, attending diversity in the course and allowing students to demonstrate deep understanding when applying technique to intuition. So it became an interesting alternative when designing and planning the teaching and formative online assessment which is oriented to the reflection and the learning process, unlike summative evaluation, which is oriented to the results achieved (Anijovich & Cappelletti, 2017). With the aim of enriching the way of evaluating the TIC-TAC-TOE activity, 360° feedback model was implemented to complement teacher’s evaluation by the self-evaluation of each student and the co-evaluation among peers, all using the same checklist as an instrument, with objective criteria and development levels. The 360° feedback model sought to engage everyone who regularly interacts with the person being tested and be able to identify strengths and weaknesses during performance in addition to promoting student’s metacognition and reflection on the learning process itself. The reflection on these positive experiences driven by the Pandemic encouraged the teacher to implement other innovative strategies and design an e-portfolio to be developed throughout the course, with the aim of also transforming the final exam into one aligned with formative assessment practices.

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The objectives of this chapter are: (1) to share the teaching experience in this subject in its virtual modality, and all the learning that can be extracted from its implementation; (2) to provide ideas of teaching practices and participation of students in virtual and face-to-face education; (3) to motivate the rethinking of learning spaces to combine the best of each one in the future.

2 Pandemic Context The lockdown was supposed to be a passing situation that could last for days or, at most, months but it was finally extended for almost two years. This made teachers’ planning uncertain because what was initially thought of as a contingent scenario became permanent for that period. This situation required constant revisions and adjustments in teaching. This abrupt and critical context forced higher education teachers across the country to reinvent their teaching practices, to continually rethink synchronous and asynchronous online classes and assessment techniques. At the same time, it was necessary to incorporate new didactic strategies to optimize the learning experience and motivation of students to continue their studies, which were developed throughout the years 2020 and 2021. The first months of the Pandemic meant for all university professors a time of running against the clock to replan their subjects. They needed to redefine objectives, think of new distance learning methodologies, prioritize contents since time was shortened, update the online material at the virtual platform, order, nourish and load it with content and meaning for students. All remotely, isolated and individually, which meant a double challenge for those who throughout their career were accostumed to teamwork. All the above entailed a great challenge for university professors, who mostly only knew the experience of traditional and face-to-face teaching, especially those with more years of experience in traditional university education, who showed certain insecurities about their ability to teach virtually. Nevertheless, they began to value the benefits of this opportunity: students being able to access all the time to the material available for learning their subjects, teachers presenting guests from all

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over the world to share their knowledge of the subject, among other examples. Throughout the two—long—years of teaching in Pandemic, there were different obstacles and challenges for both teachers and students, such as: technical difficulties with the virtual learning platform, the erratic pedagogical adaptation of the contents of one modality to another, students turning off the cameras despite the insistent requests of teachers to turn them on, the massive silences in response to teachers’ questions even with cameras on, feelings of uncertainty and of missing “the known real world”, absence of physical contact, the classroom, the blackboard and the chalk. These difficulties were overcome with known and new pedagogical strategies, adjusted especially for this new era, training and accompaniment of teachers and, above all, with a lot of patience, dedication, listening skills, and collaborative work. However, in all this situation there were—among others—some advantages: (1) the Faculty already had the virtual platform Moodle, which although was used only as a repository of materials and reference bibliography, served as a basis to build the virtual teaching of each of the subjects; (2) students, all born in the digital age, quickly adapted to new forms of distance learning and teaching; helping on how to use them and being in many cases advisors to the professors, which is in itself a very interesting experience to observe and analyze. Therefore, between obstacles, uncertainties and challenges, the experience on which this chapter is based has many lessons for the future that are worth being shared.

3 Austral University Context Austral University was born in 1991 and currently has 11 academic units including the Faculty of Business Sciences (FCE), which has more than 700 students in Pilar Campus. The University has a regional vocation to change the social reality in Latin America and to participate in the great debates of Argentina, starting with the local issues of Buenos Aires Province and Pilar Municipality, where the main headquarters are located. The mission of the University is to serve society through the search for

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truth, through the development and transmission of knowledge, training in the virtues and attention of each person according to their transcendent destiny, exercising intellectual, professional, social and public leadership. Moreover, its vision is to become a benchmark for the scientific, educational and transfer contribution, in those disciplines with the greatest impact on the development of society. The Faculty of Business Sciences of the Austral University was born in 2007 in this headquarters and its mission is to provide undergraduate training so that students become professionals with high academic level, ethical sense and strategic vision. Students are able to perform in management, economics and accounting areas of the public and private sector, as well as in civil society organizations. In this Faculty, a teaching approach that reconciles theory and practice is prioritized, with the ultimate goal that students learn to analyze business situations and develop interdisciplinary competencies of an entrepreneurial spirit inside and outside organizations. The academic proposal is made up of four undergraduate degrees: Business Administration, Public Accountant, Business Economics and Digital Business, and is complemented by the postgraduate programs of the IAE Business School. During the Pandemic lockdown Austral University classes were all undertaken virtually. This chapter recovers an experience in an introductory course of Economics of second year, which is a subject in the four undergraduate degrees of the Faculty of Business Sciences.

3.1 Subject Context The topics covered in the course are introduction of micro and macroeconomics. The introduction to microeconomics includes the analysis of the market: demand and supply, elasticities, the theory of consumer behavior, the theory of the producer, the theory of costs and perfect competition equilibrium. The introduction to macroeconomics includes aggregate demand and supply, national accounts, unemployment and inflation, the theory of consumption, saving and investment, and models of international trade. The subject has a 15-week duration and 5 hours per week that comprehend theory and practice, two mid-term and a final exam that includes both micro and macro topics.

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The teaching objectives of the course for 2020 were raised prior to the Pandemic—fundamentally centered on a full face-to-face delivery—but were challenged by virtuality, which was an opportunity to question, transform and enhance them. This encouraged the following actions: (1) Review the objectives and competencies to be developed in the subject, including collaborative work in teams, problem solving and critical thinking to deepen economic analysis and the analytical capacity applied. For these purposes, two actions were taken. In first place, the theoretical content was reviewed and orderly changed to enable students to get used to working virtually. In second place, the practical guides were also reviewed, shortened and changed to concentrate on exercises that responded directly to those objectives and competencies. (2) Improve the daily planning of the subject, continuing with the valuable scheme: the starting of the class (to recover previous knowledge of the students about a specific topic and from there in the construction of knowledge), development (to deepen the content to be presented), and closing of the class (to check the effective understanding of the students). The principal tools were online questions and inverted questions, article discussions in groups with opinions written in murals, conceptual maps designing with a whiteboard to place each theoretical content in the line of thinking, and so on. (3) Incorporate new practices such as to work in teams and recover the knowledge of students related to previous correlative subjects. The teamwork was facilitated by dividing students—both randomly and not randomly—into online groups and entering in each one to observe the dynamics and participation of students. The recovery of knowledge of preceding subjects was also facilitated by the online access to those subjects’ content and classes and by explicitly ­analyzing with students about the tools needed that had been incorporated in those lessons, mainly mathematics and economic history. (4) Incorporate new activities and evaluation tools: a TIC-TAC-TOE activity and 360° feedback model of evaluation. The activity consisted in giving students different activity options in each box of the grid, distinguishing between those mandatory tasks that must be

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solved by everyone and the optional instructions that could be chosen to complete the horizontal, vertical or diagonal row. Among the optional instructions were postcasts, videos, interviews, presentations, and reports. The principal aim was attending diversity. The 360° feedback model to evaluate the activity was aimed to allow students to demonstrate what has been learned with an exercise of personal reflection, overturning the conclusions shared in a collaborative mural. Another evaluation tool that was incorporated was an e-­portfolio that replaced the final exam. This portfolio consisted of mandatory and optional evidence that each student had to recollect during the course. (5) Contemplate the learning, responses and feedback of the students and add new ideas for the next semester. For this objective, the teacher documented every idea, comment and suggestion students manifested during and after classes. This was also complemented by the reflexive questions students answered after each activity, at the end of the semester and during the presentation of the personal portfolio in the final exam. As these experiences in the area of business education are transferable to other areas of knowledge and to different modalities of teaching, this chapter seeks to be a trigger for ideas of effective teaching practices and reflective teaching focused on student learning.

4 Literature Review Siegfried stated that “The primary goal of undergraduate courses in economics is to enable students to think like economists” (Siegfried et al., 1991, p. 199), nevertheless there is an open discussion about what changes are needed in the way of teaching economics in colleges and universities all around the world to enhance the use and appreciation of economic analysis. In order to teach and show the power of economics in this century, economics professors at all levels are called to implement new methodological strategies. For this, it would be useful to think of those that most

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promote the active participation of students. All of this calls to an urgent need to identify and document the challenges and strenghts of undergraduate economics curricula and assess their suitability to meet current student demands. Allgood et al. (2015) affirmed that research in education economics is largely empirical, often focusing on the effectiveness of alternative pedagogies, classroom settings and the effects of grading schemes on student learning and behavior. However, most studies do not provide a theoretical basis for why a change in teaching practice or grading system affects student learning or other outcomes, or how a student is likely to respond to a change. Economics courses are affected by the decisions that instructors make and other factors that influence the conditions under which a course is taught. The usual reason for adopting alternative methods is to get students actively engaged in the learning process because a traditional lecture class is viewed as too passive a form of instruction. In addition to instructor decisions, departmental and institutional policies related to the weight given to teaching in faculty evaluations, teaching loads, teaching experience, and class sizes may influence the use of different teaching methods (Harter et al., 2015). Over the last two decades, a number of academic books and articles have been published describing how teachers can use interactive teaching methods such as discussions, classroom experiments, case studies, cooperative learning, assessment techniques, writing strategies for learning, context-rich problem solving and experiential learning (Walstad et al., 1998; Becker & Watts, 1998; Bergstrom & Miller, 2000; Salemi & Lee Hansen, 2005; Becker et al., 2006; Salemi & Walstad, 2010; Hoyt & McGoldrick, 2012). However, given the difficulties of designing a controlled comparison, there has been a limited amount of research on the effectiveness of different methods of teaching economics, despite passionate advocacy for many of them (Allgood et al., 2015). Throughout the specialized bibliography in economic education, it is shown that the ability to understand and analyze data is a basic requirement for an economist. This process involves collecting, programming,

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visualizing and analyzing data. Teachers have not often paid enough attention to teaching methods that facilitate these skills. While there are difficulties in changing the traditional teaching culture, there is also widespread recognition of the importance of multiple assessments rather than single tests, as well as methods of providing ongoing feedback. In addition to class tests, homework assignments, presentations, group work and oral exams provide other ways to measure learning. Universities must have a voice in curricular decisions. These decisions cannot be arbitrary or casual; they must be based on a transparent set of educational objectives (Rahul & Thomas, 2018). As mentioned in the introduction, one of the methodological proposals presented is peer evaluation. There is growing literature that analyzes the effects of peers in the application of active learning and teaching methodologies. Most of these studies reveal an improvement in academic performance and in the motivation and participation of students. In general, students show a favorable attitude and positively value their experiences with active methodologies. However, Ficano (2019) found a negative impact of flipped learning for students with low math proficiency or belonging to minorities. In a quasi-experimental design, Emerson et al. (2015) found no improvements in learning, interest or attitude in students who engaged in cooperative learning activities compared to those who worked individually. It appears that active learning and teaching methodologies can encourage students to put more effort into studying and these methods also increase students’ motivation without negatively affecting performance or, at best, improving their attitudes toward learning and academic performance; however, the empirical findings are ambiguous. Therefore, further research is needed to provide more rigorous quantitative evidence on the impacts of these methodologies on student outcomes (Abio et al., 2022). In relation to peer assessment, Ibarra-Sáiz et al. (2020) showed how students perceive the practice of peer assessment as an element that favors the development of their skills and how the implementation of participatory diagnosis implies a series of interrelationships between different aspects, highlighting the need to address the improvement of feedback processes and the development of evaluative judgment. In fact, it

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provides a context where evaluation processes are rigorous, credible, objective and participatory, as well as useful and relevant information for the continuous development of peer evaluation practices. Relative to the e-portfolio, Van Wyk (2018) concluded that it is an empowerment tool in the methodology of teaching economics with the potential to be an attractive device to promote self-directed learning. The evidence showed that the objective was achieved, that the e-portfolio is a useful evidence-based approach that promotes student learning. Respondents agreed that an e-portfolio supports economics teaching by using newly acquired course content and teaching practical skills to compile evidence for e-portfolios and promotes a sense of collaboration among students. This work provides qualitative evidence of the positive effects of these methodologies on students’ learning.

5 Methods In this chapter, qualitative ethnographic account is carried out by studying reflective analysis of the teacher’s personal travel log and memorable themes from student reflections during an introductory course of economics. This inquiry allows the understanding of education as a social phenomenon (Creswell, 1994) by analyzing content. Porta and Silva (2003) explained that content analysis as a technique to recollect and analyze data allows arriving at conclusions that may be applied to other scenarios. Moreover, it is important to delve into methodological aspects of the teaching and learning strategies that were put into practice in the course. These strategies arise from the review of the course objectives and seek to introduce innovative practices that promote meaningful learning. The experience was based on four main pedagogical approaches that guided the learning reflections. The first one was Powerful Teaching, based on the proposal of the Argentinian specialist in educational technology, Mariana Maggio (2012), which worked on the fundamental aspects to carry out virtual classes in the context of Pandemic. This original proposal considers teaching as an activity that helps students build themselves as autonomous subjects and as the protagonists of their own learning process. The author presented teaching and learning in such a

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way students can see through teachers’ eyes and transform the way of understanding a topic. That is why Powerful Teaching leaves a lasting mark after both experiences, as a teacher and as a student. In this introductory course of Economics different types of questions helped to work on the fundamental aspects of virtual classes: “icebreaker” questions that allowed teachers and students know each other better at a distance, “reflection” questions that made revision of comprehension easier, and “star” questions that helped students notice how their intuition can, after class, be transformed and developed by technique. In second place, the approach of teaching for diversity and teaching for everyone to learn was also selected (Anijovich, 2014; Perrenoud, 2007). It starts from the conception that all subjects are capable of learning although starting from a set of different characteristics and skills. It proposes that these should be stimulated in the classroom and accompanied to be enhanced offering learning environments that take into account the heterogeneity of the students. Using different ways of organizing spaces, times, groupings, resources, contents and tasks, giving different options and routes that students can choose to achieve a common goal. The approach states that students become the center of the educational process when it is recognized that they bring previous experiences that differ from each other and that relate to different learning styles, interests, cultures and types of intelligence (Gardner, 1993). In this introductory course of Economics, the TIC-TAC-TOE activity responded to the heterogeneity of preferences, interests, and skills of students. They selected different rows attending diversity and not only demonstrated deep understanding but also creative and unexpected outcomes. Between the tasks to fulfill the rows were interviews to economists or businessmen, articles about the interview, podcasts of radio programs with students as economic journalists, newspaper columns about the program, documentary films and reviews, and so on. Thirdly, active teaching strategies were addressed, and specifically, project-based learning (Baquero & Greco, 2007; Kilpatrick, 1917). This proposal states that it is necessary to learn by doing, considering students’ interests as a starting point for teaching and as a key source to put them in contact with reality through concrete experiences. Dewey (1938) referred to the project-based learning method as an activity that requires

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a specific order in which a step leads to another and each of them enriches what is done. In this introductory course of Economics, a project was planned in collaboration with two universities abroad: the Technological University of Monterrey in Mexico (TEC) and the San Francisco University of Quito (USFQ). Both proposals were designed with a collaborative online international learning (COIL) framework and consisted of different projects that responded to socio-economic phenomena related to the countries involved. These experiences were motivated and facilitated by virtuality. Fourthly, making thinking visible and the concept of metacognition were the last approaches addressed. The first one looks forward to integrating the development of students’ thinking with the learning of content from all subjects (Ritchhart & Perkins, 2008; Ritchhart & Church, 2020). The practices that help make thinking visible and freely guide the thought processes of the students and encourage their activity are at the core of this proposal. On the other hand, metacognition implies that students make conscious the cognitive mechanisms that they bring into use when carrying out a learning activity. This is related to the reflection of one’s own learning process (Flavell, 1979). In this course, metacognition was enabled by “powerful” questions that helped students explore and connect topics and conclusions, and also stimulated them to make similar or inverted questions to themselves; and by “routines of thought” that encouraged students to build bridges of knowledge and focus on connection. In relation to the evaluation, new assessment practices to replace the traditional mid-term test were incorporated: peer evaluation based on a TIC-TAC-TOE. ​With the aim of enriching the way of evaluating the TIC-TAC-TOE activity, 360° feedback was implemented to complement the teacher’s evaluation by self-evaluation of each student and the co-evaluation among peers, all using the same checklist as an instrument, with objective criteria and development levels. The 360° feedback model seeks to engage everyone who regularly interacts with the person being tested and to identify strengths and debilities during performance in addition to promoting student’s metacognition and reflection on the learning process itself. In this introductory course of Economics, the co-­ evaluation was scheduled for each group to observe a group that selected

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a different row, and to be observed by another group of a different row as well. This exercise made a different assessment possible: students were observed and had to answer questions of their own partners that shared a common knowledge of the topic—all groups answered together the middle grid during class—but made a different activity, that is to say, a different approach and process. All the reflections of each experience described were turned over by students during the last minutes of class in a shared collaborative mural. With this tool, it was possible to participate anonymously, which allowed students to participate in a more free and inclusive way. In some of them, an oral group reflection after the mural construction was also done. For the final exam, an e-portfolio was implemented. The portfolio is one of the strategies used to promote reflection on the activities of the profession itself. It is also a system of selection and organization of documents that transmits information about the process of reflection and learning of who writes it (Campaña, 2013). Anijovich (2014) stated that the portfolio is a collection of works produced by students that reveal their progress over a certain time and a reflection-based instrument, which allows the evaluation of the learning process and the achievement of the proposed goals. In this introductory course of Economics, the e-portfolio, which consisted of mandatory and optional evidence, gave students the opportunity of collecting different types of evidence of their own personal process of learning each topic instead of content summaries and of making possible mental maps of knowledge that evidenced the path they had been through. At the same time, students made an oral presentation of the evidence which enabled them to justify each evidence election and answer not only specific technical questions but also reflexive ones.

