“I’m Not Trying to Recreate the Classroom”: A Qualitative Study to Help Faculty Make Sense of Online Interactions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Instructors who are new to online teaching experience negative emotions regarding the transition to online instruction and the experience of teaching online. Meanwhile, experienced online instructors find online instruction to be superior to traditional face-to-face instruction. An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was conducted at a public university in the US to answer the question: How is online teaching conceptualized by faculty who teach online? 25 online instructors with varying levels of experience teaching online participated in the study. Data were gathered through individual semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the IPA methodology. Findings revealed that experienced faculty conceptualized teaching very differently when it was conducted online. They also cognitively reframed their understanding of student-instructor interactions. This paper presents a visual model for understanding online interactions and calls for a reconceptualization of education to better align with the 21st-century technological milieu.