Studies on the shift to remote instruction due to the pandemic have highlighted not just the obstacles faced by individual instructors and departments, but also, more significantly, the resilience and innovative problem-solving that emerged, fostering both personal and collective growth. Instructors navigated numerous hurdles, including the selection and application of effective digital tools for teaching, with the dual challenge of ensuring both they and their students could adeptly use these technologies (Aguirre and Selampinar, 2020; Carpendale et al., 2020; Rupnow et al., 2020; Villanueva et al., 2020; Simmons and Mistry, 2023). The issue of maintaining academic integrity became prominent, prompting the development of new strategies to counteract cheating (Burnett et al., 2020; Gonzalez and Knecht, 2020; O’Carroll et al., 2020; Rupnow et al., 2020). Another challenge was the noticeable drop in attendance at virtual office hours and synchronous class sessions (Burnett et al., 2020; Perets et al., 2020; Reinholz et al., 2020), alongside difficulties in sustaining effective teaching amid diminished communication with colleagues (Rupnow et al., 2020). Amid these challenges, some faculty members saw an opportunity for deep reflection and reevaluation of their pedagogical approaches, contemplating significant shifts in their educational objectives and the practices they employ. This period of introspection also led to discussions on the need for enduring support mechanisms to facilitate and maintain these transformative changes in the long run (Chan et al., 2020; Rupnow et al., 2020).

Building on this momentum for change, departmental initiatives emerged as a pivotal structure for facilitating adaptation to the remote learning environment. At its onset, various departments swiftly implemented plans and organized weekly meetings to bolster support for students and faculty (Johnson et al., 2020). Some departments, already in the midst of pedagogical transformation, leveraged this period to sustain and adapt their initiatives to the remote learning context. For instance, a study highlighted that faculty members participating in a professional learning community focused on fostering equitable student participation in face-to-face settings had to pivot their efforts to accommodate the shift to remote learning in Spring 2020. This transition to the remote setting was associated with a notable decline in student engagement (Reinholz et al., 2020). However, employing discussions within the professional learning community allowed faculty to exchange strategies for enhancing participation. This collaborative approach facilitated a transition towards evidence-based teaching practices, ultimately leading to an increase in student attendance. Another department invoked its institutional theory of change as a compass for instructional decision-making during remote instruction due to the pandemic. This theory emphasized an empathetic understanding of students’ holistic needs, the adoption of a diversified pedagogical toolkit, and the establishment of a shared language, values, and recognition of students’ and faculty’s responsibilities (Chan et al., 2020). By centralizing these principles, encouraging the adoption of consistent pedagogical approaches among faculty, and fostering open dialogues within the department, there was a marked improvement in student experiences. These examples underscore the potency of departmental initiatives and structured approaches in guiding instructional adaptation and enhancing the educational environment, even amidst the challenges posed by the transition to remote learning.

Herein, we describe the proactive measures taken by another science department in response to the demand for emergency remote instruction. We capture and characterize the experiences of chemistry instructors in this department through the lens of the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth.

To support chemistry instructors in adapting to the changing instructional environment, the leadership within one chemistry department developed the Student Learning Enhancement (SLE) initiative. Specifically, at the onset of the pandemic, the departmental leadership recognized that instructors felt isolated and needed support as they adjusted to teaching in an online or hybrid format (note that by the onset of the pandemic, we refer to the time from Spring 2020 through Spring 2021 when instructors primarily taught remotely). As a result, this department created the SLE initiative to help the instructors adapt and support the students. As part of this initiative, the instructors within the same division (e.g., general chemistry, organic chemistry) met bimonthly via Zoom to discuss their teaching – what worked well, what problems had arisen, and what strategies would improve instruction and assessment. Two communities of practice were created: the community of instructors teaching Introductory/General Chemistry courses and the community of instructors teaching Organic Chemistry/Biochemistry courses.

As shown, the department demonstrated a strategic and innovative response to emergency remote instruction by establishing instructor communities of practice (Lave, 1991). The development of this department-wide initiative presented a valuable and compelling case study for exploring the impacts of this intervention on remote teaching practices and departmental climate during the pandemic teaching. These attributes made the department a compelling subject for studying the effects of collaborative efforts on navigating the challenges posed by the pandemic, including the lasting changes this had on the department post-pandemic. Therefore, we have captured and characterized the experiences of chemistry instructors within this department while teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how the participation in the communities of practice to support remote instruction impacted the instructors’ teaching values and practices.