6 Results During the experience, the teacher developed a personal travel log of the course to register reflections, learnings and challenges related to the work carried out by the students in the framework of the new assessment and feedback activities put into practice. In the next paragraphs, these

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narratives are recovered to register and share the results of implementing innovative educational strategies in business undergraduate education. The travel log started with the analysis of course objectives and planning. The teacher specified the decision of renovating the program focus, to promote deeper learning, teamwork and knowledge building based on students previous experiences and related subjects. It was also stated that planning was transformative as a teacher and discovered that having a simple but powerful scheme for each class with a starting point, a development and a closing was enough to achieve a more orderly teaching task. This practice allowed the incorporation of learning from previous experiences to the new planning and add activities and resources to give meaning to the theoretical content. In this line, these first decisions allowed the teacher to develop a way of working where the starting point and the next steps of students’ learning were clear, weaving sense between classes. Through different activities aligned with valuable competences such as collaborative work, problem solving and critical thinking, the teacher created an environment of flexibility and autonomy for students. Other innovative pedagogical strategies implemented to promote students’ protagonism and engagement reflections were registered in the travel log during students’ presentation of the work done in the TIC-­ TAC-­TOE assessment, not only on the exercises resolution but also in the instance where students share their work to their classmates. The teacher stated that, although she had high expectations, students widely exceeded them. Moreover, students’ reflections in the collaborative mural showed that it was a rich experience for them. In fact, they affirmed that the activity allowed them to “share questions and thoughts with the working squad, do deep research and learn in a more dynamic way, putting into practice our knowledge and choosing freely” (Student post in the mural). This assessment practice showed that students were good evaluators as they addressed in detail the proposals of their peers and reflected on their own practices. They also achieved a very satisfactory level of progress in economic analysis. In relation to this, one of their reflections evidenced that: “applying theory to a real example and case of study forces you to understand because you have to explain it, analyze different perspectives and identify the variables” (Student post in the mural). As unexpected

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outcomes, students learned to assess themselves and achieve rich peer mark practices. In addition, they could practice to ask good questions, which is highly important to the learning process. The teacher also obtained some lessons related to the benefits of putting into practice these types of activities which take them and students out of the traditional comfort zone. Students’ choices in the TIC-TAC-­ TOE activity and the way they presented their work allowed the teacher to get to know which type of digital tools, slide presentations and class rhythm students liked the most. This instance also showed the diversity that characterizes a group of students. Their presentations and choices evidenced different learning styles and all of them were theoretically solid. The 360° feedback model also provided new learning opportunities for teachers. In first place, defining objective criteria was not an easy task and some mistakes only showed up in practice. Indeed, working with the checklist evidenced that it may be interesting to include within the criteria one that refers to the style of the presentation itself, to promote creativity combined with quality. The teacher also affirmed that it was difficult to evaluate group cooperation—this criteria was the one with less comments and suggestions—, so it should be reviewed. In second place, in relation to the way feedback was delivered the teacher wondered if it was richer that students evaluated groups who worked with the same TIC-TAC-TOE row than with a different one. In the first edition, this was a random distribution but in the second edition, this was intentionally scheduled. Lastly, the teacher identified that it may not be convenient that students shared the numeric self-assessment orally with their peers, because this could cause an uncomfortable moment for them or condition their decision. Lastly, it is worth sharing some results regarding the e-portfolio experience. The teacher found that this new form of evaluation was a valuable opportunity to overcome problems associated with the traditional evaluation method, for example, evaluations that are very much alike to the mid-term ones and do not challenge students, or that have been copied by them. Instead, the oral presentations of the e-portfolios challenged students to make a complete review of contents, competences, and techniques incorporated. Students demonstrated strong commitment and pride for what they had achieved. In the collaborative mural, they

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explained: “I am very happy with the work achieved with my team, I liked the dynamic and I think we managed to organize ourselves well and we fulfilled our objective” (Student post in the mural). At the same time, teachers’ journey evidenced that new assessment practices must be complemented with institutional systems. In this case, portfolio feedback required a logic that was difficult to merge with the institutional mark completing. The teacher wrote a personal email with each case details, what is not scalable to bigger courses and also needed to give away students marks in a time lapse that was uncoordinated with the e-portfolio learning process. Getting deeper into the portfolio pedagogical impact itself, the teacher found it relevant to share its objectives, sense, and steps with students several times along the course. That is how, the teacher affirmed, it increased students’ commitment with the task. Nevertheless, it was necessary to generate a way of tracking students’ progress during the learning process to fight the risk of working by pressure near the deadline. Even so, it is important that these aspects do not undermine course flexibility. In relation to collaborative teaching with foreign universities, one important result was the development of skills needed to work with people from another culture in order to create shared solutions to a same problem. Students’ reflections evidenced that “it was challenging to face the diversity of views on the same topic, the same issues were approached from very different perspectives” (Student post in the mural). Another important result was the application of the competencies developed throughout the course that allowed students to apply the content to make deep analysis or contribution to a real phenomenon.

7 Conclusions The whole experience shared in this chapter allowed the teacher and other faculty members to see the contextual circumstances of the pandemic as an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of innovation, teacher reflection, flexibility in planning, and formative assessment in order to achieve deep learning for students, whether in virtual or face-to-face teaching.

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It also allowed reaffirming the centrality of the student in the entire planning process of the subject, and attending to their specific learning needs in a context of social uncertainty and virtual teaching. Indeed, students highly valued and provided spontaneous feedback to the teacher on the methodology, highlighting the positive aspects of the strategies implemented during their final exams. As an unexpected result, the reflection on this positive experience driven by the pandemic allowed the teacher to fine-tune the TIC-TAC-­ TOE and 360° feedback strategies with new ideas and implement other innovative strategies. Some examples are teaching in collaboration with foreign universities and designing an e-portfolio developed throughout the course, with the aim of also transforming the final exam into one aligned with formative assessment practices. This work shows abundant evidence of the impact of student-centerd teaching aproach on student learning and understanding, thus fulfilling the objectives set at the beginning of the subject. This experience also contributes to the phenomenography of teaching in business schools as well as to a better understanding of the teaching experience in management. A limitation of this work is that it was not thought as a research project from the beginning, which is why it could present certain methodological weaknesses since the information was systematized for later presentation. Despite such weaknesses, the approach proves to be solid and valid. In fact, this experience was shared with other faculty teacher’s colleagues who adapted the 360° Feedback and TIC-TAC-TOE strategies to put them into practice in subjects such as business law or macroeconomics. Despite interesting experiences of teaching Economics online before COVID-19 Pandemic (Gratton-Lavoie & Stanley, 2009; CavigliaHarris, 2016) and the extensive brand new researches related to online teaching practices and the effectiveness of the educational process during COVID-19 Pandemic, there is not enough evidence of the specific practices of teaching Economics online. The present work looks forward for more evidence to be adapted or utilized for future cohorts and contexts. As further research, it would be interesting to know in greater depth the perceptions of students regarding these learning experiences and the

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development of their skills. Likewise, it would be of interest to evaluate and measure the long-term impact of these learning experiences on the development of students both in their careers and in their professional future.

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Gamification for Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Nibu John Thomas and Rupashree Baral

1 Introduction Learner engagement is essential for high-quality learning outcomes and paramount in “learner-centric” approaches (Noe et al., 2010). However, switching to an online learning model triggered due to the pandemic negatively affected engagement (Bergdahl & Nouri, 2021; Maimaiti et al., 2021). Presumably, this shift to online modes may become a new normal (Stevens et  al., 2021), as online learning may continue post-­ pandemic. Therefore, ensuring engagement is one of the crucial aspects to consider while discussing new learning approaches, which demands the study of different methods that promote learning engagement (Noe et al., 2010). Gamification, defined as the “use of game design elements in non-­ game contexts” (Deterding et  al., 2011, p.  9), is a novel approach for enhancing engagement and motivation among users in various contexts (de Sousa Borges et al., 2014; Deterding et al., 2011; Fitz-Walter et al., N. J. Thomas (*) • R. Baral Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_10

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2012; Huotari & Hamari, 2012, 2017; Liu et al., 2017; Werbach, 2014), such as, learning (Thomas et al., 2022), healthcare (Wiegard & Breitner, 2019), marketing (Xi & Hamari, 2020), and crowdsourcing (Orrego & Barbosa, 2019). Recent evidence suggests that gamification is effective for both synchronous (Gennari et al., 2017; Huber et al., 2021; Zainuddin et al., 2021; Thomas & Baral, 2023) and asynchronous learning (Ding, 2019; Linganna et al., 2020; Peng et al., 2021). In various synchronous and asynchronous learning modes, gamification has affective benefits such as increased engagement (Ding, 2019) and enjoyment (Gennari et al., 2017), as well as cognitive benefits such as better learning outcomes (Peng et al., 2021) and improved knowledge (Linganna et al., 2020). Although gamification has been found to play a significant role in both synchronous and asynchronous learning, its insights are limited and scattered. Hence, this chapter consolidates the existing literature on gamification for synchronous and asynchronous learning and presents four emergent research themes regarding its effectiveness, mechanism, outcomes, and theoretical basis. The structure of the chapter is as follows. The subsequent section narrates the concept of gamification in terms of its origin and conceptualization, while the section that follows examines four emergent themes, namely, effectiveness, mechanisms, outcomes, and theoretical basis. Finally, the chapter concludes with the implications and suggestions for future research directions.

2 The Concept of Gamification Gamification is effective in various learning settings (Dicheva et al., 2015; Thomas et al., 2022). One of the earliest (Meister, 2013) and most popular example of gamification is from the Deloitte Leadership Academy (DLA), which integrated gamification into their learning platform, which will be briefly described for understanding the concept of gamification. DLA has embedded missions, leaderboards, and badges into a user-­ friendly platform with in-depth courses, video lectures, quizzes, and tests. When a user signs up for a training program, they must watch a three-­ minute video first, which explains how to use the website and how they can personalize their learning priorities. This is the first mission that is

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termed the onboarding mission, after which, a user gets an ‘onboarding badge’ (Deloitte, 2022; Meister, 2013; Wanick & Bui, 2019). DLA also allows users to connect their training profile with their LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. After each learning module, the user gets badges. They also get specific ‘secret’ badges termed ‘Snowflake’ once they earn specific exceptional achievements. For example, if all members of a team watched a particular training video in a week, then all of them will be rewarded with a snowflake badge. Another game element DLA uses is the ‘leaderboard,’ which displays the top scorers in each level rather than the overall toppers, thus motivating every user in each level. Moreover, the leaderboard resets every week, giving each user a fresh chance to win. This approach ensures that someone who missed a few weeks of training due to vacation or travel has the option of becoming a topper again, thereby encouraging them to participate again (Deloitte, 2022; Meister, 2013; Wanick & Bui, 2019). Deloitte found that an average user earns three badges by completing the required learning programs. Deloitte witnessed more people complete the training programs and show addictive behavior after gamification. There was also a 37 percent increase in the number of people returning to the site every week (Meister, 2013; Wanick & Bui, 2019). A few famous and successful early examples of smartphone applications that were attributed to gamification are Nike+ and Foursquare (Looyestyn et al., 2017). In Nike+, users get rewards after each physical task, and in Foursquare, they get rewards while visiting a physical location. Other examples include DirectTV, which enhanced interest in learning among its employees, Ford Fusion and Toyota Prius, which motivated fuel economy, and Quora, which encouraged its users to create content (Liu et al., 2017). Gamification is used in education in a wide range of contexts, such as flipped classrooms and smartphone-based learning platforms, which is further explained in the section on the effectiveness of gamification.

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3 Origin: From Games to Gamification The concept of gamification is rooted in the idea of games, and that the principles extracted from games are the fundamental building blocks of gamification (de Sousa Borges et al., 2014; Deterding et al., 2011; Fitz-­ Walter et al., 2012; Huotari & Hamari, 2012, 2017; Liu et al., 2017; Werbach, 2014). According to Caillois (2001), a game is a separate, free (non-obligatory), make-believe (fictitious) activity, which is mostly unproductive and governed by rules. The objective of gamification is to take the design elements from these ‘unproductive’ games and use them in productive contexts such as learning, healthcare, or business. After comparing many definitions, Salen and Zimmerman (2004, p. 80) summarized the game as “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.” The central characteristics of games, according to Vesa et al. (2017), are (1) voluntary participation, (2) alternative reality, and (3) artificial limitation. 1. Voluntary participation: Playing in a game is based on voluntary participation. This way, a game is different from professional sports. Thus, voluntarism is a central character of the game. 2. Alternative reality: The players are taken away from their daily life into a different reality for as long as they decide to get involved. Thus, the game allows them to assume a meaning within the boundaries of that game. This idea is referred to as the ‘magic circle’. 3. Artificial limitation: Games have specific rules which limit the manipulation of game objects, the achievement of game objectives and even the sanctioning of the breaches of limits. These limits make games more enjoyable and give them an overall structure. Players of a game must adhere to these limits during the game. Furthermore, Huotari and Hamari (2017) have classified the components of games into different levels of abstraction. The first level of abstraction has aspects common to all games. It includes the interacting sets of actors and mechanisms (systemic conditions) and involves at least one player (experiential conditions). In the second level of abstraction,

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characteristics that do not necessarily exist in all games are included. This level comprises of game design elements such as rules, uncertain outcomes, and conflicting goals (systemic conditions). Moreover, it also has hedonic experiences, suspense, flow, mastery, and competence (experiential conditions). The third level is used to showcase that no aspect is “unique to games” alone (Huotari & Hamari, 2017). Various game attributes were analyzed to formulate the well-known Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) framework (Hunicke et  al., 2004). Mechanics refers to the particular components in a game, dynamics refers to the run-time behavior, and aesthetics refers to the evoked emotional responses. Vesa et  al. (2017) summarized these as three elements of games: rules, system, and fun, respectively. While voluntary participation is one of the main characteristics of games, gamification is undertaken to create a game-like environment in formal settings like education, where participation might be mandatory sometimes (de Sousa Borges et  al., 2014; Deterding et  al., 2011; Fitz-­ Walter et al., 2012; Huotari & Hamari, 2012, 2017; Liu et al., 2017; Werbach, 2014). However, perceived autonomy is a crucial aspect of gamified learning (Thomas et al., 2022).

4 Gamification: Concept and Domain As mentioned above, the domain of gamification is founded on the concept of games. However, gamification has also been enriched by various other disciplines, including Information Systems, Service Marketing, Human Resource Management (HRM), and Organizational Behavior. According to Suh et  al. (2017), information systems research has changed its focus from utilitarian values such as effectiveness, usefulness, and productivity to hedonic values such as fun, playfulness, and enjoyment. Hence, they argue, gamification is an outgrowth of this change of focus in information systems research from utilitarian to hedonic values. The initial definition of gamification by Huotari and Hamari (2012) and its modified form in 2017 is anchored in the domain of service marketing. They consider gamification as a service. Cardador et al. (2017) have pointed out gamification as a new tool in performance management in

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the Human Resource Management (HRM) domain, with some modifications to certain practices already in use. Luthans and Youssef-Morgan (2017) identified gamification as a novel technique in the study of Organizational Behavior, with tremendous potential for Positive Organizational Behavior due to its positive orientation. To quote the authors, in gamification, “the emphasis is on motivation, rewards, and development of strengths and personal, social, and psychological resources, which align with positive psychological principles (p.  360).” All these points highlight the ample attention that gamification has received from different disciplines, and that, it is getting enriched by various researchers. The contributions from different disciplines have made gamification an interdisciplinary subject, and hence, it has been defined from various perspectives. From these definitions, we can identify gamification 1) as a process, 2) game elements as its most essential component, and 3) enhancing experiential and instrumental outcomes as its two broad objectives (de Sousa Borges et  al., 2014; Deterding et  al., 2011; Fitz-­ Walter et al., 2012; Huotari & Hamari, 2012, 2017; Liu et al., 2017; Werbach, 2014). Deterding et al. (2011) point out that gamification is connected to games and not to play. Play is a broader category, whereas a game refers to “playing structured by rules and competitive strife toward goals” (p. 11). They point out that the term “gamefulness” denotes the qualities of gaming, and is a “systematic complement” to the term ‘playfulness’ (p. 11) They also emphasize that gamification uses certain game design elements, but is not a full-fledged game. Gamification has received wide attention from users, researchers, and industry practitioners in the last few years (de Sousa Borges et al., 2014; Deterding et  al., 2011; Fitz-Walter et  al., 2012; Huotari & Hamari, 2012, 2017; Liu et  al., 2017; Werbach, 2014). According to Google Trends, searches for gamification have rapidly increased since 2011 (Google Trends, 2022), indicating its increasing popularity among users and the general public. Similarly, according to a Scopus analysis, academic research in gamification has been steadily increasing from 2011 onward (Scopus, 2022). Furthermore, gamification market is expected to grow exponentially in the years ahead (Forbes, 2022). The global

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gamification market “is predicted to rise from $9.1 billion in 2020 up to $30.7 billion in 2025” (Forbes, 2022).

5 Gamification Research: Emergent Themes As discussed, gamification has received wide acceptance from 2011 onward and a corresponding upsurge in its research. A review of extant literature reveals four emerging themes on gamification for synchronous and asynchronous learning, including research on the effectiveness of gamification, different components of gamification, outcomes of gamification, and its theoretical underpinnings.

