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Faculty development activities offered within post-secondary educational institutions tend to focus on developing skills instead of directly addressing faculty conceptual views and beliefs that may affect their successful adoption of instruction within the online environment. This qualitative multi-case study bridges a gap in the current literature by introducing a professional development module designed to afford participants an opportunity to experience the conceptual change process. Participating in the conceptual conflict module resulted in faculty experiencing the different stages of the conceptual change process. As a result, case participants declared their beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes; revealed areas of concern; and identified plausible solutions to address those concerns.
Introduction
HE COVID-19 PANDEMIC thrust many faculty and students into the online learning sphere in 2020 (Garrett et al., 2020), which resulted in many faculty having limited or condensed occasions to engage in professional development (PD) opportunities needed to support the design and facilitation of quality online courses. Increasing quality in online courses had been already identified as a goal for higher education institutions pre-pandemic (Garrett et al., 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the critical issue of PD on online course design and facilitation. As universities begin to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the adoption of online courses, attention must focus on evaluating the limitations of traditional PD practices and exploring innovative and engaging PD models to effectively prepare faculty to teach in online environments. The research aimed to examine an online PD module that aimed to facilitate faculty's conceptual change process as they transitioned from traditional in-person teaching to online instruction.
Faculty Development for Online Teaching
The adoption of distance education required faculty to make significant adjustments to their theoretical, pedagogical, and cultural perceptions (Altbach & de Wit, 2020). Despite the efforts put forth by some institutions to provide the needed PD activities to support their online instructors, many faculty members remain frustrated and unprepared with available PD activities. The current PD activities tend to focus heavily on technology as opposed to pedagogy (Baran et al., 2011; Nilson & Goodson, 2021), which does not address faculty's training needs on course design. Over the years, doctoral and postdoctoral training has focused on academic research instead of instructional practices, which results in a preference by some faculty to identify...