To provide context on how this department compares with other science departments, we describe its characteristics. The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in this study (hereon referred to as the Department) is one of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) departments. UNCG is a public, high research activity (R2), a minority-serving institution in the Southeastern United States. UNCG was a Women’s College until 1964, and still today, most of its students are female. The Department offers Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Master of Science (M.S.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. Additionally, the B.S. in Chemistry is certified by the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Professional Training. At the time of this study (Spring 2020 – Spring 2021), depending on the semester, the Department included 332–385 majors, of which 35–38 were graduate students and 294–349 were undergraduate students. Of these students, depending on the semester, 60–63% self-identified as women. The Department is racially and ethnically diverse, where 59–70% of students self-identified as non-white (25–32% as Black or African American and 11–13% as LatinX). Half of the students were Pell Grant eligible, and almost half were first-generation college students. At the time of this study, the Department included about 25 faculty (52% tenured, 12% tenure-track, and 36% professional-track). Of these faculty, 36% identified as women. Professional-track faculty were primarily responsible for teaching Introductory and General Chemistry lecture and laboratory courses, as well as Organic Chemistry laboratory courses, whereas the tenured and tenure-track faculty were primarily responsible for teaching the remaining chemistry courses. The course enrollment varied, with course sizes set not to exceed 100–120 students in large undergraduate lecture courses, reflecting the Department’s emphasis on maintaining manageable class sizes for effective teaching and learning.

Due to the pandemic, in March 2020, the Department held a meeting to discuss the transition of all the lecture and laboratory courses to an online format for the rest of the Spring 2020 semester. In Fall 2020, some courses returned to face-to-face instruction with capacity limitations, whereas many others were still taught in online or hybrid formats. The Department did not return to entirely in-person instruction until Fall 2021.

The external domain (green box in Figure 1B) includes the shift to remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic (external stimulus) and the two communities of practice within the Department created to support the instructors (external sources of information) (Farnsworth et al., 2016; Dancy et al., 2019). Lave described communities of practice as a “group of people who share an area of expertise and learn from each other through interactions among group members” (Lave, 1991). Communities of practice can support teaching by creating a community where members exchange knowledge, troubleshoot teaching challenges, and learn from peers and experts (Dancy et al., 2019). Three tenents define communities of practice. First, the community must have a joint enterprise or shared purpose to learn and develop competence in a domain. For the SLE, this shared domain of interest was quality teaching of undergraduate chemistry in an online or hybrid format. Second, there must be mutual engagement and trust so community members can effectively learn from one another. The bimonthly Zoom meetings became the space in which the instructors supported each other and shared tips and insights. Third, a shared repertoire of jointly constructed resources (e.g., language and artifacts) is needed to negotiate meaning in the community. Instructors used what they learned from each other to improve their remote instruction.

The personal domain represents an instructor’s knowledge, values, and beliefs (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002). Values are a subset of beliefs associated with desires and acceptable standards of conduct. Beliefs and values serve as a filter for making decisions about learning goals, instructional strategies, and content organization (Bauer, 2005; Gess-Newsome, 2015; Flaherty, 2020). Teaching values, specifically, are known to drive decision-making in the classroom (Zagallo et al., 2019). During the Zoom meetings, instructors shared their knowledge and values and described situations when their competing values made it difficult to make an instructional decision.

Instruction is shaped not only by what the instructor knows, values, and believes but also by classroom context (Gess-Newsome, 2015). The classroom context is affected by the mode of instruction, class size, time available for preparing lessons and class materials, service and research responsibilities outside of the classroom, and other factors that impact instruction. In this study, the main factor that impacted faculty instructional practices was the mode of instruction (i.e., the transition to remote teaching). In our work, the domain of practice describes instructional practices during remote teaching. These practices include facilitating interactions between the instructor and the students and selecting activities and materials used within the classroom.

This domain explores the inferred consequences of instructor actions. For example, increased student–student in-class discussions may be interpreted as a salient positive outcome for one instructor but indicative of a loss of control for another. Thus, salient outcomes are unique to the instructor and are closely tied to their values. In this project, we characterized the domain of consequence through instructors’ explicit discussions about what worked and did not work in their remote classrooms.