5.1 Effectiveness of Gamification One of the emerging themes of gamification research is exploring various contexts in which gamification can be implemented. Initially, the focus was to prove the effectiveness of gamification as a concept in general. As more and more empirical studies brought positive findings (Aldemir et  al., 2018; Armstrong & Landers, 2017; Dale, 2014; Hamari et  al., 2014; Seaborn & Fels, 2014), the focus now shifted to specifically proving its effectiveness in various sub-contexts (Doumanis et  al., 2019; Koivisto & Hamari, 2019; Park & Kim, 2020; Wolf et al., 2020). The contexts in which gamification can be used are growing at a fast pace (Koivisto & Hamari, 2019). A growing body of research continues to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification in various contexts and sub-­ contexts (Thomas et al., 2022). Many researchers have summarized the contexts in which gamification can be used. Huotari and Hamari (2017) identified the various contexts in which gamification has been employed and researched, such as, commerce, education, healthcare, and logistics. Suh et al. (2017) enumerated a few more contexts, such as education, training, crowdsourcing, marketing, and healthcare. Research on evaluating the usability of gamification in many other contexts is in progress. Many researchers have been conducting specific studies to check the impact of gamification on more

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specific scenarios. Thomas et  al. (2022) recently pointed out that employee learning, task performance, and employee wellness are the three main areas in organizations where gamification is used. Landers et al. (2018) even stated that “gamification could theoretically be applied to an infinite number of domains” (p. 9). Recent evidence also suggests gamification is effective for synchronous (Gennari et al., 2017; Huber et al., 2021; Zainuddin et al., 2021; Thomas & Baral, 2023) and asynchronous learning (Ding, 2019; Linganna et al., 2020; Peng et  al., 2021), suggesting increased use of gamification in learning. Gamification has affective benefits such as increased engagement (Ding, 2019) and enjoyment (Gennari et  al., 2017), along with cognitive benefits such as better learning outcomes (Peng et al., 2021) and improved knowledge (Linganna et al., 2020) in various synchronous and asynchronous learning modes. Gamification has been found to be effective in various settings such as flipped classrooms (Zainuddin et al., 2021), web-based (Peng et al., 2021), and smartphone-based (Linganna et al., 2020) learning platforms. In the case of synchronous learning, gamification effectively increases learner engagement when used in online learning (Gennari et al., 2017; Huber et al., 2021) and in flipped classrooms (Zainuddin et al., 2021). It was found that gamification promotes a sense of control, progression, and collaboration among learners (Gennari et al., 2017). Similarly, in the case of asynchronous learning (Ding, 2019), gamification is effective when used on web-based platforms (Peng et  al., 2021), as well as smartphone-­ based platforms (Linganna et  al., 2020). Gamification enhances competency-based learning outcomes (Peng et al., 2021) and improves knowledge (Linganna et al., 2020). Furthermore, it was found that gamification increases student engagement in online discussions in asynchronous online learning (Ding, 2019). It was found that gamification also builds a sense of community among students (Ding, 2019). Even though gamification is effective in numerous contexts and has wide popularity (de Sousa Borges et  al., 2014; Deterding et  al., 2011; Fitz-Walter et al., 2012; Huotari & Hamari, 2012, 2017; Liu et al., 2017; Werbach, 2014); it is a process that “attempts” to create a unique game-­ like experience. Not all attempts may create this unique experience,

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resulting in gamification failure. Many instances of gamification failure have been reported (Berkling & Thomas, 2013; Larson, 2020), however, there might be many more unreported failures (Thomas et  al., 2022), which demands further research.

5.2 Mechanism of Gamification: Components and Frameworks Another emerging theme examines the mechanism of gamification for synchronous and asynchronous learning. As mentioned above, the basic building blocks of gamification are termed “game elements,” and have been identified and consolidated through various research studies. Moreover, the process of gamification, that is, the ideal way of incorporating these elements, has also been studied by different researchers (Deterding, 2015; Landers et al., 2017; Sandeep & Girish, 2020). The most popular game elements are points, levels, and badges (Koivisto & Hamari, 2019). “Points,” the most commonly used game element in gamification act as a scoring mechanism. Badges are special rewards received after a specific goal is achieved, which usually marks the completion of that activity. Levels indicate the position at which a player stands in a gamified context. Deterding et al. (2011) treat game elements as the features or building blocks “shared” by games in general. They emphasize that game elements should have a significant role in “gameplay.” Suh et al. (2017) point out how the same game design element can be used in different ways by different players. According to them, the popular game element ‘points’, for example, can be used by different users in different ways. One player may use points to obtain more rewards, whereas another may use them to track their personal performance or to compare with others. Similarly, one player may perceive “levels” as a challenge, whereas another may perceive it as a kind of reward. Deterding et  al. (2011) identified different levels of abstractions in gamification. They list five groups on the basis of the levels of abstraction, which range from the concrete to the abstract. They include “Interface design patterns; game design patterns or game mechanics; design

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principles, heuristics or ‘lenses’; conceptual models of game design units; game design methods and design processes” (p. 12). Suh et  al. (2017) state that there are four significant affordances of gamification: self-expression, status, rewards, and competition. (1) Self-­ expression permits a player to create a unique self-identity within a gamified system. (2) Status, on the other hand, modifies their position as they achieve specific pre-defined goals or milestones. (3) Rewards refer to what players achieve when they complete a prefixed task. (4) Competition enables players to compare their performance with that of the other players. As stated previously, the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) is one of the most popular frameworks in game development. Similarly, MDA is popular among gamification designers as well. Through a review of various frameworks, Liu et al. (2017) found that the MDA framework is foundational for many of the context-specific frameworks developed for gamification. Liu et al. (2017) found that there is a divergent understanding of the term ‘Mechanics,’ one of the components of the MDA framework. They have further classified game elements into two broad groups: gamification objects and mechanics. They describe gamification objects as the basic building blocks of a gamified system, which include items, scripts, characters, and visual assets. They redefine gamification mechanics as the rules governing the interaction between players and game objects. As already stated, game dynamics comprise of mechanics along with the action the player takes, which results in player–system interaction. Aesthetics has also been redefined as the emotions evoked.

5.3 Outcomes of Gamification: Instrumental and Experiential The third emerging theme of gamification research concerns the various outcomes of gamification. This research stream is relatively recent compared to the other two streams, so it calls for further research. Existing research identifies two types of gamification outcomes: instrumental and

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experiential (Liu et al., 2017). Landers et al. (2018) classified the outcomes as the distal and the psychological state. In this section, we will discuss these outcomes. Liu et  al. (2017) identified instrumental and experiential outcomes as the overarching goals of gamification. They state that identifying instrumental outcomes is a straightforward task as it depends on the context in which gamification is implemented. Landers et al. (2018) identified distal outcomes as the designer’s targeted goals when implementing gamification. The instrumental outcome has also been described as the overall value creation of gamification (Huotari & Hamari, 2017). Thus, it is clear that the instrumental outcomes, distal outcomes, and overall value creation are three terms indicating the final goal of gamification. Researchers have pointed out a few examples for the instrumental outcome. If gamification is implemented in the context of learning, the instrumental outcome may be “learning.” In other words, the instrumental outcome is nothing but the targeted goal of the specific gamification, which depends directly on the context (Landers et al., 2018). As mentioned above, Liu et al. (2017) state that experiential outcomes are one of the two overarching goals of gamification, which are less clear than the instrumental outcomes. Similarly, Landers et  al. (2018) have identified the psychological state in gamification as a mediator between gamification and distal outcomes. According to Huotari and Hamari (2017), the unique outcome of gamification is “gameful” experience (Thomas et al., In Press). Hence, we find that experiential outcome, psychological state, and gameful experience refer to the unique experiential / psychological outcomes of gamification. Researchers have also used the terms gameful design and gamefulness (Deterding et al., 2011). Liu et al. (2017) consider the instrumental and experiential outcomes as parallel, whereas Landers et al. (2018) consider outcomes as sequential, in which the distal outcomes follow the psychological state(s). While further research is required for more conclusive evidence, it is obvious that irrespective of the nature of the relationship, these two outcomes: instrumental and experiential, should be the focus of gamification research.

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5.4 Theoretical Basis of Gamification: Flow Experience Another foundational theme of gamification research is the examination of its theoretical underpinnings. While various theories can explain gamification, the theory of flow experience explains its use in the context of synchronous and asynchronous learning to a great extent. The concept of flow experience was propagated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990). He pointed out that happiness is a fundamental human need, identified even from the time of Aristotle. However, he argues that we have not understood how to attain this condition, even though we all experience it on rare occasions. The condition of feeling a sense of exhilaration or a deep sense of enjoyment could be considered an optimal experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Csikszentmihalyi studied people in different geographies, such as Korea, the Alps, India, Thailand, and Chicago, who worked as assembly line workers, farmers, and shepherds. Based on the study, he developed the theory of optimal experience. His studies identified nine elements of flow comprising of clear goals, immediate feedback, skill-challenge match, deep concentration, forgetting problems, the possibility of control, loss of self-consciousness, altered time, and autotelic experience. These elements were later classified into flow conditions and outcomes. Clear goals, skillchallenge match, the possibility of control, and immediate feedback are considered to be the conditions for flow. Flow outcomes include deep concentration, forgetting problems, loss of self-­consciousness, and altered time (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 2014; Hamari & Koivisto, 2014). As mentioned above, one of the explicit aims of gamification is to create gamefulness (gameful experience) or a ‘game-like’ scenario. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) established that games give opportunities to surpass the ordinary experience by letting individuals move toward the flow state (Thomas et al., In Press). He also stated that one of the primary objectives of the concept of flow is to explore how to convert everyday acts into meaningful games for creating optimal experiences. This argument points to the connections between gamefulness and flow. According to Huotari and Hamari (2017), flow is an expected outcome of

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gamification (Thomas et al., In Press). Moreover, research has also found a significant correlation between flow conditions and gamification (Hamari & Koivisto, 2014; Thomas et al., 2019).

6 Implications and Future Research Directions in Gamification Existing empirical evidence from various studies shows that gamification has had an impact in many contexts (Aldemir et al., 2018; Hamari et al., 2014; Koivisto & Hamari, 2019; Warmelink et al., 2020), especially in the context of education that uses synchronous and asynchronous learning (Dicheva et al., 2015; Ding et al., 2020; Featherstone & Habgood, 2019; Ioannou, 2019). The current review of the empirical evidence on gamification for synchronous and asynchronous learning approaches suggests that gamified platforms can bring about desired behavioral changes in learners. Hence, instructors need to know the underpinnings of gamification and its mechanism. While theories of motivation attempt to explain the phenomenon of motivation, gamification is the design solution to achieve it (Thomas et al., In Press). This chapter, therefore, presents gamification as an essential requirement while designing a new learning model. Academicians can utilize the insights presented in this chapter to create evidence-based gamification. Furthermore, this review of the existing research in gamification points out the need for more rigorous research in many areas of gamification. Similarly, research in this area has stated that we are yet to articulate the term “gameful experience” (Eppmann et al., 2018; Högberg et al., 2019; Huotari & Hamari, 2017). Similarly, research on experiential outcomes has significant value for both academics and practice. A deeper understanding of the experiential outcomes will enable us to conceptualize them better. Such a conceptualization is essential for measuring and managing gamification in learning. Similarly, examining the current assumptions on the sustainability of gamification will also open a broader arena for gamification in academics and practice.

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7 Conclusion Games are primarily for entertainment; hence, enjoyment or fun is central to any game. A player may work or learn a lot while playing a game, but they may still consider it to be pure joy. This ability to convert an activity into an experience of pure joy makes games worth researching. While modern organizations aim to make learning more enjoyable, such research in games for understanding the mechanics of converting learning into an ‘experience of joy’ will be of great value. Gamification can engage learners in both synchronous and asynchronous learning modes, if designed and implemented correctly. Thus, engaging a learner is one of the values gamification can offer. The current challenge of failures in gamification (Baxter et al., 2016; Dichev & Dicheva, 2017) that occur due to design issues and implementation concerns could be resolved by gaining more profound insights into the phenomenon of gamification.

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Liu, D., Santhanam, R., & Webster, J. (2017). Toward meaningful engagement: A framework for design and research of gamified information systems. MIS Quarterly, 41(4), 1011–1034. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-­014-­0173-­7.2 Looyestyn, J., Kernot, J., Boshoff, K., Ryan, J., Edney, S., & Maher, C. (2017). Does gamification increase engagement with online programs? A systematic review. PLoS ONE, 12(3) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173403 Luthans, F., & Youssef-Morgan, C.  M. (2017). Psychological capital: An evidence-­based positive approach. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4(1), 339–366. https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev-­orgpsych-­032516-­113324 Maimaiti, G., Jia, C., & Hew, K.  F. (2021). Student disengagement in web-­ based videoconferencing supported online learning: An activity theory perspective. Interactive Learning Environments. https://doi.org/10.108 0/10494820.2021.1984949 Meister, J.  C. (2013). How Deloitte made learning a game. Harvard Business Review. Noe, R. A., Tews, M. J., & Dachner, A. M. (2010). Learner engagement: A new perspective for enhancing our understanding of learner motivation and workplace learning. Academy of Management Annals, 4(1), 279–315. https:// doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2010.493286 Orrego, R. B. S., & Barbosa, J. L. V. (2019). A model for resource management in smart cities based on crowdsourcing and gamification. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 25, 1018–1038. Park, C., & Kim, D. (2020). Perception of instructor presence and its effects on learning experience in online classes. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 19, 475–488. https://doi.org/10.28945/4611 Peng, C. R., Schertzer, K. A., Caretta-Weyer, H. A., Sebok-Syer, S. S., Lu, W., Tansomboon, C., & Gisondi, M. A. (2021). Assessment of entrustable professional activities using a web-based simulation platform during transition to emergency medicine residency: Mixed methods pilot study. JMIR Medical Education, 7(4) https://doi.org/10.2196/32356 Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. 2004. In Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 15295030802468081 Sandeep, A., & Girish, D. (2020). Endogen: Framework for designing endogenous educational games. http://www.digra.org/wp-­content/uploads/digital-­library/ DiGRA_2020_paper_38.pdf

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Scopus. (2022). Scopus. https://www.scopus.com/results/results.uri?sort=plf-­ f&src=s&st1=gamifi*&sid=f3c1c16c06e6130fa0f3cbb210b5d6bc&sot=b& sdt=b&sl=22&s=TITLE-­ABS-­KEY%28gamifi*%29&origin=searchbasic&e ditSaveSearch=&yearFrom=Before+1960&yearTo=Present Seaborn, K., & Fels, D. I. (2014). Gamification in theory and action: A survey. Journal of Human Computer Studies, 74, 14–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijhcs.2014.09.006 Stevens, G. J., Bienz, T., Wali, N., Condie, J., & Schismenos, S. (2021). Online university education is the new normal: But is face-to-face better? Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 18(3), 278–297. https://doi.org/10.1108/ ITSE-­08-­2020-­0181/FULL/HTML Suh, A., Cheung, C. M. K., Ahuja, M., & Wagner, C. (2017). Gamification in the workplace: The central role of the aesthetic experience. Journal of Management Information Systems, 34(1), 268–305. https://doi.org/10.108 0/07421222.2017.1297642 Thomas, N.  J., Baral, R., & Crocco, O.  S. (2022). Gamification for HRD: Systematic review and future research directions. Human Resource Development Review, 15344843221074859. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 15344843221074859 Thomas, N.  J., Baral, R., & Dey, C. (2019). Gamification through flow: Exploring the mechanism in gamification of learning. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019(1), 16857. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019. 16857abstract Thomas, N. J., & Baral, R. (2023). Mechanism of gamification: Role of flow in the behavioral and emotional pathways of engagement in management education. The International Journal of Management Education, 21(1), 100718. Thomas, N. J., Baral, R., Crocco, O. S., & Mohanan, S. (In Press). A Framework for Gamification: How Designers Envision Gameful Experience. The Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Vesa, M., Hamari, J., Harviainen, J. T., & Warmelink, H. (2017). Computer games and organization studies. Organization Studies, 38(2), 273–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616663242 Wanick, V., & Bui, H. (2019). Gamification in management: Analysis and research directions. International Journal of Serious Games, 6(2), 57–74. Warmelink, H., Koivisto, J., Mayer, I., Vesa, M., & Hamari, J. (2020). Gamification of production and logistics operations: Status quo and future directions. Journal of Business Research, 106, 331–340. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.09.011

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Pivoting to Online Experiential Learning During the Pandemic: Three Leadership Exercises Paul Balwant

1 Introduction Leadership can and should be learned. Leadership is not an innate set of traits, but something that exists external to the body—outside of oneself (Brooks & Chapman, 2018). Therefore, leadership can belong to anyone. This conceptualization, along with a wealth of evidence linking leadership to specific attributes, skills, and actions, indicates that leadership is a process (Northouse, 2019). Processes can be learned, but should the process of leadership be learned? Over the past few years, the media has bombarded us with stories of ‘bad’ leaders in business, government, sports, religious organizations, and society (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Stover & Seemiller, 2017). These stories point to the need for leadership education, and thus it is no surprise that higher education institutions are increasingly offering leadership courses and programs (Sowcik, 2012). Empirically, such

P. Balwant (*) The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_11

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leadership courses and programs are associated with increased retention and graduation rates, civic responsibility, leadership skills and capacity, community orientation, and social responsibility (Dugan & Komives, 2010; Guthrie & Bovio, 2014; Soria et al., 2013; Soria & Werner, 2018). Therefore, not only can leadership be learned, but there are also convincing arguments supporting leadership development. What then, is the best approach to leadership education?

