Authors

  1. Kotcherlakota, Suhasini PhD

Article Content

Technology personnel are in the frontline playing a critical role in providing skillful support practices that help minimize barriers and influence faculty adoption of technology for teaching and learning. Our Midwestern nursing college spreads across a 500-mile state with brick-and-mortar campuses in 5 locations. While many faculty development resources and initiatives exist in our interdisciplinary institution, our nursing faculty indicated the need for technical personnel to tailor instructional support materials to be nursing discipline-specific and accessible to our geographically dispersed campuses 24/7. As a solution, instructional design and technology support personnel developed a unique Nursing Enrichment course site hosted via the learning management system (LMS) (Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A884, NRSG Enrichment site screenshot). All faculty were enrolled as students, and supporting technology staff as teaching assistants or instructors. This reverse strategy of support in roles assisted technology staff located in distant locations to pool strategies, contribute to the library of instructional modules in the enrichment site, and monitor the analytics of highly accessed materials, all of which provide tailored and personalized support to our nursing faculty. The Nursing Enrichment course site serves as a resource for new faculty orientation and onboarding and aids current faculty to access materials at any time, experiment with the various technology tools in a student role within the LMS, and experience more directly what their students might view. We believe instructional support teams can replicate this support strategy in their institution's LMS to develop strong relationships with faculty and contribute to their faculty's continuous educational success.