Date of Award

2025

Degree Name

Curriculum and Instruction

College

College of Education and Professional Development

Type of Degree

Ed.D.

Document Type

Dissertation

First Advisor

Dr. Lisa A. Heaton

Second Advisor

Dr. Barbara J. O’Byrne

Third Advisor

Dr. Kandas A. Queen

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Tina L. Allen

Abstract

COVID-19 closed colleges and forced faculty and students to learn a new way of teaching and learning. Like most institutions, Marshall University’s College of Education and Professional Development struggled to provide the practicum experience required for teacher preparation when most public schools shifted to remote learning. This qualitative study investigated the reactions of, and ongoing impact on, a university’s college of education’s administrators, faculty, undergraduates, the institution’s instructional designers, and the Counseling Center’s director when the campus closed spring of 2020 due to the pandemic. Initial and ongoing challenges faced, and strategies implemented were categorized by the four themes that emerged from the literature: academic, financial, psychological, and social. The researcher conducted 17 interviews using her created instrument to gain the participants’ perspectives and employed snowball sampling to identify participants. Member checks and data triangulation increased the study's validity. Topics commonly mentioned by the participants included: working from home issues like lack of internet access, feelings of isolation and stress over lack of online readiness, and utilizing Microsoft Teams to continue teaching and learning. The pandemic demonstrated that colleges of education not only need to prepare their teacher candidates to teach in person, but also to teach virtually so that learning can continue when in person is not an option. Faculty and students alike need better preparation on how to teach online. Institutions of higher education should consider the wholistic needs of their students as they prepare contingency plans for in person interruptions of learning.

Subject(s)

COVID-19 (Disease)

Computer-assisted instruction.

Web-based instruction.

Internet in education.

Internet in higher education.

COVID-19 (Disease) -- Education (Higher)

Teachers -- Education (Higher)

Career development.

Microsoft software.

Internet access.

Work environment.

Marshall University.

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