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The entertaining music video by Michael Bruening highlights possible perspectives of current faculty who have never taught online. While the video is hilarious, it highlights the need for supporting teaching faculty who are engaged in teaching remotely at this time. The reality is while many faculty have experience teaching online, others do not. Therefore, there will be an urgent need for instructional designers and curriculum designers to provide the required scaffolding to ensure faculty succeed in teaching remotely. Here are six strategies that can be implemented to support the faculty who are teaching online in a time of crisis.

#1 - Guide Faculty to Reflect on the Moment - Long term, chronic crises require measured solutions; this is a marathon, not a sprint. This forced slowdown doesn't have to be torture … stay in the moment and be thankful and appreciative of the positive things — the things that are going right. It is essential to guide the faculty to reflect on the moment and put things into perspective.

#2 - Reduce Anxiety - To reduce anxiety and keep faculty focused on the task of teaching, instructional designers and curriculum developers should consistently communicate with faculty, hold regular consultations, and respond quickly to faculty emails. These strategies ensure that faculty can count on you and their university community when needed.

#3 - Listen and Communicate - When faculty are silent, it may mean that they are taking care of business, focusing on survival needs in their own lives or de-stressing, but it may also mean that they are drowning in stress. We must reach out. It is good practice to intermittently reach out to faculty members via check-in, email, announcements, or virtual.

#4 - Encourage and Motivate - Help our faculty to plan and prepare to meet survival needs so that they can benefit from ongoing teaching. Faculty are accustomed to planning for projects, papers, etc. — remind them of these strengths and encourage them to prepare in a similar way for this current circumstance. Offer one-on-one or online group sessions to support and motivate faculty to use various forms of new or emerging technologies.

#5 - Address Extenuating Circumstance - In crisis situations like the current COVID 19 pandemic, anything is a possibility when it comes to the context of the faculty you engage with. Therefore, flexibility in how you deal with each individual situation is the name of the game. You should never make assumptions or be judgmental in your approach of offering guidance or support to faculty. Each faculty situation will be unique.

#6 - Provide Appropriate Resources - Instructional designers and curriculum developers have an arsenal of resources that can be deployed to assist faculty. However, it is important that these resources are not dumped onto faculty but are deployed according to faculty’s needs.

Dr. Rohan Jowallah, Senior Instructional Designer, University of Central Florida; Dr. Monique  Levermore, Faculty, University of Central Florida; and Dr. Luke Bennett, Lecturer, Clemson University