This study uses the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002) to characterize the instructional landscape (i.e., teaching values, practices, and experiences) in a single department during the pandemic. This work adds to the body of literature that investigated how instructors adapted to online instruction and what challenges they encountered while teaching online while characterizing a departmental initiative to support instruction during the pandemic. We documented the real-time experiences of instructors at multiple time points when teaching remotely during the onset of the pandemic. We address the following research questions:

The first research question aims to provide a broad characterization of the four domains that encompass chemistry instructors’ experiences within the change environment (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002), whereas the second research question examines how the change in one domain promoted a change in another through instructors’ reflection and enactment (Figure 1A). Specifically, we examined how the changes in the external domain (e.g., participation in communities of practice to ensure quality remote teaching) catalyzed changes in the personal domain (e.g., teaching values) and in the domain of practice (e.g., instructional practices to provide remote instructions) (Figure 1B).

Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained before collecting any data. Multiple data sources were collected to comprehensively capture instructor experiences and ensure the trustworthiness of our findings (Oliver-Hoyo and Allen, 2006): course syllabi, Zoom recordings of divisional meetings during which instructors discussed their teaching, and open-ended surveys.

On a bimonthly basis in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, the instructors met via Zoom in unstructured divisional meetings to discuss their experiences teaching online. We collected the Zoom recordings of three divisional meetings of introductory/general chemistry instructors (n = 6) and two divisional meetings of biochemistry/organic chemistry instructors (n = 7). In total, we collected five videos that included 13 instructors. The instructors in our sample represented different academic ranks, including teaching-track professors, tenure-track assistant professors, and tenured associate and full professors. Gender-neutral pseudonyms were created for all instructors who participated in this study. Since the meetings were unstructured, instructors provided varying insight into their courses. To clarify their intended course formats, we collected each instructor’s course syllabus.

In addition to the rich insight into instructor experiences captured via the group discussions during the divisional meetings, we also wanted to allow the instructors to share their experiences individually. To do so, we designed an open-ended survey (see Supplementary material) grounded in the Seven Principles of Good Practice for the Online Environment (Sorensen and Baylen, 2009; Fiock, 2020) and the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison et al., 2000; Garrison, 2007). The first survey section asked each instructor to select an online or hybrid course to reflect on. The second survey section asked the instructors to reflect on the extent they implemented the Seven Principles of Good Practice for the Online Environment in their course. These principles include (1) student-teacher contact; (2) cooperation among students; (3) active learning; (4) prompt feedback; (5) time on task; (6) communication of high expectations; and (7) respect toward diverse ways of learning. The third survey section used the CoI framework as a lens to provide additional insight into the challenges instructors encountered. The CoI framework has been used to characterize the effectiveness of online teaching and learning (Garrison et al., 2000; Garrison, 2007; Arbaugh et al., 2008; Shea et al., 2010; Akyol and Garrison, 2011; Flener-Lovitt et al., 2020; Tan et al., 2020; Shaaban, 2021). The framework is grounded in social constructivism (Garrison, 2007; Kozan and Caskurlu, 2018) and comprises three main presences: the extent to which the learners construct meaning through sustained communication and reflection (cognitive presence), the ability of the students and instructors to project themselves socially and emotionally as ‘real people’ (social presence), and instruction, including content selection, organization, and presentation (teaching presence). When all three presences overlap, there is an environment that can foster a meaningful educational experience. The third survey section asked instructors about the challenges they might have encountered in creating cognitive, social, and teaching presences and how they used technology to address these challenges. To collect this data, we sent an email to all instructors in the Department, inviting them to participate in the survey. This email included a brief overview of the study’s purpose, an assurance of confidentiality and anonymity for all respondents in alignment with the obtained IRB approval, and a link to the Qualtrics survey.

All instructors teaching undergraduate chemistry lecture courses were invited to participate in the survey. Nine instructors completed the survey. We acknowledge that some instructors who completed the survey were also in the divisional meetings. However, we did not attempt to connect the instructors across the data sources to preserve anonymity. Instead, we focused on capturing shared and unique experiences across various data sources.

