From Emergency Remote Teaching to Effective Online Learning: A Teacher Professional Development Case Study from Higher Education in India

Abstract

This chapter describes the design and implementation of an educational solution to prepare teachers and instructors in India for various pedagogical and technological transitions during the pandemic. The goal was to move from an emergency remote teaching approach towards adopting effective online teaching strategies. This solution had to address the key challenge of remote professional development for the online medium while accounting for the diversity in the Indian educational context, taking into account varying needs of learners, teachers, institutions, geography, availability of technology, prior experience, and goals. The solution had two parts: i) a web-based repository for self-learning, consisting of research-based principles, pedagogical strategies and tools for effective design and development of online courses, and ii) synchronous interactive workshops to support instructors in practical implementation of the principles, strategies and tools to make domain specific instruction design decisions. Overall, emphasis was paid to learner engagement, diverse learner needs, peer learning, providing effective feedback and meaningful interaction. The resource repository and workshops guided instructors through making decisions and evaluating trade-offs in their context. This article also provides a brief analysis of the data collected from workshops on teachers’ preparedness at effective integration of technology, and the impact of the OTeach resource repository, which can found at Google Sites and has 25,000+ visitors so far. The article concludes with reflections and recommendations based on our experience.