Online Teacher Education Course Research Articles

Content-area teacher candidates’ identity work in an online teacher education course

Content-area teacher candidates’ identity work in an online teacher education course

Monolingual content-area teacher candidates’ identity work in an online teacher education course

This exploratory qualitative study presents the findings of a deductive analysis of the online teacher education coursework of four self-identified monolingual English-speaking content-area teacher candidates (TCs) at a Hispanic-serving university in the southwestern United States. Guided by Clarke's (2009) framework of ethical self-formation and Ruiz's (1984) orientations to language planning, the authors examined the intersections between identity construction and language ideologies as these TCs navigated their positionalities as monolinguals preparing to teach multilingual learners. Findings revealed that teacher candidates harbored both asset and deficit beliefs about teaching multilingual learners. Implications suggest that through reflective online teacher education coursework, monolingual content-area TCs may develop agency, empathy, and a multilingual stance as they challenge deficit beliefs about multilingual learners.

Primary preservice teachers’ exploration of possible selves through narrated metaphors during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study examines how primary-level preservice teachers (PSTs) in an online asynchronous course (co-)constructed and (re)negotiated their professional identities through the use of metaphors in online asynchronous courses in the U.S. By using metaphors and narrating their lived experiences in relation to their chosen metaphors, participants expressed their desired and feared identities. Their metaphorical expression of identities reflects the complex interplay between participants’ construction of their possible selves within the temporal, social, and spatial context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual and collaborative metaphor-based reflections provided a reflective space for PSTs to explore professional becoming and future possibilities at the interface between their sense of agency and their situated temporal, spatial, and social context, even within asynchronous online teacher education courses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Becoming a technology-capable language teacher: a new materialist perspective

ABSTRACT Research shows that in-service teachers often struggle to incorporate learned knowledge from their teacher education programs into the irregularities and complexities of their classrooms in part because of neoliberal values and practices that promote regularity and quantifiable outcomes. This is one of the reasons why, in recent years, a number of scholars have called for an ontological turn in teacher education that takes into consideration the intricacies and non-linearity of becoming a teacher. In the same spirit, this article draws on new materialist scholarship and the associated Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts of becoming, assemblage, affect, and learning (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, 1994) to detail how two teacher trainees’ professional knowledge and selves were constantly re-shaped within tangles of relations between human, material, and expressive elements associated with an online teacher education course in technology-enhanced language education with an optional community service learning component. Data consisted of the course assignments, student interviews, and online blogs. Through traditional analytical methods such as coding as well as relational practices such as rhizoanalysis, new knowledge and understandings were produced regarding the role played by matter in the relational production of teacher education. As such, this article shows how re-theorizing the function, and impact of human, expressive, and material elements in teacher education can open new avenues of potential transformation for teacher trainees away from neoliberal thinking and practices.

Teacher Educators and Trainee Teachers' Attitude toward Online Teacher Education Courses

The purpose of the study was to explore the attitude toward Online Teacher Education Courses (OTECs). To that end, this study was carried out over the teacher educators and trainee teachers of Bangladesh Open University. Here, teacher educators represent the faculty members of the School of Education (SoE) of Bangladesh Open University (BOU), and trainee teachers represent the Master of Education (M.Ed.) and Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) students of BOU. A mixed research approach with triangulation was used to conduct the study with a descriptive survey, two Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and one key personnel interview. Data were collected from a total of 602 teacher trainees (182 were M.Ed. students and 420 were B.Ed. students) and 12 teacher educators, selected through multiple sampling techniques. The data revealed that the teacher educators and trainee teachers had a positive attitude towards online courses since the mean score of faculty members, M.Ed., and B.Ed. students of BOU were 3.60, 381, and 3.81, respectively. Considering all these aspects, this study suggested that SoE/BOU needs to decide rationally to shape its future Online Teacher Education Courses (OTECs). This research contributes to the basement of new knowledge through an explorative study with all the possible stakeholders covering the whole country of interest.

Investigating Engagement and Achievement in an Online Teacher Education Course during the Compulsory Distance Education Period

Investigating Engagement and Achievement in an Online Teacher Education Course during the Compulsory Distance Education Period

TPACK leveraged: A redesigned online educational technology course for STEM preservice teachers

Integration of computational thinking and programming into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classes is needed to promote students’ learning of twenty-first century skills. Yet, teachers are not equipped to achieve this integration successfully as teacher education curricula do not generally align with this need. With the Covid-19 outbreak, curricula also need to be adapted for online environments. This qualitative study presents the redesign of an educational technology course that introduces programming and computational thinking to STEM preservice teachers for online settings, and explores learning experiences of preservice teachers, in terms of how they combine technological knowledge with pedagogy and content. Data were collected from course artifacts, such as reading responses, coding challenges, and lesson designs and implementations. The findings showed the online course design was helpful in enhancing preservice STEM teachers’ pedagogical approaches of how to teach computational thinking and programming. Offering hands-on coding practices in the course allowed preservice teachers to improve their technological knowledge (programming), and they were able to integrate their technological pedagogical knowledge into their content area and design meaningful lessons. The study offers implications for design of online teacher education courses that promote preservice teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge for computational thinking and programming. Implications for practice or policy: The online course design implemented in this study can be adjusted into different contexts, considering that fully-online or blended teacher education courses will still be needed in the future. The design guidelines used in this study can be utilised to develop online teacher education modules for educational technology topics other than programming. The question prompts given to preservice teachers in the study can be refined to trigger deeper reflection on pedagogy of computing education.