2 Leadership Education and Experiential Learning Leadership studies is an academic discipline that cannot rely solely on passive forms of teaching and learning (Page et al., 2021; Sowcik, 2012). Traditional teaching methods such as lectures promote leadership literacy, rather than leadership competence (Allio, 2005). While leadership literacy is important, employers often criticize business curricula for being too heavily focused on teaching theory and not providing sufficient experiences and skill development (Schlegelmilch & Thomas, 2011). Hence, leadership education must shift its focus from surface learning approaches (i.e., rote learning and memorization) to deep learning approaches (Stover & Seemiller, 2017). Deep learning involves students understanding the underlying meaning of content and being able to relate the content to prior knowledge and/or experience (Marton & Saljo, 1997). Deep learning is particularly important for leadership learning because students need to be able to conduct critical self-examination, critique their own actions and those of others, interact with others, and reflect on the impact of leadership behaviors (Roberts, 2007). This type of learning environment can nurture the development of leadership skills and competencies that prepare business students for the demands of work. Specifically, deep learning approaches can close knowing-doing gaps, which is important not only for holistic student development but also because employers are increasingly emphasizing leadership capabilities such as communication, interpersonal skills, teamwork, problem-solving, and people management

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over academic grades (Page et al., 2021; Ritter et al., 2018). One way to facilitate deep learning in leadership studies is through experiential learning. Experiential learning is a process that involves the creation of knowledge via a grasping and transforming concrete experience (D. A. Kolb, 1984). Experiential learning is composed of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting (A. Y. Kolb & Kolb, 2005). Unlike traditional teaching methods such as lectures, concrete experiences allow learners to engage in deliberate acts of leadership to become leaders (Allio, 2005). Here, leadership students must deal with real-life leadership problems to create a more meaningful learning environment (Morrison et al., 2003). Concrete experiences, as implied by the term, are typically facilitated via tangible face-to-face interactions (e.g., role-plays, internships, challenging managerial assignments, etc.). In the field of leadership, there is a moderate and growing body of research on teaching leadership concepts via experiential learning in face-to-face environments (Lewis & Grosser, 2012; Page et al., 2021; Rashford & de Figueiredo, 2011). However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive shift to online education, creating a gap between research on teaching leadership via face-to-face experiential learning and the practice of teaching leadership via remote/ online experiential learning. In light of this gap, the present chapter outlines three novel leadership experiential learning exercises that can be conducted online. All three exercises reverse the learning process to encourage students to explore and act as they would in real-life in order to make errors and learn from them (Morrison et  al., 2003). Therefore, experiential learning is combined with error management training; the latter has been shown to lead to better training outcomes than error-avoidant training (Keith & Frese, 2008). The first exercise is a crisis leadership activity that utilizes real-life scenarios and a playbook to teach students the complexities of external corporate communications in a crisis (Balwant, 2020). The second exercise focuses on crafting leadership correspondence in professional settings. In this exercise, students craft a message based on a scenario, submit the message to the instructor, and then reflect on the submitted messages as a group. The third exercise teaches flexible leadership via a combination of a simulation and a self-reflective essay (Balwant, 2021). This simulation

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provides a virtual experience of leadership problems during which, students can explore and make errors in a simulated inbox environment. The follow-up self-reflective essay promotes learning from students’ decisions in the simulation. I had initially developed the first two experiential learning exercises to be delivered in face-to-face formats, but I modified them during the pandemic so that the concrete experiences could be delivered in online environments as well, via the innovative use of technology.

3 Exercise 1: Crisis Leadership and External Corporate Communications The first exercise in this chapter covers crisis leadership, which is timely given the COVID-19 situation. An organizational crisis is “a specific, unexpected, and nonroutine event or series of events that create high levels of uncertainty and simultaneously present an organization with both opportunities for and threats to its high-priority goals” (Sellnow et al., 2011, p. 7). In present times, organizations face crises more frequently than in the past (Bonchek & France, 2018). Despite the increasing frequency of crises, corporate leaders tend to find themselves surprised and unprepared to handle such situations (Bonchek & France, 2018). For this reason, this section outlines an experiential learning exercise composed of a direct concrete experience via a real-life crisis exercise, which is then followed by individual and group reflections via a debriefing.

3.1 The Crisis Leadership Playbook The crisis leadership exercise requires students to be placed into groups of 5 to 6 students. The instructor then informs students that they will be immersed in a real organizational crisis and that they must lead their organization through this crisis. The exercise begins with the instructor providing each group with a unique video clip of an organization’s crisis.1  The video clips should be similar in length. In this exercise, I provided students with YouTube links to crises at Domino’s Pizza, Tylenol, United Airlines, and Activision Blizzard. These clips were all around two minutes in length. 1

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The instructor can assign the video clips on a course’s website and/or provide website links during class. The video clips should be similar in length to synchronize the video watching portion of the exercise. Once the groups have completed watching the videos, the instructor then provides students with the crisis leadership ‘playbook’. The crisis leadership playbook is a seven-step guide for leading organizations through a crisis (Baldoni, 2011; Barrett, 2013; Bonchek & France, 2018; McGinn, 2017; Renjen, 2020).2 The seven steps are as follows: STEP 1. Clarify the purpose and strategic objectives: Students search for and write the organization’s vision, mission, and strategic objectives. This step is important in order to ensure that there is consistency between the organization’s internal ethos and external image. STEP 2. Identify major audiences or stakeholders: Each group identifies the top three stakeholders of their organization in relation to the crisis and explains the rationale for selecting these stakeholders. STEP 3. Create, refine, and test major messages: Each group writes their own press conference message, which must satisfy specific criteria described in the playbook (i.e., honest, clear, consistent, and meaningful). STEP 4. Each group selects the spokesperson to deliver the message and must identify the spokesperson’s title and the rationale for their selection. STEP 5. Establish the most effective media or forum: Each group selects the most effective medium or forum to reach its three stakeholders selected in step two. STEP 6. Determine the best timing: Each group must determine a specific date to deliver the press conference and provide a brief rationale for selecting that date.

 A downloadable template for the crisis leadership playbook along with a suggested marking guide is available in Balwant (2020). 2

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STEP 7. Monitor the results: The playbook provides guidelines for monitoring stakeholders’ reactions. This step is not feasible in the exercise. After completing all steps mentioned in the playbook, each group delivers its press conference. Group members should display or state their names and titles to the entire class. Before each press conference, the instructor shows the crisis video clip assigned to the group to the class (e.g., using a projector, asking each group to watch the video on a mobile phone, or by watching on their computer/phone in an online environment). After the video clip, the presenting group then describes its three major stakeholders (from step 2) so that the class can assume these roles later on for the question-and-answer session. The group then delivers its press conference, answers questions from the audience (the stakeholders), and then briefly explains how the organization will continue maintaining communication with its stakeholders after the press conference. Students complete the steps in the playbook and deliver the press conference with little to no guidance from instructors. Therefore, prior to starting the playbook, instructors should inform students that they should expect errors not only while completing the playbook (e.g., selecting a spokesperson at an inappropriate level), but also when delivering the press conference (e.g., becoming flustered with a difficult question from stakeholders during the press conference). Offering minimal guidance along with the encouragement of errors creates an environment in which errors become a natural by-product of the learning process (Keith & Frese, 2008).

3.2 Logistics Although the playbook provides guidelines for the time required for each step, instructors can adjust the timings according to the class size. I have run this exercise in class sizes of 30 to 40 students with 5 to 7 groups, and it typically takes two to three hours to complete it. Instructors can also tailor the format of the exercise to suit shorter class times by mixing synchronous and asynchronous learning. For instance, students can form

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their groups and/or prepare the playbook prior to the class (asynchronous) in which the press conference is conducted in real-time (synchronous). In a fully asynchronous session, students can record their press conferences and post these recordings online (e.g., on a course website or unlisted on YouTube). For the subsequent question-and-answer session, stakeholders (other students) can post their questions and the crisis team can answer each of the posted questions. Logistics will vary depending on the mode of delivery. In a face-to-face setting, the classroom should be large enough to facilitate adequate space between groups to allow for group discussions with minimal crosstalk. The classroom should also have Wi-Fi access if students are required to complete the playbook in class. Finally, there should be adequate space for each group to deliver its press conference within view of the rest of the class. In an online setting, the software used for synchronous press conferences (e.g., Zoom, Teams, Discord, etc.) must be able to facilitate breakout sessions and each group must be able to deliver its press conference to the rest of the class. Online chat may also be useful for the question-­and-answer portion of the press conference.

3.3 The Transition from Face-to-Face to Online Setting Balwant (2020) conducted a mixed-method study to examine the degree to which the crisis leadership exercise, which was conducted entirely face-­ to-­face, improved students’ external corporate communication skills and their ability to lead during a crisis. For the quantitative part of the study, Balwant (2020) surveyed 29 students who completed the external corporate communications subscale from the Leadership Communication Capabilities (LCC) questionnaire (Barrett, 2013). The quasi-­experimental, two-group, between-subjects pretest-posttest design showed that students in the intervention group (students exposed to the exercise) consistently reported greater improvement in their external corporate communication abilities than students in the control group (students in another leadership course that were not exposed to the exercise). In the qualitative study, 13 students voluntarily wrote about the crisis leadership exercise in

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an assigned, self-reflective essay. In this study, students illustrated a sound understanding of important crisis leadership topics such as self-­awareness, emotional intelligence, trust and transparency, and accepting responsibility. I adapted the crisis leadership exercise in Balwant’s (2020) study, which was initially designed for face-to-face settings, to an online-only environment to meet COVID-19 requirements. Considering this swift transition to online teaching and learning, I collected additional data during the COVID-19 pandemic to compare the effectiveness of both crisis leadership and creating leadership correspondence exercises mentioned in this chapter (i.e., Exercises 1 and 2) between face-to-face and online environments.

3.4 Methods Participants The participants in this extended dataset were 42 undergraduate students from a university in Trinidad and Tobago. Participants included 13 males and 29 females between the ages of 20 and 50 (M = 22.7, SD = 5.3). All participants were enrolled in a leadership communications course, but one group took part in the crisis leadership exercise in online settings (n = 28), whereas the other group participated in the exercise in face-to-­ face settings (n = 14).

Materials Given that this study extends Balwant’s (2020, 2021) work, students completed the Leadership Communication Capabilities (LCC) questionnaire, which helps students self-assess areas of their leadership communication (Barrett, 2013). For this exercise, I used 6 items from the crisis leadership subscale, which were represented on a 5-point continuum (1 = need to develop, essentially need a lot of work on this capability; 2 = need some work on this capability; 3 = acceptable, but could be stronger; 4  =  very good abilities, close to leadership communication level;

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5 = excellent abilities, leadership communication level achieved). Sample items include, ‘Analyzing external stakeholders’ and ‘Dealing with a communication crisis situation’ (a = 0.86 and 0.94 for the pretest and posttest questionnaires respectively).

Procedure For this quasi-experimental study, I measured changes in students’ perceptions of their ability to conduct external corporate communication during a crisis through the course of a semester. I then compared the changes between an online group (during the COVID-19 pandemic) and a face-to-face group (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). The same lecturer taught both online and face-to-face groups during the same time of the day (a morning session), to control for the instructor’s teaching style and potential time of day effects. There were also no significant differences in ages between the online (M = 22.96, SD = 6.04) and face-to-­ face (M = 22.21, SD = 3.38) groups, t (38) = −0.43, p = 0.42. Because I awarded students one percent credit per survey, I used two attention filters to verify that students had read the questions properly and removed cases that contained an incorrect response to at least one of these filter questions (see Balwant, 2021 for more on how these attention filters are used).

3.5 Findings I conducted two statistical tests to investigate the changes in students’ abilities. Firstly, a paired-sample t-test showed that there was a significant increase in students’ perceived abilities after the crisis leadership exercise (M = 4.13, SD = 0.83) in comparison to before the exercise (M = 2.81, SD = 0.80); t (27) = −10.12, p = 0.000. Secondly, an independent sample t-test was used to investigate these pretest-posttest changes in crisis leadership abilities between the online and face-to-face groups. The findings show that there is no significant variation in the difference scores for the online (M = 1.32, SD = 0.69) and the face-to-face (M = 1.56, SD = 0.46) groups; t (40) = 1.17, p = 0.25. Overall, these findings support those of

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Balwant (2020) by demonstrating that the students’ perceived external corporate communication abilities improved after the crisis leadership exercise, and that these improvements were consistent between the online and face-to-face student groups.

4 Exercise 2: Creating Leadership Correspondence The second exercise in this chapter focuses on leadership correspondence. Leaders exert influence via a wide range of communications, and one form of leadership communication that continues to increase yearly is written correspondence (Barrett, 2013; Diokno, 2010). For this reason, and also because leaders are increasingly doing most of their own writing, leaders’ writing abilities are in the spotlight (Barrett, 2013). Leaders communicate via writing reports, text messages (e.g., WhatsApp), social media messages (e.g., tweets or LinkedIn posts), and e-mails. During the COVID-19 pandemic, leadership communications via e-mails increased considerably as many leaders shifted their influence from face-to-face environments to remote work conditions (Contreras et al., 2020). These changes in leader-follower communications because of the pandemic are likely to persist and thus create a new labor reality that is mediated by information communication technologies. Given the increasing importance of leaders’ written correspondence, this section outlines an experiential learning exercise in which instructors (1) provide students with a concrete experience of responding to a real-­ life, business-oriented e-mail message, and (2) engage in group reflection based on students’ responses to discuss leadership correspondence. Like the other experiential learning exercises in this chapter, error management training is used. Specifically, students need to write e-mail messages as they would in real-life instead of attempting to create a ‘correct’ e-mail message. In using this approach, it is important that the instructor creates an environment in which errors are welcome and provides guidance on writing these e-mails after students have submitted their e-mail messages to not influence students’ natural writing style and habits.

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4.1 Creating Correspondence Exercise Step 1: E-Mail Scenarios The first step of the exercise is to provide students with real scenarios and/ or fictional scenarios that mimic real-world situations (e.g., communicating a new or modified workplace policy, follow-up e-mail after a meeting, implementation of new software, etc.). I used scenarios from Barrett (2013) for this; an example of one of these scenarios is as follows: To streamline the processing of expense reports, your accounting office has adopted new software that will enable employees to scan receipts. The new software also streamlines the categorization of expenses and totals each category automatically. Employees should have their reimbursements more quickly and you will save hours in staff time. The new software is a bit tricky though, and you need employees to come to one of the three training sessions so that they will know how to use it. All sessions will be held over lunchtime, with the first on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and one next Monday. (Barrett, 2013, p. 84).

The e-mail scenarios can be assigned to each student individually (which may work well in small classes of about 15 students) or in small groups of 2 to 3 students (which is likely necessary for large classes). Once students have been assigned their scenarios, they are then given approximately ten minutes to write an e-mail response. In face-to-face settings, students can write their responses using pen and paper and then submit their written responses to the instructor. In online settings, students can submit their responses as an actual e-mail, which is sent to the instructor’s e-mail address and displayed to the class in real-time (instructors can create an e-mail address solely for this exercise).3

 A hybrid format in which students submit their messages online in face-to-face settings is also feasible. For this hybrid approach, consider displaying students’ submissions to the class via a projector to facilitate group reflection in step 2. 3

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Step 2: Group Reflection on Organizing Correspondence The second step of the exercise involves the class engaging in reflection to discuss topics relating to organizing correspondence. The instructor should verbally, and if workable, visually highlight specific areas in students’ e-mail submissions to stimulate discussions on correct techniques and areas for improvement (see Fig.  1 for an example from my class). Conversations on organizing correspondence focus on topics such as appropriate salutations, opening and body of a message, and proper closing. Deciding on the appropriate salutation depends on the type of correspondence, the formality of the context, and familiarity with the person the communication is intended for. In e-mails, texts, letters, memos, and other short messages, the opening and body of a message must get to the point immediately. There are various guidelines for organizing the body of the message, and I used the context (what is the motivation for the message and its background), purpose (why the message is being sent), and foreshadowing (provides a preview of what readers can expect in longer correspondence) (CPF) framework (Barrett, 2013). Closing statements focus on how to end a message (e.g., call for action, contact information, use of a permanent signature, formality and politeness, etc.). Further discussions on topics specific to e-mail may include structuring the message (e.g., avoiding long paragraphs, and effective use of lists and bullet points), a compelling subject line, style and tone, and so on. The two steps of the leadership correspondence exercise described were carried out during synchronous sessions, which I investigate in the upcoming study. However, this exercise can be easily modified for asynchronous sessions as well. In step 1, instructors can ask students to submit their e-mail responses by a specified deadline (date/time). In step 2, instructors can then post students’ e-mail responses (which may be anonymized) in an online forum so that the class as a whole can reflect on and critically discuss the posted e-mail responses.

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4.2 Methods Participants and Materials Using the same extended dataset based on the LCC questionnaire (see Exercise 1), I conducted another quasi-experimental, two-group, between-subjects pretest-posttest study to investigate the effectiveness of the leadership correspondence exercise. Participants were as described in the first exercise. For this study, however, I used 11 items from the leadership correspondence subscale, which were represented on the same 5-point continuum described in Exercise 1. Sample items include, ‘Organizing written communication’, ‘Writing clearly’, ‘Using an appropriate style and tone’, and ‘Proofreading own work’ (a = 0.93 for both the pretest and posttest questionnaires).

Procedure For the present study, I measured changes in students’ perceptions of their ability to write leadership correspondence over a semester, start to finish. I once again compared the changes reported by an online group (during the COVID-19 pandemic) and a face-to-face group (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). As explained in the previous section, controls for the time of day and instructor’s teaching style were applied once again, students’ ages not being significantly different between the groups. Finally, I used attention filters to improve the quality of the data.

4.3 Findings I conducted two statistical tests to investigate the changes in students’ ability to create leadership correspondence. Firstly, a paired-samples t-test showed that there was a significant increase in students’ perceived abilities after the leadership correspondence exercise (M = 4.36, SD = 0.59) in comparison to before the exercise (M = 3.48, SD = 0.73); t (26) = −8.36, p = 0.000. Secondly, an independent sample t-test was used to investigate

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these pretest-posttest changes in leadership abilities between the online and face-to-face groups. The findings show that there is no significant dissimilarity in the difference scores for the online (M = 0.88, SD = 0.55) and the face-to-face (M = 1.18, SD = 0.71) groups; t (39) = 1.49, p = 0.15. Therefore, similar to the findings from the crisis leadership exercise described above, students’ perceived leadership correspondence abilities improved after the correspondence exercise, and these improvements were consistent between the online and face-to-face groups.

