Abstract—The advent and rapid development of emerging
technologies for teaching and learning present unprecedented
opportunity for applications to higher education. Challenges
arise to develop instructors’ competencies and pedagogical use
of learning technology to improve teaching and learning
outcomes. To understand faculty members’ perceptions of
learning technologies and their current practices at the Faculty
of Land and Food Systems, an investigation was carried out
through semi-structured interviews (n=23). Instructors were
aware of existing and emerging technologies but face several
challenges, including: whether emerging technologies augment
teaching practices to achieve the desired learning objectives, the
time needed to learn, adopt and adapt the techniques,
establishing priorities in an already demanding schedule, and
the limitations of technical and physical resources to allow
effective use of the technology. Although instructors were
willing to adopt the technologies, the type of training or
assistance desired was inconsistent or not clearly articulated in
interviews. Participants were positive about opportunities to
communicate and share experiences with fellow instructors, but
that emerging technologies require training. This training
should be recognized as professional development considered in
employee reviews and evaluations, and incentivized by
incorporating it into career enhancement programs.
Index Terms—Higher education, instructor, interview,
learning technology.
J. E. Wilson, C. Lomas, L. M. Lavkulich, and R. Y. Yada are with the
Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada (e-mail: julie.wilson@ubc.ca,
cyprien.lomas@ubc.ca, lml@mail.ubc.ca, r.yada@ubc.ca).
J. Zhang was with the Faculty of Education at the University of British
Columbia. He is now with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia
(e-mail: zhangjunso77@gmail.com).
Cite: Julie E. Wilson, Junsong Zhang, Cyprien Lomas, Les M. Lavkulich, and Rickey Y. Yada, "Instructors' Perspectives on Learning Technologies in the Multidisciplinary Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia, Canada," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 7, no. 10, pp. 772-782, 2017.