The Lived Experiences of Faculty in the COVID-19 Pandemic Shift in Instruction

This study sought to understand the lived experiences of mathematics faculty teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic\u27s rapid shift from on-campus instruction to online education. Faculty are the primary influencers at a college. Their perspectives on the challenges and changes to teaching practices may determine a college\u27s response to improving teaching and learning during a crisis. At the time of the COVID-19 transition, many faculty had no experience creating and teaching an online course, and some had previously been resistant to teaching online. Using a phenomenological approach, nine participants at a large state college were interviewed using the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform (TCSR) model (Gess-Newsome et al., 2003) as the framework. Five themes emerged from the initial layer of contextual awareness. The themes described participants\u27 inner turmoil based on the pandemic environment and the subsequent changes. The participants described the phenomena in five overlapping themes of emotional context: a) professional emotion challenges, (b) professional learning, (c) pedagogy, (d) teacher culture, and (e) instructional values. The findings revealed a new category to the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform (TCSR) model, emotional context. The study filled a gap in the literature regarding math faculty experiences and provided recommendations for both faculty and administrators