The power of positive deviance behaviours: From panic-gogy to effective pedagogy in online teaching.

This study examines university faculty members' successful behaviours and the factors influencing these behaviours, when dealing with the issues posed by emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was gathered through interviews with 12 carefully chosen instructors who competently prepared and implemented their first online classes despite various challenges encountered during the crisis. Interview transcripts were analysed by applying the theoretical concepts of the positive deviance approach to identify exemplary behaviours in the face of crisis. The results revealed that the participants performed three unique but effective behaviours, called 'positive deviance behaviours', in their online teaching: philosophy-driven decision making informed planning and ongoing performance monitoring. These behaviours were affected by individual factors (e.g., community engagement and emotion management during different phases of emergency remote teaching) and organisational factors (e.g., networks/hardware and training/support). By examining the positive deviance behaviours of instructors who delivered effective classes, this study offers online teaching and faculty development strategies in both crisis and non-crisis situations.

"Teaching Through Your Fingertips": A Descriptive Study to Understand the Experiences and Needs of Online Educators in Postgraduate Nursing Education in Australia.

Introduction: Even before COVID-19, enrolments in online postgraduate nursing and midwifery courses were growing globally. Teaching into planned online courses requires pedagogical considerations unique to the context. Objective: The objective of this descriptive mixed methods study was to understand the experiences and needs of Australian online educators who taught into planned online postgraduate nursing or midwifery courses. Methods: A 55-item online survey captured the experiences and needs of participants. This paper reports on the analysis of participants' qualitative responses in this survey, analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Forty-nine postgraduate educators participated in this study. Results: Five core themes were identified: time is precious; redefining the educator role; understanding the pedagogical shift; online and alone; and learning to teach online. Many educators report lacking the skills and confidence to deliver high-quality education to postgraduate students through their fingertips. Conclusion: This research highlighted that online educators need support through resources, education, and professional development.

Intentionality in Academic Telesupervision: A Phenomenological Study of Faculty Telesupervisors' Experiences.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a widespread shift to telehealth, there is an increased need to understand how we can best provide Telesupervision (TS). To help address the limited research on TS in the Marriage and family therapy (MFT) field, the present study seeks to describe the experiences of faculty telesupervisors who have provided TS as part of an online COAMFTE Accredited MFT master's program since 2012 (telesupervision was provided before accreditation since 2005). Eighteen participants completed individual interviews or focus groups, which were analyzed using descriptive phenomenological procedures. Our results describe the essential structure of faculty supervisors' experiences providing TS. Core themes include: general experiences with TS as a modality, online university-specific experiences with TS as a modality, a systemic lens is intentionally applied, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are intentionally addressed, and clinical competencies and ethics are intentionally addressed. A discussion of the essential experiences of faculty TS along with implications for clinical training and future research are reviewed.

Faculty as reflective practitioners in emergency online teaching: an autoethnography.

This study aimed to chronicle and understand the emergency online teaching experience of five faculty members in a liberal arts college located in Tokyo, Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, adopting the autoethnographic method. It explored the nature and dimensions of problems the faculty members faced, resources used to make sense of problems encountered, and actions they took to solve the problems as reflective practitioners in emergency online teaching. It also examined differences between faculty members over time. Analysis of seven weeks of autobiographic reflective journals during a 10-week academic term revealed that the faculty members encountered a range of problems during the classes, especially student-related and technology-related issues. When encountering problems, faculty members utilized references such as their past experience in face-to-face classroom teaching. Faculty members with more online teaching experience were more adaptable and flexible in mobilizing other references to solve problems. Overall, all members worked as reflective learners and practitioners who continued to reflect on the problems they faced and find solutions. These findings suggest that engaging in reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action can be effective ways for faculty members to develop their competencies to solve problems in emergency online teaching situations when responding to unprecedented challenges and issues is continuously needed.

Understanding faculty perspectives of supports and barriers to interprofessional collaboration within a clinical scholars program: A qualitative study.

AIM: This study explores the faculty perspective of an interprofessional clinical scholars program to identify recommendations for strengthening team collaboration between academia and clinical practice. BACKGROUND: Interprofessional evidence-based practice, pairing higher education and clinical practice, is a critical part of nursing education. DESIGN: This qualitative study consisted of two phases of participant engagement, in both data collection and data analysis. METHODS: Specifically, faculty participated in a focus group discussion followed by a card sort of initial codes. RESULTS: The major themes identified are Unifying the Team and Navigating Layers of Challenge, encompassing concepts of teamwork and programmatic context that supported or disrupted interprofessional collaboration. This study affirms the importance of role clarity, connectedness, intentionality and continuity within clinical teams. Moreover, faculty identified barriers to teamwork based on workload, leadership turnover and constraining environmental forces. CONCLUSIONS: Recommendations for effective teamwork in an interprofessional setting will strengthen future collaboration between higher education and clinical settings.

How to create a faculty-centered curriculum support system: Launching the Academic Support Center (ASC) to inspire excellence in curriculum change.

PURPOSE: To define faculty needs and services requested for the implementation of a faculty-centered curriculum support system (i.e., Academic Support Center [ASC]) to assist curriculum redesign. METHODS: Faculty and students were invited to participate in 60-min, one-on-one interviews to describe pain points in teaching and identify possible support services needed. Benchmarking through surveys of academic deans was also conducted to determine what services other institutions offer. Qualitative memos from interviews and survey data were analyzed to identify salient challenges and outline possible services that could benefit the school. This information was used to create a strategic plan for the ASC. Full-time faculty were requested to evaluate the ASC 6 and 12 months following the launch of the center in 2019. RESULTS: Fifty interviews were conducted with department chairs (n = 10), full-time faculty (n = 36), and students (n = 4). Six pain points identified by participants were time, resources, knowledge, confidence, organizational structure, and organizational culture. Participants generated solutions related to supporting teaching and learning, enhancing faculty experience, and assisting educational evaluation. Twenty-two schools responded to the benchmarking survey-approximately half acknowledged a centralized curriculum support service (n = 12, 54.5% of respondents). Services often focused on instructional design, education technology, and faculty onboarding to education. Faculty feedback following the ASC launch was generally positive and demonstrating progress toward the three priorities. CONCLUSION: Needs assessment and benchmarking data can inform the design and implementation of centers that offer faculty-centered support structures around teaching, educational scholarship, and curriculum change.