Responsive Practices in Online Teacher Education

Abstract

The chapter describes research on the development of teaching and learning in a distance teacher education programme in Iceland. The focus is on challenges that school-based student teachers faced in learning to become online students and the way in which their experience of teaching in schools contributed to the development of teaching and learning in the programme. Cultural-historical activity theory was used for analysing the development of individuals and activity systems as a dialectical process. The expansive learning theory directed the contradiction analysis to reveal tensions and challenges in the development of practice within the programme, as well as future developmental possibilities. Data includes interviews with school-based student teachers and observation of face-to-face sessions, as well as transcriptions of online courses. Results indicate that a combination of non-traditional student groups and new online tools called for changed practice in teacher education and that a new model of teaching and learning is emerging. In order to develop this model, schools and the teacher education faculty need to look at the education of student teachers as a shared responsibility and negotiate acceptable arrangements for the institutions involved.