Training Faculty as an Institutional Response to COVID-19 Emergency Remote Teaching Supported by Data

In March 2020, colleges in the United States rapidly switched in-person courses online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To chronicle how biology faculty responded to this emergency remote teaching, we surveyed faculty across the United States in August of 2020. Our survey included open-ended questions to identify a memorable moment, difficulties encountered, and unexpected benefits during the first COVID-19 semester. Faculty responses were coded by two researchers, and 21 themes emerged. Seventeen coding themes corresponded to one of four facets of adult personal resilience theory, and we used nonparametric statistical tests to compare resilience between inexperienced and experienced online instructors, as well as trained and untrained instructors. Experienced online instructors were more likely to describe an act of kindness in their memory but were also more likely to include negative student behavior as a difficulty. Untrained faculty were the only instructors who included student engagement as a difficulty and were more likely to describe a negative, discouraging memory. We used conditional forest analysis to identify polarizing themes between faculty with and without previous experience teaching online and between faculty who did and did not receive formal training. Our results underline the importance of training faculty, including experienced instructors, to improve emergency preparedness.