5 Exercise 3: Teaching Flexible Leadership Via a Simulation and Self-Reflection The COVID-19 pandemic forced me to move away from brick-and-­ mortar teaching and learning, and thus drove me to develop a fully online experiential learning exercise, the third in this chapter, to educate learners about flexible leadership. Flexible leadership means that leaders skillfully oscillate between a range of leadership behaviors according to the demands of a situation (Yukl & Mahsud, 2010). Today’s organizational leaders face extremely complex situations that are characterized by “an unrelenting tempo and staccato rhythm … [of ] often unrelated episodes” (Kaiser et al., 2007, p. 40). In such situations, they must be able to carefully reflect on the demands of the situation to select an appropriate leadership style from their repertoire of skills (Norton, 2010). Although the premise of flexible leadership is grounded in traditional contingency theories of leadership, three ideas from contemporary management science point to the importance of flexible leadership. Firstly, the theories of competing values propose that leaders face conflicting needs within organizations (e.g., people vs. production needs) that often require leaders to balance conflicting styles (e.g., building employees’ morale while pushing for results) (Kaiser & Overfield, 2010; Quinn, 1991). Secondly, managerial flexibility means that leaders must be nimble enough to apply a spectrum of competencies in a dynamic environment that often demands an integration of polarities (e.g., vision and pragmatism or planning and action) (Johnson, 1996; Sloan, 1994). Thirdly, behavioral complexity suggests that leaders need to align their behavioral

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repertoire according to the demands of a situation (Hooijberg, 1997; Zaccaro, 2001). Because flexible leadership is complex and dynamic, traditional teaching methods that promote literacy (e.g., lectures) are unlikely to develop students’ competence. Instead, students need to engage in deliberate acts of leadership by being placed in situations in which they interact with real-life leadership problems (Allio, 2005; Morrison et al., 2003). Hence, this section outlines an immersive flexible leadership exercise based on Goleman’s (2000) leadership styles. I used Goleman’s styles for the simulation because Goleman’s leadership model focuses on flexible leadership, has strong empirical support (Drzewiecka & Roczniewska, 2018; Goleman, 2000; Greenfield, 2007), and Goleman’s leadership styles are connected to contemporary prescriptive theories of leadership (Balwant, 2021). Goleman’s (2000) six leadership styles are coaching, pacesetting, democratic, affiliative, authoritative, and coercive.

5.1 Flexible Leadership Exercise Step 1: The Simulation I used the CapsimInbox platform to simulate leadership scenarios in an organizational context. Using this platform, students are immersed in an e-mail/instant messaging environment in which they are required to use Goleman’s leadership styles to make managerial decisions. Instead of attempting to provide a ‘correct’ answer, students are instructed to make decisions as they would in reality. This approach is grounded in experiential learning and error management training because learning is reversed so that students freely make decisions in the simulation, observe the impact of those decisions without constraints, and then learn about flexible leadership in the self-reflection (i.e., step 2 of this exercise) (Morrison et al., 2003). The simulation begins by presenting students with a background of the organization, which is a Caribbean restaurant named ‘Coastal Cuisines’. A website provides further information about the restaurant, including staff members, menu items, and so on. The simulation then

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provides students with details about their managerial role, along with an organizational chart. After the introduction, students are immersed in the inbox environment in which they receive e-mails and instant messages (see Fig. 2). They are required to select a response that best reflects how they would respond in real life. The simulation scores each response in the backend, with positive points awarded for using styles appropriately and negative points for using styles inappropriately. Certain major scenarios unfold according to responses selected by students (akin to the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books that were popular between 1970 and 1990 and have recently seen a re-emergence in movie formats). These branching paths create a more tailored experience with varying consequences, which is important for reflection in step 2. After completing the simulation, students can view (1) their self-awareness scores showing the accuracy of their pre-simulation scores, (2) their leadership styles scores compared to other students, and (3) a breakdown of all their responses along with feedback. Students then use these three outputs in the selfreflective essay.

Step 2: Individual Self-Reflective Essay In the second part of this exercise, students are required to reflect on their use of leadership styles and theories in the microsimulation via a self-­ reflective essay. Students are required to think critically about their personal leadership in 5 specific scenarios from the simulation and write on the following: 1. Explain your use of a leadership style/theory or combination of styles/ behaviors in the situation. In particular, consider situations in which you used a style/theory/behavior inappropriately.4 2. Discuss the appropriateness of your leadership style in the situation. Why was your style appropriate or inappropriate? What may be a more appropriate style/theory/behavior and why?  Students are encouraged to expand their discussion beyond Goleman (2000) and consider other leadership theories that may be relevant (see Balwant, 2021 for a table that illustrates other leadership theories that may be discussed). 4

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3. Provide an example/anecdote from your personal experience to show when you have used the style appropriately or inappropriately in the past (e.g., in group projects, community leadership, among friends, etc.). 4. Explain how you would approach the situation in the future. For instance, would you lead differently? Is this different style more appropriate and how so? What challenges do you foresee in using a different style? Are there any strategies you could use to make using a different style easier? The flexible leadership exercise is an asynchronous learning activity, however, after the individual self-reflective essays, instructors can add a synchronous learning element to the exercise by collating students’ responses and selecting specific scenarios for real-time group reflections. For instance, instructors may pinpoint scenarios with the most errors and then ask the class why the chosen responses were inappropriate and what is likely to be a better response. For these group reflections, students should be asked to think about how their selected response and their suggestions for an alternative response align with leadership research.

5.2 Findings Balwant (2021) conducted two mixed-method studies to investigate (1) students’ reactions to the simulation and (2) students’ ability to apply flexible leadership after completing the simulation and self-reflective essay. In the first study, 72 students completed a Capsim survey at the end of the simulation. The quantitative findings show that the students reported being satisfied, engaged, and immersed in the simulation. The findings further show that students found the simulation to be valuable for assessing important work-related skills and easy to use (i.e., instructions, the time required, etc.). Of the 72 students, 37 responded to an open-ended statement asking participants to provide additional comments or suggestions regarding the simulation. The findings from a thematic analysis conducted on these comments and suggestions converged with those from the quantitative study, showing that the students were

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satisfied (e.g., “it was the best experience ever…I thoroughly enjoyed it”), felt immersed in the realistic scenarios that made the simulation ideal for on-the-job training (e.g., the scenarios mimicked “real-world challenges”), and thought that the interface was “well made” and “straightforward to use”. In the second mixed-methods study, Balwant (2021) utilized the Leadership Communication Capabilities (LCC) questionnaire (Barrett, 2013) in a quasi-experimental, two-group, between-subjects, pretest-­ posttest research design, using a sample of 41 students. A paired-sample t-test showed that there was a significant increase in the students’ perceived abilities to apply flexible leadership after the experiential learning exercise (M = 4.11, SD = 0.62) in comparison to before the experiential learning exercise (M = 3.17, SD = 0.68); t (26) = −6.6, p = 0.000. For the qualitative study, Balwant (2021) conducted a thematic analysis of essays written by students to triangulate findings from the first mixed-methods study (i.e., investigate students’ reactions). The first two themes converged with the earlier findings showing that students (1) were satisfied because they found the simulation to be highly interesting, fun, and engaging and (2) found the simulation to be a realistic portrayal of a professional work environment (e.g., “the situations…were very similar to what real-life working individuals experience on a day-to-day basis”). The final three themes added to the earlier findings and were more introspective in the use of leadership styles, increased self-awareness regarding the use of flexible leadership, and increased knowledge of the importance of flexible leadership along with an intent to use flexible leadership in the real-world.

6 Online Experiential Learning for Leadership Education Leadership learning has not been occurring as we would hope because of old pedagogies that debilitate experiences related to deep learning (Roberts, 2007). Deep or ‘real’ leadership learning occurs when learners engage in concrete experiences that are followed up by reflections on those experiences (i.e., experiential learning) (DeRue & Wellman, 2009). For this reason, there have been numerous calls from academics and

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practitioners for leadership education to provide a more accurate depiction of the reality of workplaces (Page et al., 2021). Despite these calls, and in the face of overwhelming evidence supporting experiential learning for leadership development, its implementation in leadership education remains dismal (Page et  al., 2021). Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sudden restriction in physical interactions, which may be seen as fundamental to concrete experiences—the core of experiential learning. Therefore, the pandemic may not only have worsened the adoption of experiential learning approaches in leadership curricula, but also left educators who used experiential learning scrambling to understand how to implement these approaches in a virtualized world. This chapter presents three experiential learning leadership exercises, which I have used in online classrooms. Although I had initially designed the first two exercises for physical environments, I tailored them to suit the online classroom as well. The findings from the latest studies, presented in this chapter, show that improvements in students’ perceived leadership abilities were consistent between online and face-to-face environments. I designed the third exercise during the pandemic to provide a ‘real’ leadership learning experience in an online environment. The findings from this exercise show that students’ perceived flexible leadership abilities increased significantly after the exercise, even though the concrete experience was virtual. Notwithstanding that, the COVID-19 pandemic may have forced leadership educators to take a step back in their delivery of experiential learning; doing so may have opened a new path forward for online experiential learning. Still, educators need to carefully consider the feasibility of implementing face-to-face exercises in online environments.5 It is imperative that leadership educators use such experiential learning approaches in both physical and virtual classrooms to provide students with experiences that teach competencies and attitudes to urgently close knowing-doing gaps in leadership studies.

 Even though this chapter shows that experiential learning exercises can be adapted to online environments, there are experiential learning exercises that are difficult to implement virtually. For instance, one of my students’ favourite face-to-face experiential learning exercises is a change leadership exercise (Lewis & Grosser, 2012). Translating this exercise to an online environment is challenging because of the physical movements that will likely require the use of virtual/augmented reality hardware or the creation of a game that can mimic the physical movements. 5

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Appendix

Fig. 1  Example e-mail with instructor’s comments used for discussion and reflection in an actual class. (Source: Author’s own. Note: I typically used question marks to indicate vague phrases or terms and circled unclear pronouns. Co = context; Pu = purpose; PV = passive voice)

Fig. 2  The simulated inbox. (Source: Author’s own. Note: The left navigation bar allows learners to select e-mails/instant messages that require a response or read messages for which they already responded (i.e., “Sent Items”))

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Blended Freshman Electronics Labs John J. Healy

1 Introduction Labs are at the heart of engineering. Students learn actively and interactively in labs, and their experiences entrench, clarify, and enrich lessons from theoretical classes. Students also benefit from less rigidly defined problems compared with neatly packaged theory. We will expound on this later in this chapter. The value of labs within engineering education is such that disruption of the covid-19 pandemic was therefore a serious challenge to engineering education. In this chapter, we describe our experience of converting a practical freshman engineering lab to an online-only offering in 2020, using the online tool TinkerCAD. The students were able to return to campus for the 2021 offering, but rather than revert to the old way of doing things, we reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and

J. J. Healy (*) University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_12

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considered how to retain the best of both. Briefly, the strengths included enhanced engagement, individualised learning curves, individual assessment, and contextual information, while the weaknesses included a lack of psychological presence, lack of formation of dexterous skills, and simulations based on simplified models failing to inculcate appropriate and necessary scepticism of models as imperfect representations of reality. The module in question is Introduction to Electronic Systems, taught at Beijing Dublin International College, a joint college run by University College Dublin and Beijing University of Technology which graduates upwards of 120 engineers per year. Those students are split between a conventional electronic and information engineering programme and an Internet of Things engineering programme. The Internet of Things is quite a broad concept incorporating ideas from Industry 4.0 to pervasive healthcare to the smart grid, but the central idea is of networks of smart devices cooperating to perform a service. Introduction to Electronic Systems aims to equip stage 1 (i.e. freshman undergraduate) students with basic circuit theory as well as introductory concepts in telecommunications, networking, computing, and digital signals. While the results are specific to this module, their significance is broader, with relevance in all lab-heavy courses. The chapter is structured as follows. We introduce the module and its context. We discuss the goals of laboratory exercises of the kind in our module in general. We describe the initial impact of the pandemic on the module. This caused us to switch to online labs, and we discuss the history of and historical antipathy towards simulated labs in engineering, particularly in relation to electronic circuits. Next, we analyse the alternatives we considered while pivoting to online teaching and learning. We describe the situation in 2021 that allowed us to develop blended laboratories, and our goals in developing our teaching activities in this direction. We discuss assessment in light of the pandemic. We consider survey results of the students in the module. Finally, we present some conclusions.

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2 Goals of Laboratory Exercises The goals of laboratory exercises in engineering can be quite multifaceted. We now discuss these in general, by describing the skills we expect the students to be able to apply after they have undertaken the course. We link these skills to specifics of our laboratory exercises. It is important to spell out these aims in order to properly evaluate the tools in alternatives to the laboratories later on. We have drawn on various reviews, including Balamuralithara and Woods (2009), De Jong et al. (2013) and Hernández-de-Menéndez et al. (2019). We now outline the components of our lab in order to provide a brief introduction to the jargon. It is hoped that readers who prefer to skim through such jargon can nevertheless follow the contents of this chapter. The students design and build a light sensor. The light sensitive component is a photoresistor: it converts the intensity (brightness) of the light into an electrical resistance. We often use the analogy of fluid flow in a pipe: a high resistance behaves like a narrow pipe, and voltage has the role of water pressure. A component that transforms one physical quantity into another like this is called a transducer. The students design and build an electronic circuit in order to convert the resistance of the photoresistor into a voltage that is more readily measured. The circuits are prototyped on breadboard analogous to a Lego™ plate on which we can quickly clip circuits together. The voltage measurement is performed by an Arduino, a credit-card-sized computer that is designed to be easy to connect to circuitry. The Arduino is an open-source hardware project, meaning the schematics to build one are freely available. As such, clones are widely available and keep the price of individual devices low. The devices are very easy to program and are popular with artists and other non-technical people who want a simple electronic controller for small projects. An output of the Arduino then controls a further circuit, driving a light. The above is a simplification of the first lab, but the light sensor is at the heart of all of the labs. These labs apply and test circuit theory from the lectures, but they also provide students with a gentle introduction to the interface between the physical world and the digital. This interface

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between the digital and the analogue is central to the ideas presented in the module, and networks of smart devices like this are the heart of the Internet of Things. • Engineering students should be able to design and conduct experiments, asking questions and defining problems. This requires measurement of domain-specific physical quantities. In our labs, they learn how to measure resistances, currents, and voltages in an electronic circuit. They measure light intensity using a transducer to convert the light intensity into a resistance. They construct circuitry that transforms the resistance of the transducer into a voltage on an appropriate scale to be measured by another device. They also write software to read, process, and react to the data gathered. • Students should be experienced in experimentation, specifically in processes of learning from failure and iteration of a design. They should be able to apply systematic approaches to design, testing, and debugging. They should exhibit creativity. They should have some knowledge of the ethics of experimentation. Our students have typically not constructed a circuit before, nor programmed a microcontroller. These new experiences offer opportunities for learning from failure and iteration of a design. There are multiple opportunities to apply systematic approaches, but the process of testing the node voltages of an incorrectly constructed circuit is a common and compelling illustration of systematic debugging. Our labs are a little lacking in opportunities to demonstrate or exercise creativity, but this is common in foundational material. Creativity thrives in complex open problems, but students cannot be asked to run before they can walk. The ethical considerations at this stage relate to the necessity of honesty in reporting of experimental results. • Students should be able to analyse and interpret data, including misleading, contradictory, or noisy data. They should be able to form and test hypotheses, identify obviously wrong information, construct an argument from evidence, and make appropriate use of units. In our case, the data they gather from the light sensor they create is quite noisy. They consider how to smooth the data and to make decisions based on the smoothed data.

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• Students should be able to apply theoretical models to real systems, and to understand the limitations of the models. They should be skilled in the manipulation of models, especially in light of concepts of tolerances. They should display mathematical and computational thinking. In our labs, the students discover that even the simplest circuit elements deviate from their theoretical models and quantify this deviation. Working simultaneously with the mathematical circuit theoretic models and their breadboard implementation of the same circuit offer ample exposure to the strengths and limitations of models. • Students should be able to design a component, process, or system, to meet a given specification. Design is a relatively high-level outcome, requiring synthesis of theoretical and practical knowledge, so it is challenging to achieve with stage 1 students. In our exercises, the students are given the layout of the circuit they will build, shown the design decisions they must make, and reminded which principles to apply in making those decisions. This is quite a leading approach, but later modules in their courses can ask more of them. • Students should have knowledge of an experience with specific tools and software. They should learn of conventions and datasheets. They learn the psychomotor skills necessary for the operation of those tools. They should understand safety in the lab. Our lab introduces students to construction of circuits on breadboard and to microcontroller programming. They learn of conventions such as resistor colour codes. They learn to physically construct circuit prototypes. The equipment in this lab doesn’t offer much in the way of safety challenges, but the importance of a workspace clear of trip hazards is always a surprisingly difficult lesson to impart! • Finally, we can expect certain soft skills such as group work, teamwork, and communicating information. Our labs have the students work and report in pairs. This is efficient in terms of hardware and teaching resources, and it builds group work skills. However, it may not result in equal practical experience for both teammates.

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2.1 Initial Impact of the Pandemic on the Module In early 2020, the Covid epidemic swept through China. The human toll of this was dreadful. However, in this chapter we limit our discussion of it to its impact on our teaching. For the universities, the outcome was that the students stayed home after Spring Festival in February. The timing of events meant that the switch to online modes of teaching was aligned with the semester and there was a little more time to develop a coherent change then in countries where the change was forced upon universities mid-semester. In a report on the impact of covid-19 on Indian higher education, Jena assessed the impact on higher education in terms of four categories: (1) destabilisation of all educational activities, (2) a complex impact on academic research and professional development, (3) a severe effect on academic assessment, and (4) reduced employment possibilities, (Jena, 2020). These effects are quite general: UNESCO estimated that 90% of students globally were impacted at the peak of the pandemic, (Reuge et al., 2021). We focus on the first and third of these. Online modes of teaching and learning were quickly adopted. Pre-­ recorded videos and online classes were relatively direct substitutes for lectures, but laboratories were less easily and homogenously replaced. We turned reluctantly to considering simulated laboratories.