Data analysis began with all the Zoom transcripts of the recorded videos being cleaned up by the first two authors. This process also included removing any names or other identifying information from the transcripts. The first and second authors collaboratively analyzed the surveys, syllabi, and video transcripts. The data were inductively coded to capture the instructors’ experiences. Two types of inductive coding were utilized: value coding – identifying a person’s values representing their perspective, and versus coding – identifying, in dichotomous terms, the individuals, groups, or phenomena in direct conflict with each other (Saldaña, 2013). These coding methods were selected because, upon transcribing the recordings, the researchers noticed a large prevalence of difficult choices the instructors described having to make. When the instructors explained their choices and the uncertainty they experienced, we identified the values underlying their decision-making and the points of tension they encountered. Ultimately, inductive coding helped us characterize the teaching values and tensions unique to the pandemic teaching (personal domain, Figure 1B). The data were also deductively coded using provisional codes from the Seven Principles of Good Practice in the Online Environment and CoI framework (Section 3.1). These codes helped us characterize the instructional practices used to provide remote teaching (domain of practice, Figure 1B).

Upon creating the codebook, the authors engaged in constant-comparative analysis to evaluate each code and build hierarchies of codes and categories according to each domain in the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (Saldaña, 2013). The authors discussed each case of disagreement in their coding until a 100% inter-rater agreement was reached. In addition, the authors wrote memos after coding each prompt to capture their reflections on the data throughout the analysis. In the final phase, the researchers synthesized the central ideas in the data to form themes. The themes emerged through reflection on all codes, categories, and analytical memos (Glasser and Strauss, 1967). Peer debriefing, investigator triangulation, data triangulation, code-recode strategy, and memo-writing were the methodological strategies employed to ensure the credibility, dependability, and confirmability of the findings (Shenton, 2004; Anney, 2014).

Something very common in instructors’ discussions was the difficult choices they had to make when adjusting to teaching in online or hybrid formats. To explain their choices, the instructors often described the values underlying their decision-making. Eleven values were identified among the instructors. Table 1 contains the definition of each value and exemplary quotes.

The values are not necessarily unique to the conditions created due to the pandemic; during pre-pandemic times, instructors still valued things like student attendance or academic integrity. However, with the sudden shift to remote learning, instructors experienced and expressed multiple conflicting values when making instructional decisions. These points of tension are summarized in Table 2. Five points of tension were identified: the first three are conflicts between two different conditions of the classroom environment and how students access content, and the last two points of tension are conflicts between groups of individuals. While a point of tension may have multiple associated values, the key values that create this conflict are underlined. Neither option is correct nor always suitable, as conflicting values are nuanced and contextual (Saldaña, 2013). Below, we describe each point of tension in instructor values in more detail.

Five subthemes were captured from the surveys and divisional meetings that describe the teaching experiences of the instructors in this Department during the onset of the pandemic.

The pandemic and the shift to remote teaching created a lot of changes for the instructors that resulted in several change sequences (i.e., a change in one domain that causes a change in another domain via reflection and enactment) (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002). To explore these changes in more detail, we explore the case of Jamie (hybrid class, divisional meeting), Logan (online class, divisional meeting), and Max (online class, survey). The varied perspectives provided by these cases offer nuanced insights into the challenges and adaptations experienced by instructors in both hybrid and fully online environments.

For many instructors, the pandemic and the shift to remote teaching impacted the values they prioritized. Jamie illuminates this change sequence when they discuss the importance of having students attend in person (see Table 2). Before the pandemic, Jamie required students to attend class. The shift to remote teaching prompted Jamie to enact (flow 1, Figure 2) a consistent course schedule and a flexible learning environment with optional attendance. Upon reflection (flow 2, Figure 2), Jamie recognized a change in the salient outcomes in their course: there was poor attendance, but students appreciated the consistency and flexibility. Upon further reflection (flow 3, Figure 2), Jamie’s teaching philosophy and values began to shift from focusing on student attendance to student engagement. This shift, catalyzed by teaching remotely during a pandemic, is well illustrated in the following Jamie’s statement: “It’s easy to say that yeah, you are gonna come to lecture, it’s important [for students], but now I do not know if I believe that after this experience.”

Jamie’s change sequence resulted from the overall shift to remote teaching caused by the pandemic. Other instructors’ change sequences resulted from the information they learned from their colleagues when meeting together as a community of practice. Logan enacted an instructional practice shared with them during one of the divisional meetings but discontinued it because it was too difficult to facilitate, and student buy-in was very low. Logan stated: “Um, I do, you know, activity sheets, and I decided to not do the Zoom breakout rooms that we talked about because I took a poll of the students, and they opt not to do breakout room sessions because when I break up in the rooms, no one’s talking. I did try to tell them to introduce themselves as an icebreaker, and I would check in, and they are just sitting there, or their cameras are off, or they are muted, so no one is interacting. And so, based on the poll of the students, they prefer that we just stay out in the main session and we work through it together. Like I’m leading the discussion, but then I am calling on people, or they are raising their hand to volunteer. I know in person when I did the activity sheets, they would talk amongst themselves. In the classroom, they are able to do it. So that’s one thing I noticed.”

