UC Santa Barbara

The field of study of “emergency online education” is relatively new, and the contributions to this topic have provided a relevant insight on how higher education institutions and its members can best be prepared and respond to unexpected emergency situations as they arise in order to keep instruction going in online/remote modality. However, most of these studies have been focused on very particular and context-situated emergencies (e.g. local earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and others), and it was not until March 2020 when higher education institutions across the U.S. and around the world had to deal massive campus closures due a world-wide pandemic—the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic— forcing educators to transition their teaching courses from face-to-face to fully online modality within a short period of time. This study was designed to get an in-depth understanding on how an education minor course at a R1 University was (re)designed and how technology was integrated in its curriculum during the first stage of the coronavirus pandemic (Spring 2020). To examine this, an ethnographic approach was used, using the components of Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich’s (2010) “Technology Change” framework (Technology knowledge and self-efficacy; Pedagogical beliefs; and Institutional culture) as analytical lenses (Gee, 2004). Multiple (multimodal) data types (email exchanges, Websites, digital documents, and recorded Zoom conversations) were collected to create an archive that helped in getting a better understanding of what was accomplished, what counted as important, under what conditions and for what purposes when the studied course had to be redesigned and be technology-mediated to transition from face-to-face to online/remote modality during the COVID-19 pandemic. I found how important the pedagogical and technological support provided by the university and the faculty’s immediate context (e.g. staff, students, colleagues) was to provide guidance in the process of rethinking the curriculum and integrating technology for teaching and learning during the first stage of the Covid-19 pandemic. I also found how important the pedagogical philosophy and beliefs were for this course’s successful implementation and the selection, integration, and usage of digital technologies for teaching and learning. However, emerging challenges arose as the academic Spring quarter of 2020 unfolded in relation to the unprecedented hardships and uncertainties—brought by the coronavirus pandemic—students had to face, and how these situations triggered challenges—related to the instructor’s flexibility, assessments, pedagogical practices, and students’ engagement and wellbeing—that were not initially considered by universities while preparing faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants to transition to remote/online modality in order to maintain instructional plans.