2.2 Simulated Labs in Engineering Why “reluctantly”? Engineering grew out of a highly pragmatic discipline: the first university engineering programmes were in civil engineering. The name betrays its origin as a counterpart to military engineering. Even as other disciplines formed—in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and so on—the focus remained on hands-on skills. Laboratories, initially developed and thought of as facilities for research and development, were recognised in the late nineteenth century as useful components in education; this was the educational landscape in which the engineering disciplines were forged. A suitably designed lab develops important skills in students. Where science labs aim to provide evidence supporting or disproving laws and

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methods, engineering labs aim to apply science and technology to solve a problem. Even as simple a task as measurement of voltage and current has subtleties that can be lost until a student has to apply the meter probes themselves to the correct locations. Modern educational theory also recognises the pedagogical value of labs. Some authors have investigated whether this can be attributed to a sense of presence, and to what degree that sense of presence may be provided by virtual and remote labs. The evidence that this sense of presence is predictive of learning outcomes remains mixed, (Ma & Nickerson, 2006). Other authors have focussed instead on the nature of the mental activities engaged by the labs, physical or virtual, and argued that, “[s]tudents in a virtual/remote lab where the reality is faked/mediated by distance may experience psychological, but not physical, presence. However, students in hands-on labs could be exposed to a physically real process, but may not experience psychological presence, because they are bored (e.g., watching others interact with the real process) or distracted”, (Hernández-de-Menéndez et al., 2019). By the 1950s, engineering education was being reformed, with practical classes in machine shops, drawing, and operation and maintenance of equipment, and so on giving way to more theoretical classes. It was observed in the Grinther report on US engineering education that “the art of engineering has come to depend greatly upon the basic science of engineering” and therefore faculty should hold the PhD degree, (Grinther, 1954). The growth in theoretical content has long since grown past the possibility of truly comprehensive courses, and it can be argued that this “tyranny of content … presents a formidable barrier to incorporating more learner-centered practices into undergraduate courses”, (Petersen et al., 2020). The Grinther report also noted that appropriate industrial experience is important in any faculty, but the latter recommendation was not followed; by the following decade, it would “become painfully obvious that engineering faculties had become strong in research but were generally unfamiliar with engineering practice, particularly design”, (Ferguson, 1992). A problem arises from this emphasis on theory: the single-answer methodology is one in which students are overwhelmingly posed questions which can be answered with facts, figures, or functional relationships. This reliance on single-answer problems has the consequence of

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stunting students’ ability to deal with incomplete or contradictory data or to exercise engineering judgement. The nature of single-answer problems positions the instructor as the ultimate arbiter of truth, discouraging scepticism and a healthy questioning attitude, and the rigid focus on logic underplays the role that experimentation plays in engineering design. All of this is to say that there is an ongoing tension in engineering between the practical and the theoretical. Physical laboratories and simulations thereof are not considered entirely interchangeable. The simulations are cheaper, more scalable, more flexible, and can be simplified to foreground a learning outcome that might otherwise be obscured by the myriad complexities of reality. And yet, something is inevitably lost in simulation, not least practical experience with some useful skills that require dexterity and muscle memory. These days, the practical components of electronics labs are less focussed on technical skills like soldering, and more on reinforcing the conceptual understanding gained in circuit theory classes. Measurements made on circuits built of realistic components deviate from the calculations by a few percent; thus, concepts of tolerances and approximation are critical here too. Where a circuit is constructed incorrectly, the systematic and logical nature of the process of checking the circuit or the code to find the error also makes a strong impression on freshmen undergraduates, inculcating a method of thinking that is essential to engineering education. Cheaper, safer, or simplified analogue alternatives to hands-on training have existed for decades, going back at least to crude flight simulators used to train World War II pilots. As computer technology matured, virtual labs in engineering have frequently been investigated by educators motivated by safety, cost, space limitations, and the opportunities to create better pedagogical tools. A distinction is made between remote labs, in which real equipment is operated at a distance by means of instrumentation (cameras, sensors, and other equipment to enable students to monitor and interact with the laboratory setups), and simulated labs which lack any physical reality. Remote labs can be somewhat more realistic as the outputs are not model-driven, but they are more expensive and may not be possible in every situation.

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An example of an early alternative from electronics is circuit simulation. SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) was created at UC Berkeley as a class project in 1969–1970, a public-domain software derived from a proprietary project called CANCER (Computational Analysis of Non-linear Circuits, Excluding Radiation1). Over multiple versions, it evolved to become the worldwide standard integrated circuit simulator. While students build circuits from discrete components (custom integration being a slow and expensive process), SPICE rapidly became used to educate them in circuit modelling and simulation. SPICE and its derivatives have come to be employed by virtually all integrated circuit designers. One limitation of most such tools is a lack of integration into a virtual learning environment. They tend to provide a utilitarian user interface, with little emphasis on realistic depictions. This acts as a barrier to entry for novice users (Fig. 1). Physical labs have certain disadvantages. They require a high staff-­ student ratio in order to provide sufficient mentoring; even with the support of teaching assistants, they require a lot of staff time. This resourcing need limits the hours of labs that may be readily offered, which costs the students the opportunity to experiment with abandon. A simulated lab has no such constraint, though it consequently is also less structured and the student’s learning process is harder to scaffold, monitor, and assess. Group work is also more difficult. However, in the absence of any space or equipment limitations, students can proceed at their own pace to complete their work. Huang et  al. (2020) identified asynchronous online self-regulated learning resources as improving students’ self-regulated learning abilities, but at the cost of a sense of community and a risk of leaving some students behind. There are aspects of that in self-guided elements of simulated labs, but simulated laboratories are more accurately categorised as online cooperative learning guided by teachers. Huang et  al. note the benefits in students’ cooperative learning abilities, but caution of inconsistent learning outcomes and some lack of engagement. Lack of

 The name is a political stance, rejecting Department of Defence funding which required capacity to analyse the radiation hardness of a circuit. 1

Fig. 1  The importance of realistic Graphical User Interfaces. (top) A single-­amplifier transistor constructed on breadboard (coin for scale). (middle) A TinkerCAD simulation of the same circuit (including an Arduino for power and instrumentation). (Source: Top and bottom (unpublished) images courtesy of Emma Pender. Middle image by the author. Note: This is the tool used in our simulated labs. Note the realistic depictions of the components, the breadboard, the colourful wiring. This is to be contrasted with an LTspice model (bottom), an industry-standard simulation tool. The latter image is symbolic, minimalist, and functional)

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engagement is a theme of much of the literature on the shift to online education regarding Covid-19, for example, Flynn et al. (2021).

3 Online Alternatives The question in 2020, when the pandemic forced our hand, was not whether to use an online lab, but rather which one to use. In the interests of preserving the context of this choice for later readers, we outline the alternatives in this section. Broader readers may happily omit this section without consequence. Some universities have developed their own remote labs, with online portals to remotely access physical equipment. There wasn’t time to develop such a solution ourselves, but there are alternatives. LabsLand, a start-up company which has offices in Bilbao and in St. Louis in the USA, provides universities with labs in six topics, including electronics. They have Arduino-based labs in their catalogue. Students can write and upload code via a proprietary interface to real devices and observe the results. This addresses some of the sense of presence questions over remote labs. The cost is not prohibitive, at $8/per student per term. However, the students do not have any control over the hardware; the lab becomes an entirely software-centric problem. An entirely virtual alternative was TinkerCAD, a free-of-charge browser-based tool which was acquired by Autodesk in 2013. TinkerCAD is primarily a 3D modelling program, popular for creating models for 3D printing and for basic constructive solid geometry in schools, Díaz et al. (2019). However, it also contains the circuit design Arduino simulator, which fortuitously is able to simulate every aspect of our labs. The TinkerCAD offering is a powerful simulator supporting both analogue and logic ICs. It has a large user base with lots of examples online. It has an elegant and lifelike graphical user interface, as depicted in the middle part of Fig. 1. That user interface includes some augmented reality-­like overlays, for example, revealing the underlying connections in breadboard, a topic some students traditionally find unintuitive. In terms of downsides to the platform, unfortunately it seems to have ceased development. It also lacks mobile phone support. Abburi et  al.

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(2021) noted technical limitations of the simulations, limited choice of components, and a lack of an offline mode. Lack of an offline mode in particular places certain pressures on students from economically disadvantaged homes, who may have inadequate internet access; this is just one example of the inequities that may be exacerbated by online learning, Ossiannilsson (2021). One deeply unwelcome flaw in the TinkerCAD interface relates to the use of the meter to measure current, which is unphysical and hence misleading, but this one problem aside the platform is intuitive and replicates the reality of the experience well. Forced to pivot to online teaching at short notice, TinkerCAD’s circuit design Arduino simulator seemed to offer as close a virtual substitute for the laboratories as possible. Abburi et al. (2021) surveyed students and found overwhelming preference for TinkerCAD over more traditional simulation alternatives LTSpice, PSpice, and Proteus. The students rated LTSpice ahead of the others in terms of ease of use, suitability for individual and collaborative work, engagement, support community, and ease of observation by staff. Shalannanda implemented a digital logic design lab in TinkerCAD, (Shalannanda, 2020), noting that survey results show that it can provide roughly similar experiences compared to conventional laboratory activities, but noted that only 56% of their students agreed that gave equivalent experiences with an in-person laboratory. Partly, this was explained in terms of memory issues running on lower spec hardware. Jacob et  al. report similar concerns about the requirement of a stable internet connection in their report on the use of TinkerCAD at two universities, (Jacob et al., 2021). However, their overall feedback is quite positive. Finally, then, we compare the two options: LabsLand and TinkerCAD.  In terms of cost, TinkerCAD is free, whereas LabsLand costs $8/student/term. TinkerCAD has the edge in terms of facilitating hands-on experience, or at least simulating it, because of its configurable circuitry and realistic GUI. LabsLand has the advantage of uploading the code to a real device for remote control, bit at the cost of some flexibility. LabsLand has some Virtual Learning Environment support, though we have not investigated this in detail. Both allow some measure of instructor supervision. We didn’t assess them in terms of facilitating group work and mutual support, as students were asked to work independently in online labs.

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4 Return to Campus and Blended Labs 2021 saw our students return to the Beijing University of Technology campus in Beijing. However, the lecturing staffs who were based abroad were unable to return, and online teaching remained the norm in their modules. The labs were run in person by teaching assistants, but the opportunity was there to attempt to retain the advantages of the online approach too. We were motivated by the reduced contact time, which allowed TAs to be deployed more effectively. We also observed good engagement from the students. The 2021 hybrid approach split the material into a pre-lab (foundational) and lab (applied) components. The foundational material was conducted in the same simulated environment as described above. The students worked alone on the pre-lab, meaning they were each ready to contribute to the lab. The students then conduct the practical lab in teams.

4.1 Assessment in Light of the Pandemic Some authors have suggested that assessment must necessarily change as a result of the pandemic, for example, Jena proposed, “if the pandemic Covid-19 continues, new approaches for academic assessment should be adopted by educational institutions. Academic assessment of the students may be done through online mode or through quizzes and small projects” Jena (2020). Prior to the pandemic, assessment of the students’ performance was based on written lab reports. However, assessment based on such evidence has received criticism for failing to address the stated aims of the assessment, (Edward, 2002). This is not to say that the students’ reports are deficient, but rather that the “requirements of formal lab reports, their structure, and the assessment methodology are often ambiguous”, (Watai et al., 2007). Assessing lab reports is resource intensive and difficult to maintain fairness and consistency. Plagiarism is a constant battle. With these elements in mind, we have removed written lab reports from the module, replacing them with shorter but more demanding online quizzes that test the students on the concepts exercised in the lab. The online quizzes have the advantage of being graded automatically,

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freeing the teaching assistants’ time for student interaction. The quizzes must be undertaken within a week of the lab, though most students complete them sooner than that. We can consider assessment in light of the kinds of learning outcomes that were described earlier in this chapter. • Successful completion of the simulations and physical circuits were confirmed by the teaching assistants. • The students are asked to apply theoretical models to the circuits from the lab. • They are asked to identify the units used for certain physical quantities they have measured. • They are asked about lab safety. • They are asked about deviations of the physical lab from the model/ simulation. • They are asked about certain conventions used in the lab. • Their understanding of key points relating to the equipment and its use is tested. Such quizzes cannot by their nature be truly comprehensive as a summative assessment, but in truth, such labs are weighted lightly in the module grade precisely because they are as much formative as they are summative.

5 Results Likert scored for module feedback in 2021, the first offering with the hybrid labs, were well above school average: 4.6 versus 3.85. However, that was based on a small sample, and generic questions. Hence, an anonymous online survey was conducted of the 120 students after two labs were completed in 2022. The students were prompted with the instruction, “Please reply to the following questions, rating them 1 to 5, where 5 is the most positive answer (strongly agree).” There were 36 responses, a response rate of 30%. The results are given below.

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1. I found TinkerCAD easy to use. Likert scores for this question were as follows: 0 students 1, 1 student scored 2, 14 students scored 3, 17 students scored 4, and 4 students scored 5. The students found the software easy to use. The average reply was 3.67. 2. I enjoyed using TinkerCAD and have or probably will use it for study or fun outside the lab. It was important to understand if the students enjoyed using the virtual lab. There is no restriction on their further use of it; in fact, there is a community of hobbyist electronics that uses it and that could provide motivated students with very productive avenues of personal education. This sits well with the literature on students’ perception of and satisfaction with their learning process, (Feisel & Rosa, 2005). In this category, the Likert score was 3.58. The results in detail are as follows: 1 student chose 1, 4 chose 2, 10 chose 3, 15 chose 4, and 6 chose 5. 3. The TAs have been helpful. Part of the motivation to switch to a blended approach and in the change of assessment style was to free up Teaching Assistant time for closer mentoring of students. Unfortunately, there is no ‘before’ to compare this to, but it seems that the students are happy with the support they are getting. The Likert score here was 3.75. The scores in detail: 2 students chose 1, 3 chose a 2, 7 chose 3, 14 chose 4, and 10 chose 5. 4. The online pre-lab helped me to understand how: a. breadboard works. b. to connect the circuit. c. to connect the Arduino to the circuit. d. to program the Arduino.

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One of the goals of the pre-lab in the hybrid lab was to ensure that every student gained a baseline of knowledge. Unlike the physical labs, there was no possibility of coasting while a more motivated partner completed the work. To this end, the students were asked about four specific technical learning outcomes. Three of them score well, with Likerts of (a) 3.83, (b) 3.92, and (c) 3.81 respectively. The programming aspect of the lab has been less successful, scoring only 3.11. Further scaffolding is clearly required there. Specific results are listed in Table 1. 5. Rank the following resources in order of helpfulness:

a. The written instructions. b. The video. c. The TAs. d. Classmates e. Other online help.

Perhaps the most interesting thing here is the near perfect split between students who primarily replied on the video instructions and those who relied on the written instructions (Fig. 2). Each of these is complete in itself, so it is possible to exclusively use one or the other. This is clear evidence of preferences in learning style which are targeted by inclusive teaching pedagogies. 6. If you used other online help, please write details including the URL(s) here: ___________. The most interesting thing here is the lack of consensus. The Chinese Software Development Network (CSDN.net), and various online video Table 1  Likert results for the question “The online pre-lab helped me to understand how:” Breadboard works To connect the circuit To connect the Arduino to the circuit To program the Arduino Source: Author’s own

1

2

3

4

5

1 0 2 6

4 5 2 6

5 4 7 8

16 14 15 10

10 13 10 6

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Rank of each kind of resource

18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

1

2 Video

3 Written

TAs

4 Classmates

5 Other

Fig. 2  Student preference of resources. (Source: Author’s own. Note: The resources are listed here in weighted order of preference. Students mostly used the video and written instructions to complete the task, with lesser input from TAs, classmates and other resources)

tutorials are mentioned a few times, but the class was quite varied in this regard. 16 respondents of 29 who answered this question write some variation of “nothing”. 7. I prefer to be assessed by means of: a. A Brightspace quiz. b. Writing a traditional laboratory report. It’s important to be cautious of student preferences regarding assessment, as they tend to prefer what they perceive to be easier (Fig.  3). However, the online assessment is fit for purpose, demonstrating clearly which students have achieved the desired learning outcomes. 8. The part I found difficult was: _________. 32 students responded, with the only consistent reply being programming the Ardunio. This is consistent with the weakness identified in Fig. 11.5(d).

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Assessment Preference

Report

Quiz

No preference

Fig. 3  Student assessment preference. (Source: Author’s own. Note: Students showed a strong preference for assessment by means of an online quiz)

9. I like to a. Work alone like in the simulation. b. Work with a teammate like in the lab. The students showed a strong preference for group work (Fig. 4). This may incorporate aspects of the unsatisfactory support in how to program the Arduino; that problem may have been easier when shared.

6 Conclusions We have described how the pandemic has altered our labs and lab assessment strategy in two stages. First, we were forced to choose an online tool at short notice, namely TinkerCAD’s circuit design Arduino simulator. Happily, that tool has proven quite successful. We observed the differences created by this enforced change and have attempted to retain the best features of the online labs while restoring the strengths of the physical labs.

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Working preference

Alone

In a pair

Fig. 4  Student preference for group work. (Source: Author’s own. Note: Students showed a preference for group work over working alone)

Our survey results show that students are broadly positive about the changes. More than half of respondents replied with a 4 or a 5 to the question about whether they would use the simulation platform for personal study or fun. Nearly ¾ of them replied with a 4 or a 5 to all but one of the questions about achieving the learning outcomes of the pre-labs. The Covid pandemic has robbed people—young people especially—of many important experiences. We have been determined that the pedagogical advantages of labs will not be among those lost experiences.

References Abburi, R., Praveena, M., & Priyakanth, R. (2021). TinkerCad-a web based application for virtual labs to help learners think, create and make. Journal of Engineering Education Transformations, 34(SP ICTIEE), 535–541. Balamuralithara, B., & Woods, P. C. (2009). Virtual laboratories in engineering education: The simulation lab and remote lab. Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 17(1), 108–118.

