Application of Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Adaptability Lens for Interpreting the Teaching Experiences of Engineering Instructors during a Switch to Remote Instruction

Emergency remote teaching (ERT) was necessary as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world. Most ERT studies describe the experiences of students and instructors without a theoretical grounding. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Adaptability model (CBEAM) can be used to interpret instructors' experience with a significant disruption. Weekly CBEAM-informed surveys were administered to engineering instructors at a U.S. university in the seven weeks following the March 2020 switch to ERT. These surveys captured the activities that instructors (n = 39) engaged in to support their teaching, their emotions, and their challenges and successes. Descriptive statistics were used to examine instructors' experiences in terms of each dimension of the CBEAM across time. The instructors engaged in more self-teaching activities than organized workshops to aid their transition. Instructors' community-based interactions generally decreased over time, though final assessment concerns spurred conversations with support staff. Instructors' emotions were consistently more positive than negative. Successes and challenges centered on the student experience and course-related aspects. The CBEAM, with minor modifications, can be used to collect instructors' holistic experiences in other instances of change or disruptions to teaching and can give insight into the supports that instructors need.