Bumpy Moments and Joyful Breakthroughs: The place of threshold concepts in academic staff development programs about online learning and teaching

In higher education institutions academic teaching staff face both bumpy moments and joyful breakthroughs on their journey to become skilful teachers in online learning environments. This paper draws from published literature on online teaching as well as the experiences of an institution’s faculty leaders and teaching staff. Data were gathered during the study from systematic observations recorded by faculty leaders and questionnaire results from teaching staff. From an analysis of the data, a set of recommendations emerged to inform the design of a multi-strategy academic staff learning program, which facilitated the development of online teaching skills.