VIDEO CAMERA ON-OFF DURING SYNCHRONOUS ONLINE GROUP WORK

Since its introduction several decades ago, online learning has become a component of higher education, with institutions worldwide providing a form of online course delivery. One key feature of online learning is the use of video conferencing software and the use of a video camera feature. Grounded on Vygotsky and Wallon's ideas of how emotion and cognition are interconnected and equally relevant in learning processes, this paper aims to understand how the use of the video camera feature in synchronous online group work affects relationship building in those settings and the students' overall learning experience. Qualitative findings from 22 semistructured interviews completed with 12 students and 10 instructors enrolled in Canadian postsecondary online teacher education courses are shared. Results indicate instructors and students perceive there are consequences for turning the video camera on and off during synchronous sessions and that seeing others on camera helps promote positive affective relationships among students. The findings contribute to the literature related to video camera usage in online learning environments and serve to inform institutions and instructors designing online courses with synchronous group activities.

Students’ perceptions of team learning across teaching frameworks and settings

The benefits of team learning include increased achievement, increased motivation, and greater retention of concepts learned. While team learning has been implemented since the early 20th century, instructors in higher education settings may still experience challenges managing implementation, such as unmotivated students and a lack of accountability among group members. One team learning pedagogy is team-based learning (TBL), a structured course design that combines individual preparation with collaborative problem-solving. Given the benefits of TBL in face-to-face settings, including student learning and improved attitudes, educators have also adapted TBL to online settings. This embedded mixed-method study examined students’ perceptions of TBL in face-to-face and online teacher education courses. We found that students in TBL courses, regardless of delivery method, reported positive perceptions of TBL, and commonly identified the course structure and teams as the most effective aspects of the course.

The development and impact of teachers’ collective agency during Covid-19: insights from online classrooms in Canada and China

ABSTRACT Teacher education programmes are embedded in both higher and K-12 education contexts. This study explores how collective teacher agency is developed and manifested within two online teacher education courses in a Canadian university and a Chinese university, respectively, under the Covid-19 pandemic context. Employing a digital ethnographic approach, this study reveals that: (1) the structural changes caused by the pandemic create common goals for collective teacher agency to develop; (2) collective teacher agency is motivated by caring for student well-being and honing of teaching skills; and (3) the asynchronous course structure hindered Chinese student teachers’ collective efforts to improve teaching but afforded the Canadian group greater collective agency in connecting with their schools. Importantly, this study highlights the role of emotions in facilitating collective agency and argues that emotions are an integral but often overlooked part of teacher agency.

Initial teacher education and trauma and violence informed care in the classroom: Preliminary results from an online teacher education course

AbstractA trauma‐and‐violence‐informed‐care (TVIC) system within an educational setting provides a framework of practice that enables schools to become safe and inclusive places for some of the most vulnerable students. Initial teacher education may provide the opportunity to prepare teachers to create classrooms and learning experiences that are safe, equitable, and meet students' needs. A mandatory mental health literacy course for second year teacher candidates in a Bachelor of Education program (n = 287) at a large Canadian university introduced TVIC concepts. A case study approach was used to illustrate both the challenges that students exposed to trauma and/or violence can experience, as well as strategies and knowledge that teachers can use to support these students. This program evaluation used a repeated measures design to survey both attitudes toward trauma informed care for teachers and self‐efficacy for teaching using inclusive practices before and after the course. A significant effect of time on both measures revealed an increase in both participants' attitudes toward TVIC and their self‐efficacy in using inclusive teaching practices. These findings provide support for the inclusion of these important topics for all teacher candidates. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.

Community, Towards Dialogue: A Self-Study of Online Teacher Preparation for Special Education

ABSTRACTOnline teacher education is experiencing significant growth worldwide. One of the major challenges accompanying this growth is that many teacher educators find themselves underprepared and under pressure to design online teacher education courses that reflect their beliefs about what constitutes high-quality teacher preparation practice. Further, teacher educators in disciplines such as special education face additional challenges in developing understandings about the legalities of writing and implementing disability service plans and performing additional testing. In this self-study of online special education teacher education practice, two collaborators worked to identify strategies and practices for professional community building in a class about teaching reading to students with disabilities. The findings highlight issues of teacher educator authority and presence online against other needs to model collegiality and promote scholarly thinking. Researchers in online teaching may find insight into both the cognitive and contextual concerns as they work to enhance online teacher education while they plan their own investigations.

