Although many teachers including myself were excited about the move to the online delivery mode for our lessons, my concerns were confined and limited to my teaching strategy, the best use of online platforms, shortlisting the enormous choices of online tools, the required technological skills for delivering the content and supporting my students towards achieving the learning outcomes.
By the time, many other concerns started to popup, that must be taken into consideration, including:
- Physical health, due to the long sitting hours in front of the laptop screen.
- Mental health, due to anxiety, stress, and depression.
Looking at the health and wellbeing of the teaching staff in general across the globe, on a short-term basis, educators are most strongly concerned with the impact on their time in terms of material preparation.
Over the longer term, educators are also concerned about the amount of time that would be required to support and assess distance learners.
Teachers, principals, and programme directors alike were uncertain about the time required to produce distance learning materials and to adequately support students; an issue that exacerbated the sense of chronic managerial workload that academics are under, and which underpinned many of the worries that academics had about distance learning.
Concerns were expressed about the potential requirement to extend the working day to support learners located in different time zones around the globe.
These concerns are affecting teachers’ wellbeing causing longer working hours and preparation time which is impacting teachers mental and physical health.
According to the study of Saunders, Brooks, and Dawson (2019), Recommendations for academics and institutions involved in distance learning are suggested as following,
- Staff: Fight for sufficient time to prepare and teach distance learning; it should not be a weekends/holiday task.
- Institutions:
A) Acknowledge and reward involvement in distance learning (via workload allocation, promotion committees etc.) (Minnaar 2013; Betts and Heaston 2014).
B) Allow time for instructional designers to sit alongside academics as they develop module content (Bolliger and Wasilik 2009; Islam, Beer, and Slack 2015).
Finally, much of the academic literature, however, remains focused on the impact of distance learning on students and the technologies that support it, rather than considering the impact on those staff that are tasked with designing and delivering it.
References:
Betts, K., and A. Heaston. 2014. “Build it But Will They Teach?: Strategies for Increasing Faculty Participation & Retention in Online & Blended Education.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 17: n2.
Bolliger, D. U., and O. Wasilik. 2009. “Factors Influencing Faculty Satisfaction with Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.” Distance Education 30: 103–116.
Islam, N., M. Beer, and F. Slack. 2015. “E-learning Challenges Faced by Academics in Higher Education.” Journal of Education and Training Studies 3: 102–112.
Minnaar, A. 2013. “Challenges for Successful Planning of Open and Distance Learning (ODL): A Template Analysis.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 14: 81–108.
Saunders, F. C., Brooks, J., & Dawson, M. (2019). Exploring staff attitudes to distance learning – what are the opportunities, challenges and impacts on engineering academics and instructional designers. European Journal of Engineering Education, 45(5), 675-690. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2019.1677562
Great post! I can completely relate and attest to the increase of stress and anxiety throughout this distance learning journey. I constantly feel overwhelmed and this is causing my motivation and interest in producing lessons to my typical level to diminish. All I can think about is how tired and stressed I am.... when is the holiday again?! I know I'm not alone.
I really enjoyed this post and you bring up a very good point, that the shift to online learning is often assessed from the view of the students and less so from the instructional viewpoint. Ensuring that we recognise and reward staff is definitely important.