An exploration of the ideological becoming of online educators

Abstract As online education continues to proliferate that there is a need to understand how institutions can better support faculty in the transition to online education. Building on work that has suggested the importance of learning spaces for faculty to engage in discussion and reflection on their move to online education, this paper employs Bakhtin's notion of ideological becoming to provide a theoretically grounded understanding of how the design of such spaces can better facilitate this move. The paper reveals how learning spaces designed to develop critical awareness empower faculty to navigate discourses of online education, enabling them to build on their existing knowledge and skills as educators. The findings reveal how engaging faculty in critical dialogue can enable a cumulative shift in thinking from discussions dominated by authoritative discourses of online education that create an initial confusion between performance and pedagogy to the development of critical awareness that enables them to challenge dominant discourses and reconnect with the self as an experienced educator. The paper provides an important insight into an approach that might enable institutions to better support faculty buy‐in and acceptance of online education. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic Institutions struggle to understand how best to engage faculty in the transition to online education. A number of frameworks and models have been proposed to facilitate the transition, but these mostly take a managerial perspective. The transition to online teaching is most effective when supported by opportunities for faculty to engage in critical reflection and discussion. Less is known about how opportunities for critical reflection support the transition process and there is a need to theoretically ground such understanding. What this paper adds The paper draws on Bakhtin's notion of ideological becoming to explore how learning spaces for educator discussion and reflection can be used to facilitate the transition process. The findings show how learning spaces can be designed to enable faculty to develop the skills to navigate and challenge dominant discourses of online learning. The development of critical awareness among educators can also facilitate the development of educational practices for both classroom and online teaching. Implications for practice and/or policy The transition to online education is not an individual activity, but a collaborative and dialogical process. Faculty need time and space to critically challenge dominant discourses of online education and to re‐establish their existing skills and experience within an online context. This should not be a one‐off event but an ongoing process and conversation in a constantly changing and evolving higher education context. At the policy level, we should not expect online educational practice to be based on one approach or model, but to celebrate individuality and innovation.