Abstract
The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of six secondary pre-service teachers that completed a semester long internship with a supervising mentor at a virtual school in the Southeastern United States. The secondary pre-service teachers in this study voluntarily chose a placement in the virtual school over a traditional classroom placement for completion of their initial licensure field experience. This study sought to examine why secondary pre-service teachers chose a virtual internship and what their experiences were like as online instructors. A total of six participants completed a sixty-minute semi-structured interview at the completion of the semester long virtual school internship. Results of the study indicated that secondary pre-service teachers' primary motivation for entering a virtual internship experience was "œconvenience". Additionally, participants felt prepared for future employment in virtual schools, but had some reservations about their prospects in a traditional classroom setting.
Highlights
Online learning is one of the most debated and controversial topics at all levels of education in today’s society
Findings revealed two shared horizons for the first research question regarding why participants choose to enroll in a virtual internship and two shared horizons for the second research question looking into how participants experienced a practicum placement at a virtual school
These shared horizons make up the essence of the virtual internship experience for participants in this study and findings are discussed based on the shared horizons for each research question
Summary
Online learning is one of the most debated and controversial topics at all levels of education in today’s society. As of 2011, online courses represented 31.3% of total enrollments for colleges and universities in the U.S.; while every state in the U.S offered some type of online learning option to K-12 students (Allen & Seaman, 2011; Watson et al.2011). For teacher educators, this growth cannot be ignored and a more direct effort needs to be made in order to ensure that future teachers are being prepared to reach students in both traditional and online settings.
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