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De Jong, T., Linn, M. C., & Zacharia, Z. C. (2013). Physical and virtual laboratories in science and engineering education. Science, 340(6130), 305–308. Díaz, L. M., Hernández, C. M., Ortiz, A. V., & Gaytán-Lugo, L. S. (2019). Tinkercad and Codeblocks in a summer course: An attempt to explain observed engagement and enthusiasm. In 2019 IEEE Blocks and Beyond Workshop (B&B) (pp. 43–47). IEEE. Edward, N. S. (2002). The role of laboratory work in engineering education: student and staff perceptions. International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education, 39(1), 11–19. Feisel, L. D., & Rosa, A. J. (2005). The role of the laboratory in undergraduate engineering education. Journal of engineering Education, 94(1), 121–130. Ferguson, E. S. (1992). Engineering and the mind’s eye (p. 137). MIT Press. Flynn, N., Keane, E., Davitt, E., McCauley, V., Heinz, M., & Mac Ruairc, G. (2021). Schooling at home in Ireland during COVID-19: Parents’ and students’ perspectives on overall impact, continuity of interest, and impact on learning. Irish Educational Studies, 40(2), 217–226. Grinther, L. (1954). Interim report of the committee on evaluation of engineering education. Journal of Engineering Education, 45, 40–66. Hernández-de-Menéndez, M., Vallejo Guevara, A., & Morales-Menendez, R. (2019). Virtual reality laboratories: A review of experiences. International Journal on Interactive Design and Manufacturing (IJIDeM), 13(3), 947–966. Huang, R., Liu, D., Tlili, A., Knyazeva, S., Chang, T.  W., Zhang, X., et  al. (2020). Guidance on open educational practices during school closures: Utilizing OER under COVID-19 pandemic in line with UNESCO OER recommendation. Smart Learning Institute of Beijing Normal University. Jacob, F., Alberto, A., & Guimarães, P. (2021, October). Use of Tinkercad platform for Teaching Electronics Subject in Post-Secondary Technical Courses. In Ninth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM’21) (pp. 543–547). Jena, P. K. (2020). Impact of Covid-19 on higher education in India. International Journal of Advanced Education and Research (IJAER), 5. Ma, J., & Nickerson, J. V. (2006). Hands-on, simulated, and remote laboratories: A comparative literature review. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 38(3), 7-es. Ossiannilsson, E. (2021). Some challenges for Universities, in a post crisis, as Covid-19. In Radical solutions for education in a crisis context (pp. 99–112). Springer.

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Petersen, C. I., Baepler, P., Beitz, A., Ching, P., Gorman, K. S., Neudauer, C. L., et  al. (2020). The tyranny of content: “Content coverage” as a barrier to evidence-­based teaching approaches and ways to overcome it. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(2), ar17. Reuge, N., Jenkins, R., Brossard, M., Soobrayan, B., Mizunoya, S., Ackers, J., et al. (2021). Education response to COVID 19 pandemic, a special issue proposed by UNICEF: Editorial review. International Journal of Educational Development, 87, 102485. Shalannanda, W. (2020, November). Digital logic design laboratory using Autodesk Tinkercad and Google Classroom. In 2020 14th International Conference on Telecommunication Systems, Services, and Applications (TSSA (pp. 1–5). IEEE. Watai, L. L., Francis, S. A., & Brodersen, A. J. (2007, October). A qualitative and systematic assessment methodology for course outcomes from formal laboratory work products in electrical engineering. In 2007 37th annual frontiers in education conference-global engineering: Knowledge without borders, opportunities without passports (pp. F2C–21). IEEE.

Learning Experience Design (LXD) of Language and Content Modules: Insights from Students and Instructors Rosario Hernández and Eva Kilar-Magdziarz

1 Introduction Online teaching is not a new phenomenon. Blake (2017) claims that the new generation of students like learning through computers because in their day-to-day lives they already spend hours doing digital things. Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in many higher education institutions moving their face-to-face programmes into an online environment (Hargis, 2020). Thus, many educators were institutionally obliged to move their teaching online, facilitated by Virtual Learning Environments and several applications to deliver classes both synchronously and asynchronously.

R. Hernández (*) University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] E. Kilar-Magdziarz Digital Learning Institute, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2_13

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The need to move to online delivery very rapidly has provided educators with challenges and opportunities to engage in the design of remote learning courses. A study by Kumar et  al. (2019) revealed that experienced online instructors understand how students learn best online and how online teaching differs from face-to-face teaching. Fayer (2014) argues that for online teaching to be successful, course design should be viewed as a key component and instructors need to ensure that they design their courses to support online learning as a unique method of delivery. She also highlights four areas that students value: (1) strong course organisation, (2) time-flexible feedback, (3) the instructor’s content ability and (4) consistent support. Similarly, Watson et al. (2017) found that interaction with the instructor and fellow students, clear communication and feedback were among the top strategies reported by students in helping them with online learning and contributing to provide a positive learning experience. Informed by the above considerations, this chapter describes the design process of four online modules to be delivered to students of Business and Languages. Furthermore, arising from the main research question, the chapter examines the views of designers and instructors on the delivery of the modules. Moreover, it analyses the engagement of students with the learning materials in synchronous and asynchronous scenarios.

2 The Module Design Process During May 2020, University College Dublin took the decision to pause the mobility of students to European countries during the Autumn trimester of 2020–21 and the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics engaged in the design of remote modules for students of the Bachelor of Commerce International with Languages (BCIT) that could not travel to the host universities in Europe under the Erasmus+ mobility programme. These students would normally spend the third year of their academic programmes at a host university in Europe. Instead, they would be learning remotely for one trimester and new modules were required. A team of designers and academic leaders under the direction of an educational technologist and a pedagogical expert began a process of

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designing four modules to the value of 20  credits  each,  in  accordance with the European Credit Transfer System  (ECTS), for students of French, Italian, German and Spanish. It is important to note that most undergraduate modules at our university are worth 5 ECTS. The delivery of these modules entailed 4  hours per week of synchronously online classes (via Virtual Classroom tools) with an instructor focusing on interaction and communication in the target language (L2) through oral presentations, debates and so on, and a minimum of 10 hours per week of self-directed learning, with asynchronous activities (videos, texts, quizzes, discussion forums, blogs, podcasts, etc.) although the module descriptor recommended that students dedicate around 15  hours per week on autonomous learning and on specific learning activities. The online modules also incorporated a reflective component to further develop the students’ language skills and metacognition. At the core of the design there were some challenges considering the short time available to design the modules and have them ready for delivery during the Autumn trimester of the academic year 2020–21. To ensure that the project was streamlined, structured and pedagogically grounded (Russell & Murphy-Judy, 2020) and following institutional recommendations (UCD Teaching and Learning, n.d.), the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation) was adopted. Further details about the ADDIE model can be found at Hernández and Kilar-Magdziarz (2021).

2.1 Pedagogical Approach Underpinning the Module Design After undertaking a needs’ analysis to ensure that the modules would offer the best possible preparation for the study abroad period during the Spring trimester of 2020–21, a thematic Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach, based on cultural and current affairs topics, was adopted to inform the design and delivery of the modules. In its most generic use, CLIL refers to an educational approach in which “a foreign language is used as a tool in the learning of a non-­ language subject in which both language and the subject have a joint

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role” (Marsh, 2002, p. 58). A typical example would be to learn mathematics through English in a Spanish speaking context. However, CLIL is often referred to as an ‘umbrella’ term because it includes many varieties of practices according to the context in which it is implemented (Dalton-­ Puffer et al., 2010). Content and Language Integrated Learning is a novel teaching approach in the Irish Higher Education context. Moreover, the Council of Europe (2018) states the learning of languages involves an “extensive use of the target language… encouraging students to see similarities and regularities as well as differences between languages and cultures” (p. 27). Thus, it was appropriate for that approach to underpin the pedagogical design and delivery of the online modules so that students would be more exposed to the target language than in traditional approaches to teaching culture. We adopted a flexible understanding of CLIL where the two main pillars were the role of content in developing socio-cultural competence and the use of the target language for teaching and learning purposes. Considering that the aim of these modules was to prepare students for their study abroad period, Lasagabaster (2008) argues that this teaching approach prepares them for internationalisation by enhancing their intercultural communicative competence. He adds that CLIL also contributes to boosting their affective dimension because it increases their motivation to learn foreign languages. Having adopted a Content and Language Integrated Learning approach to underpin the modules, the next step was to focus on the Learning Experience Design (LXD) to create “learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal-oriented way” (Instructional Design Central, 2021).

2.2 Learning Experience Design (LXD) New ways of approaching the curriculum design, project management, processes and methods have entered higher education under the term of Learning Experience Design (LXD). Its emergence is linked to the rise of student-centred design, cognitive psychology and design thinking (EDUCAUSE, 2020). Learning Experience Design can be defined as a

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design of the curriculum with the focus on the learner and their experience when learning, drawing from a combination of many fields including pedagogy, instructional design, psychology, graphic design, accessibility principles and educational sciences. That kind of design embraces three concepts: Learning, Experience and Design and as Clark states the concepts themselves are “wide, deep and contentious” (Clark, 2021, p. 1). Learning is all about the learners and ensuring they reach their objectives when learning. Experiences in learning should enable a learner to take an active part and, by reaching their goals, to learn. It is not about making learning flashy and creating educational entertainment (Clark, 2021, p. 7), but about knowing what design principles to use to enhance the process of learning and progression. Design does draw more attention to User Interfaces, (spaces in which we as users interact with devices) and User Experience (the way we interact with devices). A combination of these two can add value to the way learning design is approached to ensure that learning is impactful and effective (Merrill, 2012). The University of Waterloo, Canada, and their Centre for Extended Learning suggested a framework that can be used for User Experience Design for Learning (UXDL). The framework helps in ensuring that whatever experiences are designed, they are valuable for the learners (Troop et al., 2020). It is inspired by the Honeycomb Model introduced by Peter Moreville (2004) who developed it when working with his clients and explaining how effective experiences could be achieved. The UXDL model focuses on five main areas to ensure that the design is useful, desirable, accessible, credible and intuitive. The model is drawn from Mayer’s principles for multimedia learning (Mayer, 2020) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) introduced by The Centre for Applied Special Technology. Both models were central in the design of the modules within this project. The starting point for the design was ensuring that the learning platform used was navigable, motivating and engaging learners. To achieve that, the modules were divided into four main topics: Culture, Politics, Current affairs and Erasmus+ Mobility. These main topics were adopted for all languages and informed the  module design. This division into main topics stemmed from Universal Design Principles for Learning that

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advocates multiple ways of representation by “highlighting patterns, big ideas, and relationships” for learners (CAST, 2018). Within 12 weeks of study, there were unified topics, broken at times into subtopics. Furthermore, all self-directed learning materials were intended to allow learners to study at their own pace, and attempt mini quizzes in their own time, with clear timetables and alignment to university schedules in the spirit of “minimizing threats and distractions” (CAST, 2018). Each theme provided clear references to the flow of materials. It was also recommended that the designers utilise the learning outcomes and goals of the modules and incorporate learning activities that encourage learners to reflect on their learnings on a regular basis. All of these aimed at adding value to learning experiences and fostering autonomous learning.

3 Autonomous Learning Resources The design of the modules entailed designing Virtual Classroom sessions for synchronous live classes, as well as asynchronous learning materials, with the use of innovative tools and instructional design approaches. The driver behind the design of those autonomous learning materials was to ensure a strong pedagogical foundation supported by technology and, as Gagné and his colleagues state, utilise authentic materials in line with the learning objectives for all the modules (Gagné et al., 2004). Even though content curation is becoming more and more popular (Clark, 2021) it was decided to create new, relevant and bespoke learning materials. The design and development aimed to align the materials to the learning objectives and to ensure the transfer of knowledge with progression of language skills and competencies in a scaffolded manner (Dirksen, 2015). To achieve a successful Learning Experience Design, it was decided to represent content in multiple ways (CAST, 2018) and use both written (texts, graphs, infographics etc.) and audio-visual (mp4s, videos with subtitles) resources to build our learning materials. These learning materials were to support autonomous learning, moving away from substitution of face-to-face to more personalised and adaptive experiences (Shearer et al., 2019). The design was more than just a substitution and

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augmentation as the materials entailed transformational modification (Puentedura, 2013), which was the added value of the modules on offer. These autonomous resources were intended to enhance receptive language skills and to provide content related to the Virtual Classroom sessions. Thus, the Nine Events of Instruction model developed by Gagné et al. (2004) was adopted for the development of autonomous learning materials as it was found to be appropriate for the online delivery of our modules (Hannon et al., 2002). The model has been widely adopted for designing both face-to-face and online resources and seen as effective in instructional design. Gagné et al. suggested nine events of instructions starting with gaining attention, moving on to stating objectives, recalling prior learning, presenting stimulus, providing learning guidance, eliciting performance, providing feedback, assessing performance, and finally enhancing retention. As Arshavskiy (2018) states nine events can impact cognitive abilities of learners and help in retaining new information which was key to this design. For Gaining attention, the following were used: rhetorical questions, quotes, high quality thought-provoking images or short videos at the beginning of the resources. The screenshot below shows a quote within a French module that aimed at capturing attention and motivating learners from the beginning of their learning journey (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1  Visualisation of an image and a quote that serves the purpose of gaining students’ attention. (Source: Authors’ own)

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Learning objectives have been provided to the students at the module level as well as on a weekly basis being linked to learning materials. These aimed at keeping students focused and informed (Arshavskiy, 2018). Objectives usually preceded recalling prior knowledge activities that is, asking quiz-like questions about previous sessions, asking open ended and reflective questions. The questions had many formats including multiple choice or multi select questions, drag and drop or gap filling. Each of the questions was designed with meaningful feedback for learners prompting them to carry on with their learning. Presenting a stimulus and providing guidance was reflected in the receptive skills practice and before reading, listening or watching students were motivated by some stimulating questions. If the skill in focus was reading, to avoid cognitive overload, texts were chunked into smaller sections to follow Mayer’s multimedia principles (Mayer, 2020) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2  Reading text divided into digestible chunks for reading comprehension in a German module. (Source: Authors’ own)

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Eliciting performance was done by utilising some quiz-like questions within the tool that allowed the students to practice their skills and knowledge to receive feedback on performance. Students were provided with feedback in the form of confirmative and corrective feedback, and by providing them with correct and incorrect answers, they were also receiving remedial feedback. Instructors allowed them to track their work to facilitate feed-forward and improve in multiple language areas (Arshavskiy, 2018). On top of the automated feedback, students were also provided with ongoing analytical and informative feedback in their live sessions with instructors. Some of the resources were also designed with short reflective questions that aimed at triggering some higher order thinking skills and improving retention. Apart from strong design principles, it was paramount to decide on an appropriate tool for content development. Tools allowing us to create content are called authoring tools and these tools allow us to provide content/learning materials in a more attractive, motivating and interactive way. For this project a rapid development tool called Articulate Rise 360 was chosen based on student learning goals (Beard, 2021), and the tool’s features, accessibility and user-friendly interface. The interface of the tool has simple building blocks (drag-and-drop format) enabling for a creative approach when developing materials. Rise 360 moves from the concept of a typical slideshow to building a mini website for students. Students do not access content in Rise in a linear way but the material unveils itself in a vertical way, taking into account recent studies on how people read and track information online and how they process written and visual content (Moran 2020). Rise 360 produces mobile responsive learning materials needed for mobile learning, while still having the features of an authoring tool allowing tracking the progress of learners within a learning platform. All the features of the tool made it ideal to support the autonomous experiences for the students. The implementation phase of the designed modules took place during the Autumn trimester of the academic year 2020–21.

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4 Methodology The evaluation phase of the design model was the last stage of the project, and a mixed method research design was adopted to collect data from students, designers and instructors. First, a total of five semi-structured interviews were conducted, four of them with the designers involved in the creation of the online modules and a fifth one with an instructor involved in the delivery of one of the modules. Three of the four designers were also instructors delivering the online modules they have developed. The questions for the interviews were drawn from principles of the Learning Experience Design emerging from the literature review. A preliminary analysis of those interviews highlighted that the design process and the delivery of the modules were positively perceived by the designers and the instructors (Hernández & Kilar-Magdziarz, 2021). The semi-structured interviews were complemented with an online survey for students using Google Forms. The survey was distributed at the end of the trimester to all the students enrolled in the four modules (N = 67). The questions for the survey were also determined by the literature review and the principles of online design. The questions aimed at ascertaining the students’ views on the technological (navigation, accessibility, etc.) and pedagogical aspects (suitability of the materials, variety of texts, engagement with the materials, etc.) of the online modules. For the analysis of quantitative data from the student survey we used descriptive statistics while the qualitative data from the interviews and the survey were analysed using a thematic approach that entailed “identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 6).

4.1 Results The student survey response rate was 90% and gave the project leaders some good insights into students’ perspectives on the online modules and about their engagement with the materials. The five semi-structured interviews were recorded using the online teleconferencing tool Zoom. The data from the survey and from the interviews were analysed and the

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Fig. 3  Word cloud showcasing the main factors contributing to the learning experience for BCIT modules. (Source: Authors’ own)

emerging themes were independently agreed by both researchers. The factors that contributed to a positive learning experience within the modules are captured visually in the word cloud below (Fig. 3). The four main themes that emerged from the data were as follows (1) navigation and accessibility, (2) module topics and teaching methodology, (3) assessment and feedback, and (4) autonomous learning. Each theme will be discussed below.

Navigation and Accessibility Students were asked to comment on the way the Virtual Learning Environment was structured and how user-friendly it was for them to navigate around it. A significant majority (83% of respondents) found it easy to navigate and access their learning materials, so their learning experience was positive. The word cloud below showcases the most common comments made by the students who generally commented that easy navigation had a positive impact on their learning experience (Fig. 4). One of the students stated:

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Fig. 4  A word cloud generated from all inputs gathered from respondents on the navigation and general learning experience. (Source: Authors’ own)

I particularly enjoyed how well organised this module was—everything was divided in an easy manner, and it was very easy to find what I was looking for.

This comment illustrates how the learning experience was designed with the focus on navigation and Universal Design Principles for Learning (UDL). However, easy navigation is not only about the content as indicated by another respondent: The assignments and readings are clearly labelled and uploaded to the same places each time, it becomes second nature to find them.

