Instructional Design Summit - Part 1: Envisioning a New Approach to Collaborative Instructional Designer and Faculty Relationships

Concurrent Session 4

Brief Abstract

Cultivating trusting and sustainable ID-Faculty partnerships can transform learning and increase student engagement and satisfaction (Kumar & Ritzhaupt, 2017; Richardson et al., 2019). However, barriers can inhibit the development of these transformative partnerships. Participants will learn research-based strategies to bolster faculty trust & buy-in through personalized instructional design approaches and context-specific practices.

Presenters

Extended Abstract

RELEVANCE

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated IHEs shift to online learning. Universities have focused on utilizing educational technology, instructional designers, and learning management systems to address the transition to remote learning. IDs played critical roles in facilitating instructors’ rapid transition to emergency remote teaching (Xie et al., 2021). Research shows that these collaborations among faculty and IDs (Halupa, 2019), in accordance with instructional design practices (Stevens, 2013), contribute to high-quality online education. 

VALUE

ID-faculty partnerships support course development and LMS usage, yielding positive results such as increased student engagement and satisfaction (Kumar & Ritzhaupt, 2017; Richardson et al., 2019). However, Jaschik and Lederman (2017) reveal that only 1 in 4 faculty members reported partnering with an ID for course development.

Lack of faculty buy-in contributes to the underdeveloped ID-faculty partnerships. Faculty may be unaware of IDs’ roles and responsibilities, leading to hesitancy and reluctance to establish partnerships (Richardson et al., 2019). In higher education, IDs fill a variety of context-specific responsibilities, contributing to role ambiguity (Beirne & Romanoski, 2018) and confusion about how to integrate their expertise. This role ambiguity can lead to mistrust of IDs. Consequently, faculty sometimes fear losing academic freedom and/or do not want to modify their curriculum and practices (McDonald et al., 2022). 

Cultivating sustaining Faculty-ID partnerships requires a personalized and scaffolded approach that yields meaningful results. Each faculty member has a unique level of comfort, skills, and objectives, in addition to subject matter expertise. Thus, a personalized approach is required. Collaborative completion of course development tasks can establish rapport and trust in ID-Faculty partnerships, which is a key tenet in gaining faculty buy-in (Richardson et al., 2019).

Throughout the presentation, participants will be empowered and equipped to identify common challenges and barriers facing ID-Faculty partnerships at their institutions. Exploring best practices to cultivate healthy partnerships through personalized instructional design approaches will enable participants to increase overall faculty buy-in.
 

SESSION OUTLINE

Into:

The session will begin with participants contributing to a visual brainstorming tool using their personal devices to share common challenges in ID-Faculty partnerships. This opening activity sets the foundation and framework into the main discussion of best practices and cases from professional practice.

Through:

The presenters will share research-based studies highlighting the most effective strategies to cultivate successful ID-Faculty partnerships, as well as common barriers and challenges to establishing these partnerships. In addition, the presenters will list the potential benefits ID-Faulty partnerships yield and the drawbacks of their absence. The audience will be invited to share examples of positive and negative partnerships from their practice.

Once the foundation is set, participants will explore various ways to navigate through partnership challenges. The presenters will share their approaches to building faculty buy-in and developing productive ID-faculty collaborations. Specific cases will be presented to illustrate successful, personalized practices across modalities and disciplines. 

The presenters will also provide worked examples of differentiated support to build faculty buy-in and relationship.

Beyond:

The presenters will incorporate group discussions for participants to discuss the feasibility of the presented examples to their context. The participants will collaboratively develop context-specific practices to increase faculty buy-in at their institution through an interactive online collaboration tool (e.g., Jamboard) and identify the resources needed to execute their strategy.

Session Takeaways

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

  • Reflect on barriers that inhibit the development of transformative ID-Faculty partnerships and faculty buy-in

  • Analyze presented approaches to personalize the instructional design process within their organization

  • Develop personalized practices to implement in their contexts to increase faculty buy-in and to build ID-Faculty relationships