Logan enacted their colleagues’ recommendation (flow 1, Figure 3) to use breakout rooms in their course to create student–student interactions. After reflecting on the salient outcomes (flow 2, Figure 3), Logan realized that students were not engaging with each other in the breakout rooms. This corroborates research on student perceptions of remote lectures (Accettone, 2021) which found that only about half of the students valued student–student interactions. This is problematic because effective implementation of group work can support learning gains and build community (Johnson and Johnson, 2002; Chi and Wylie, 2014; Flener-Lovitt et al., 2020; Reinholz et al., 2020; Arneson et al., 2022; Ng et al., 2022). As an outcome of this reflection, Logan stopped using breakout rooms (flow 3, Figure 3) and refocused on class discussions with primarily student-instructor interactions. Upon reflection (flow 4, Figure 3), Logan thought that they were more successful in engaging students via the whole class discussions. Upon further reflection (flow 5, Figure 3), Logan deprioritized student–student interactions and prioritized student-instructor interactions in the remote environment. Importantly, Logan also developed a belief that the technology that they used was a barrier to promoting student–student interactions (Shadle et al., 2017).

Max expressed another change echoed by multiple instructors (see Table 2). Due to the shift to remote teaching, instructors enacted online assessments (flow 1, Figure 4), which increased student cheating (flow 2, Figure 4). In their communities of practice (flow 3, Figure 4), instructors discussed and reflected on the issue of cheating and ways to prevent cheating on assessments (e.g., preventing returning to previous problems on assessments). The instructors began to prioritize academic integrity over the integrity of their assessments (flow 4, Figure 4). Because of this shift in priorities, the instructors enacted practices to modify the assessments to decrease cheating (flow 5, Figure 4). Students were frustrated by the assessment changes, and instructors were disappointed they had to make changes, resulting in a distrustful environment (flow 6, Figure 4). Fortunately, the instructors continued to discuss their challenges and frustrations around student cheating (flow 7, Figure 4). Knowing that academic dishonesty was creating a distrustful learning environment, Julian (hybrid class, divisional meeting) proposed shifting away from seeking out cheating students when they said, “we want to do what we can to increase the barrier to cheating, but we should not obsess over it.” Instructors reflected on these discussions (flow 8, Figure 4) ultimately decided to deprioritize their focus on academic integrity to ensure assessment integrity and a positive classroom environment. This resulted in the enactment (flow 9, Figure 4) of consistent assessment policies that could minimize cheating while still prioritizing assessment integrity.

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives of many instructors and students. However, in alignment with Rupnow and colleagues, we posit the “pandemic as a catalyst for change” (Rupnow et al., 2020). The discussions in the divisional meetings encouraged instructors to become more reflective practitioners. The divisional meetings also enabled instructors to provide technological and emotional support to one another. Similar to the findings from Dancy et al. (2019), it was evident that the instructors gained resources, increased knowledge, re-examined their teaching values, and changed implementation due to participating in the community of practice (Lave, 1991). Additionally, when the departmental leadership designated space specifically for discussing teaching, it signaled to instructors that they were not alone and created a climate that prioritizes effective instruction. The experience of being a part of a community of practice transitioned the pandemic context from one that was only “change as adaptation” to one that is “change as growth and learning” (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002).

The divisional meetings had long-term impacts on the Department. Even after returning to in-person teaching, the instructors in the Department have continued working collaboratively to improve their courses. For example, the general chemistry and organic chemistry divisions continue to meet as faculty value meaningful discussions about teaching (Rupnow et al., 2020). These meetings resulted in the instructors re-evaluating and changing the textbooks for their courses, creating shared learning objectives, and working on aligning their assessments and practices with the new learning objectives. In addition to the divisional meetings, the Department periodically allocates time during faculty meetings to discuss teaching (e.g., active learning, inclusive teaching, and grading practices). We encourage the leadership in other departments and institutions to consider creating explicit avenues for instructors to build communities of practice to learn from each other, support one another, and become more reflective practitioners.