​​All designers said that a lot of upfront thinking was required at the design stage and reported that the use of Rise 360 was initially challenging, and they needed some time to familiarise themselves with the tool. However, they praised the educational technologist for the support provided during the design phase in order to achieve good navigation of the modules for the students. During the delivery of the modules, some instructors found it challenging to link self-learning materials to the live Virtual Classroom. Only a small number of students remarked that they experienced some technical issues with technology, that is, access to Rise 360 learning

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materials within IOS and Safari browser, and Wi-Fi connection issues that impacted their access to materials as well as live Virtual Classroom sessions. Apart from connectivity and software issues, there was one student whose hardware failed and had to access the module on a mobile phone which was not ideal, and the experience was not positive. Mobile access and experience is based on many factors such as the learning platform application, mobile phone capacity and functionalities, as well as Wi-Fi connection. While the modules were mobile responsive, live classes and some readings would not be best to access on mobile phones. Another student raised an issue that it is worth addressing: The constant use of technology causes migraines, eye pains, fatigue and back pains. Being in front of a screen for a long time also tends to affect my productivity and motivation.

This comment might have wider implications for the design and physical spaces for online asynchronous study with the right equipment, furniture, lighting, space, and ambience and being self-conscious of posture while learning.

Module Topics and Teaching Approach All the respondents indicated that the content of the modules was very stimulating and relevant towards preparing them for the Erasmus+ experience. Furthermore, most respondents stated that the content of the modules was very relevant because it helped them to understand the people and culture of the country. They added that the knowledge and skills acquired were essential to facilitate their immersion into the host country during the period of Erasmus. The following quotes summarise the points made by many of the respondents: The topics were very relevant as they greatly improved my understanding of daily life, the culture and the history of France as well as improving my language skills. … relevant real-world topics… always made the module interesting and kept me engaged and interested in learning over the course of the module.

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More specifically in relation to preparing students for the Erasmus+ experience, one respondent stated that: This module has helped my understanding in French and now I feel that I am ready to go on Erasmus and to understand the language.

There were many respondents who mentioned that the Content and Language Integrated Learning approach (CLIL) was something new for them, and all of them praised the approach as they thought it motivated them more to engage with the learning materials. They added that it allowed them to develop in more detail their language skills than in the traditional classes where language and culture/literature are taught separately, and very often through English rather than through the L2. Many respondents held in high regard the blended approach of learning culture and language as can be seen through the following quotations: I really liked the mixture of culture and language learning. I found this approach to be very rewarding. I preferred this module and the topics covered to the usual literature modules we do. I really liked the integrated quality of this module … we were challenged to express our opinions through German.

The designers and instructors acknowledged that CLIL was a more innovative way to teach languages and they affirmed that this approach was particularly effective for the development of productive skills, mainly speaking. Moreover, all instructors pointed out that reflection on language was integrated into the online classes. Reflection was considered a better way to address language issues as the focus was on ‘language use’ rather than on providing a full explanation of grammar rules out of context. However, one instructor said that this method was perceived by some students as lacking grammatical input. This view from students may be related to their previous learning experiences when grammar was learned in an explicit overt way and grammar rules were provided upfront followed up by some practice. That approach is also a very common way in the teaching of languages in some higher education settings.

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The excellent teaching team was key to the delivery of the modules as there were a few comments about positive “interaction with the professor(tutor) and the small groups”. The smaller groups and use of breakout rooms in Virtual Classrooms allowed for exchange of ideas, many conversations and group work. The respondents hugely valued the relevant topics within the modules that allowed them to practise both their productive and receptive skills. Oral production and the use of the target language were important as expressed in this comment “the change to no English which I didn’t expect but was beneficial”. The delivery of the modules in the target language, that is, Spanish, French, Italian and German was perceived beneficial by many respondents.

Assessment and Feedback All the designers and instructors explained that they chose assessment strategies that had a “real world” application in the sense of making students demonstrate skills that they would have to use after completing their degrees. Furthermore, the assessment allowed students to create their own products or artefacts such as podcasts. The assessment strategies included oral presentations, debates, podcasts, blogs, interviews, discussion fora, quizzes or reflection on their learning. The assessment activities were listening, reading, writing, speaking and online interaction. All the instructors were very happy with the assessment strategies and the only issue raised by one of them was to ensure that the written work was not excessive so that appropriate feedback could be given to the students. In that regard, one student claimed: I didn’t yet receive feedback on everything, but the feedback I have received has been helpful.

All the instructors provided students with automated feedback, as well as using group or personal feedback, either in written or oral form. Criteria were provided in advance so that students knew what was required of them. The use of rubrics was perceived by the instructors as a good way of providing feedback. This was corroborated by the students:

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The teacher had feedback for each assignment which was very helpful to know where I’m succeeding and where I need to improve.

The students valued the support they got from the instructors, and appreciated the feedback provided by them. Of student respondents, 77% ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ with the statement, “Feedback was appropriate and allowed them to work on what they needed to improve”. However, one instructor commented that not enough attention was given to the feedback of student writing pieces, implying that a change was needed to deal with feedback and feed-forward to ensure that students apply comments received to their future written assignments. On the other hand, another instructor remarked that she provided students with too much feedback, and she noted that weaker students were not able to engage with it. However, the other instructor said that the more feedback students got the more they wanted. There was a suggestion from one of the instructors that a way forward to provide effective feedback could be to ask students when they submit assignments to include a template indicating the specific areas that they would like feedback about so that afterwards they could demonstrate how they had worked on it. Several instructors perceived that some students did not pay enough attention to the feedback if a feed-forward component was not incorporated. It was noted that some instructors still relied on feedback practices that were conducive to face-to-face teaching, particularly in relation to written work. For example, they downloaded documents and used pen and paper to correct students’ work, adding the extra task of scanning and uploading the documents with feedback for the students to see. Peer feedback was used, but only by some instructors. A limited use of the learning platform grading systems was reported by some student respondents as illustrated in the following quotation I am aware that there was an issue with presenting grades and feedback on Brightspace. This meant we did not have continuous access to our progress.

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Autonomous Learning Students were asked about the integration of asynchronous learning and the development of autonomous learning and self-regulation of their own time to manage online studying. It was reassuring to know that the majority of students felt that they have been developing their autonomous learning, outside of the classroom, through asynchronous activities. They mentioned that thanks to the design of the modules they were more inclined to research topics further and write blogs, produce podcasts, posters and/or presentations. Many students commented that they became “more independent self-learners during this semester”. All instructors reported a high level of engagement with the learning materials by the students in preparation for the synchronous classes. However, one of the instructors acknowledged that most students seemed to engage with the materials on the same day of the synchronous class, some just a couple of hours before the class, instead of spacing their study throughout the week. One instructor explained that the materials and the preparatory activities worked well and contributed to a lively engagement in debates and other learning activities during the synchronous class debates. Another instructor added that students were eager to use during the synchronous class what they had learned during the self-directed work prior to the class. Moreover, it appears that not all the designers got the right balance regarding asynchronous materials and learning activities as some students commented that they would have liked to see more interactive activities, such as mini quizzes, films and videos for self-study. However, one respondent felt overwhelmed by the amount of self–paced study that was required, often interfering with other modules and schedules throughout the trimester. In that vein, one of the instructors said that she should have considered more what students had to do by themselves, what they needed for the synchronous class and what they had to do after the class: the before, during and after class. In a similar vein, another instructor commented that more focus could have been given to the pre-reading or pre-watching activities to stimulate the interest of the students.

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5 Conclusion This study has shown that the Learning Experience Design model adopted in the design of online modules contributed positively to the student learning experience. The designers were very appreciative of the support they got from the project leaders during the design of the modules. These, added to the excellent skills of the instructors in the delivery of the modules, contributed significantly to the positive learning experience reported by the students that completed those modules. The study has corroborated that the Learning Experience Design adopted was key to making the modules accessible and easy to navigate for students. The Nine Events of Instructions approach proved to be instrumental in achieving well-designed modules. It was paramount for these modules to motivate, engage and trigger higher order thinking skills when learning languages. What added extra value to the learning experiences was the use of Rise 360 as a tool. The tool provides sleek, modern looking learning materials that meet the needs of the students. Their design was appropriate and motivating for language learning. However, the introduction of the tool for academics must be accompanied by training prior to the design phase as well as ensuring help and support throughout the implementation phase. The support that was provided within the design stage to the designers involved, was personalised, and given by the educational technologist. However, a design template was used to help with the materials in the future and ensure that the resources are well structured. The template below: https://rise.articulate. com/share/ZnpZvX1tIg58X4OrIemjxlU8ZjPdnauE is designed based on the feedback from the instructors and aims at assisting the design of learning materials in the future. It is crucial to avoid a tool driven approach and ensure that good pedagogical design principles inform the models used. The tool choice should be based not only on pedagogical considerations but also on budgetary and sustainability ones. Rise 360 does need annual fees and maintenance which require financial planning. The use of a Content and Language Integrated Learning approach to teaching, which also informed the design process, was highly regarded by students, designers and instructors. The CLIL approach, and the specific

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content selected for these modules were significant in motivating students to engage in self-directed learning and the key to facilitating a high level of student engagement during the online synchronous classes. It is evident that more modules should be designed and delivered using CLIL and higher education institutions should learn from other sectors of education where this approach has been in use for some time. However, it would be recommended to include a revision of these modules and keep updating the content with the passage of time. The results of this study have illustrated how the design approach of the online modules informed by appropriate use of technology, relevant content, and a pedagogically sound teaching approach, contributed significantly to the engagement of the students, both synchronously during the Virtual Classroom sessions, as well as asynchronously during the completion of self-directed learning activities. Furthermore, the assessment strategies used for these modules were highly effective and they provided learners with real-life activities including blogs and podcasts. However, considering the short time at our disposal to design these modules and the significant challenges that the designers faced, including becoming familiar with online design and the eLearning tools, this study revealed that further attention was needed to the feedback process. While most students were satisfied with the feedback provided by the instructors, the use of online tools that would have provided prompt and effective feedback was not always adopted. Furthermore, reverting to traditional feedback practices with pen and paper was also an issue, as instructors did not have sufficient knowledge to provide feedback using online tools. We acknowledge that plenty of support was provided to the designers during the design stages of the project. However, ongoing support to the instructors delivering the modules is also recommended so that any issues arising from the tools available to facilitate feedback to students are used effectively. To conclude, it is paramount to continue with a similar design approach for other modules on offer by the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and develop a more structured set of guidelines or checklist for other designers and developers of modules to support them. These set of guidelines could be a way to ensure that student learning experiences and pathways are consistent, with the same approach to visual

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design of modules, their learning materials, assessment and feedback. It should be noted that these guidelines do not mean uniformity of what is provided, but focus on HOW it is provided, that is, in a consistent and unified manner, utilising institutional technologies.

References Arshavskiy, M. (2018). Instructional design for eLearning: Essential guide for designing successful eLearning courses. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Beard, E. (2021). How to pick the right digital tool: Start with your learning goal. Teach. Learn. Grow. Retrieved August 23, 2022, from https://www.nwea.org/ blog/2020/how-­to-­pick-­the-­right-­digital-­tool-­start-­with-­your-­learning-­goal/ Blake, R.  J. (2017). Introduction. In I.  Sanz-Sánchez, S.  V. Rivera-Mills, & R. Morin (Eds.), Online language teaching research: Pedagogical, academic and institutional issues (pp. 1–7). Corvallis. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. CAST. (2018). Universal design for learning guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved March 2, 2022, from http://udlguidelines.cast.org Clark, D. (2021). Learning experience design: How to create effective learning that works. Kogan Page. Council of Europe. (2018). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, Assessment. Companion Volume with New Descriptors, 2018. Retrieved February 17, 2021, from https://rm.coe.int/cefr-­ companion-­volume-­with-­new-­descriptors-­2018/1680787989 Dalton-Puffer, C., Nikula, T., & Smit, U. (2010). Charting policies, premises and research on content and language integrated learning. In C. ­Dalton-­Puffer, T.  Nikula, & U.  Smit (Eds.), Language use and language learning in CLIL classrooms (pp. 1–22). Johns and Benjamins. Dirksen, J. (2015). Design for how people learn (Voices That Matter). New Riders. EDUCAUSE. (2020). 2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon report, teaching and learning edition (No. 2020). EDUCAUSE. Retrieved August 20, 2022, from https:// www.educause.edu/horizon-­report-­2020 Fayer, L. (2014). A multi-case study of student perceptions of online course design elements and success. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(1), Art. 13.

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Gagné, R. M., Wager, W. W., Golas, K., & Keller, J. M. (2004). Principles of instructional design. Cengage Learning. Hannon, P., Umble, K. E., Alexander, L., Francisco, D., Steckler, A., Tudor, G., & Upshaw, V. (2002). Gagné’s and Laurillard’s Models of Instruction Applied to Distance Education: A theoretically driven evaluation of an online curriculum in public health. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed. Learning, 3(2) Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://doi. org/10.19173/irrodl.v3i2.105 Hargis, J. (2020). What is effective online teaching and learning in higher education? Academia Letters, Article 13. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL13 Hernández, R., & Kilar-Magdziarz, E. (2021). Instructional design for online content integrated language teaching with a focus on a rapid development e-authoring tool. In Proceedings of EDULEARN21 conference, IATED Academy, Valencia, pp. 3542–3549. Instructional Design Central. (2021). History of instructional design. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.instructionaldesigncentral.com/ instructional-­design-­history Kumar, S., Martin, F., Budhrani, K., & Ritzhaupt, A. (2019). Award-winning faculty online teaching practices: Elements of award-winning courses. Online Learning, 23(4), 160–180. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v23i4.2077 Lasagabaster, D. (2008). Foreign language competence in content and language integrated courses. The Open Applied Linguistics Journal, 1, 30–41. Marsh, D. (Ed.). (2002). CLIL/EMILE  – The European dimension: Actions, trends and foresight potential. Public Services Contract, University of Jyväskylä. Martin, F., Ritzhaupt, A., Kumar, S., & Budhrani, K. (2019). Award-winning online teaching practices: Course design, assessment and evaluation, and facilitation. The Internet and Higher Education, 42, 34–43. Mayer, R. E. (2020). Multimedia learning. Cambridge University Press. Merrill, M. D. (2012). First principles of instruction. Wiley. Moran, K. (2020). How people read online: New and old findings. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.nngroup. com/articles/how-­people-­read-­online/ Moreville, P. (2004). User experience design. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from http://semanticstudios.com/user_experience_design/ Puentedura, R. R. (2013). SAMR: Moving from enhancement to transformation [Web log post]. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from http://www.hippasus. com/rrpweblog/archives/000095.html

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Russell, V., & Murphy-Judy, K. (2020). Teaching language online: A guide for designing, developing, and delivering online, blended, and flipped language courses. Routledge. Shearer, R.  L., Aldemir, T., Hitchcock, J., Resig, J., Driver, J., & Kohler, M. (2019). What students want: A vision of a future online learning experience grounded in distance education theory. American Journal of Distance Education, 34(1), 36–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2019.1706019 Troop, M., White, D., Wilson, K. E., & Zeni, P. (2020). The user experience design for learning (UXDL) framework: The undergraduate student perspective. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 11(3) https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-­rcacea.2020.3.8328 UCD Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Technology enhanced learning. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://www.ucd.ie/teaching/resources/technologyenhancedlearning/blendedandonlinelearningdesign/ Watson, F. F., Castano Bishop, M., & Ferdinand-James, D. (2017). Instructional strategies to help online students learn: Feedback from online students. TechTrends, 61, 420–442. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-­017-­0216-­y

Index

A

Adapting, 160, 162, 167, 168, 170 Addictive behavior after gamification, 205 Adult education, 15 Adult learning, 16 Assessment strategies, 188 Asynchronous, 14, 61, 135–154

Critical thinking, 33, 35, 45–47, 53 Cultural diversity, 26 D

Designers, 270, 274, 278, 280, 282, 283, 285–287 Dialogic learning, 19 Digital avatars, 2

B

Business, 135–154 C

Central characteristics of games, 206 Cocurricular, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 116–122, 125 COVID-19, 81

E

Effectiveness of gamification, 209–211 Ethics, 135–154 Example of gamification, 204 Experiential elements, 160, 165–167, 174, 176 Experiential learning (EL), 46, 51, 107, 111, 135–154, 160–177

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Kumar, J. Eisenberg (eds.), Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17841-2

291

292 Index F

L

Face-to-face lectures, 60 Faculty, 81 Faculty lived experience, 3–6 Flourishing, 82 Flow experience, 214–215 Future research directions in gamification, 215

Languishing, 82 Leadership, 105, 110–112, 115, 117–122 Leadership education, 223–226, 240–241 Learner engagement, 203 Learning capital, 14 Learning Experience Design (LXD), 269–288 Lived experience, 82 Logistics, 168–174

G

Game element, 205 Gamification, 204 research, 209–215 for synchronous and asynchronous learning, 209 Global North, 3 Global South, 3

M

Mechanics-DynamicsAesthetics (MDA) framework, 207 Mechanism of gamification, 211–212

H

Heuristics, 161, 175, 177 Higher education, 81 HyFlex, 82

N

New interactive educational platforms, 61

I

Implicit theories, 174, 176 Instructors, 269–288 Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), 83

O

K

P

Kolb, A. Y., 139, 140, 143, 147, 151, 153, 154 Kolb, D. A., 135–140, 143, 147, 149, 151, 153, 154

Pedagogical practices, 3, 7–9 Pedagogic practices, 181–198 Perspective transformation, 34, 35, 53

Online, 160–177 Outcomes of gamification, 212–213

 Index 

Positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA), 82 Practical implications, 60 Psycho-social engagement, 15 Q

Qualitative research, 34, 37, 38, 40, 43, 45, 50, 52, 53

293

Student engagement, 181–198, 287 Synchronous, 61 T

Teacher reflection, 193, 196 Theoretical basis of gamification, 214–215 Transformative learning, 33–54 U

R

Reflective practice, 44 Risks, 166, 167, 170–176

Universal delivery design, 151, 153 University teachers, 60 V

S

Self-directed learning, 271, 274, 287 Self-efficacy, 18 Self-regulated learner, 14 Social learning, 13

Virtual, 108, 160–165, 167, 171, 174, 175 Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), 98