Exploring Student Teachers’ Views on ePortfolios as an Empowering Tool to Enhance Self-Directed Learning in an Online Teacher Education Course

This paper explores Economics student teachers’ views on ePortfolios as an empowering tool to enhance self-directed learning in an online teacher education course. An interpretive phenomenological research approach was employed for data collection and a purposive convenient sampling technique was selected to collect data. Only Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) and Batchelor of Education (BEd) Senior Phase/Further Education and Training Economics Subject Methodology (SDEC00N) student teachers registered on myUnisa for the modules were targeted. Multiple sections from the ePortfolios that had been considered for the purpose of this study were taken from their creative writing assignments, a research projects, lesson plans, reflective journal entries, podcasts, blog postings. Data were collected and analysed on a weekly basis to create a plethora of information. Student teachers felt that they were empowered with different subject content knowledge, technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) and other technologies, student-centred methods and techniques through the ePortfolio project.

Integrating YouTube Videos in Online Teacher Education Courses

Integrating YouTube Videos in Online Teacher Education Courses

Educação a Distância Online e Formação de Professores: práticas de pesquisas em Educação Matemática no estado de São Paulo

Resumo Neste artigo apresentamos um mapeamento sobre Teses e Dissertações em Educação Matemática que abordam a Formação de Professores e a Educação a Distância (EaD) online. Assim, guiamo-nos segundo a perspectiva qualitativa da metanálise, sendo que os dados foram analisados sob a perspectiva teórica da Formação de Professores, bem como os procedimentos metodológicos de análise de dados foram baseados em alguns conceitos da Análise de Conteúdo. Este mapeamento crítico das Teses e Dissertações revelou seis eixos temáticos que representam as tendências de pesquisa sobre a temática investigada: Aspectos didático-pedagógicos da EaD online; Aspectos epistemológicos da EaD online; Políticas Públicas de Formação de Professores a distância; Prática Docente de professores no contexto da EaD online; Processos formativos de professores que ensinam Matemática no contexto da EaD online; e Processos de implementação de cursos de Formação de Professores a distância. Destacamos que a análise dos dados revelou que as práticas de pesquisa em Educação Matemática acerca da Formação de Professores e a EaD online está condicionada ao processo de evolução e disseminação das Tecnologias de Informação e de Comunicação (TIC) na sociedade e, consequentemente, na Educação. Além disso, foi possível identificar particularidades dos processos formativos em contextos online que revelam potencialidades da EaD online para a Formação de Professores.

Cultural Dimensions of Learning in Online Teacher Education Courses

Aotearoa New Zealand’s demographics are changing rapidly and, as a consequence, there is now greater diversity in the tertiary student population. This diversity is evident in the continuing growth of Māori and Pasifika student participation. Teacher education is increasingly emphasising social competencies and intercultural awareness. Online pedagogies based on sociocultural methods require openness to difference, understanding, and sharing; but it is a challenge to support productive learning communities that span diverse cultural backgrounds. This study began with a literature review, and then the eight dimensions in the cultural dimensions of learning framework (CDLF; Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot, 2010) survey were modified for use with online courses. The modified survey was trialled with 112 students and four lecturers in 11 online teacher education courses offered by a New Zealand university. Although respondents exhibited a wide range of choice in the survey, the participants were not sufficiently diverse to reveal any differences that might be attributed to culture. It was concluded that the CDLF could provide a useful stimulus to promote discussion amongst learners and teachers and that this discussion could raise awareness of the diversity of approaches to learning that could have a cultural basis. However, the lack of attention to indigenous worldviews and the limited evidence of reliability in the CDLF scales suggest that further empirical research of this survey instrument is unlikely to be worthwhile.

Comparing Asynchronous and Synchronous Video versus Text Based Discussions in an Online Teacher Education Course

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether asynchronous video posts and synchronous videoconferencing would create higher levels of teaching and social presence within an online course when compared with the university’s current text-based discussion platform. Undergraduate students in an online teacher education course were randomly assigned to either the text-based discussion platform or the video-based discussion platform. A switched replications design was used and halfway through the semester students switched platforms. Analysis of student interviews and surveys administered at the end of the semester indicated self-reported perceptions of social and teaching presence were significantly higher when using the video-enabled discussion site. Implications of the added value of video, both in synchronous and asynchronous contexts, are discussed and recommendations for further study are provided.

Comparing Asynchronous and Synchronous Video versus Text Based Discussions in an Online Teacher Education Course

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether asynchronous video posts and synchronous videoconferencing would create higher levels of teaching and social presence within an online course when compared with the university’s current text-based discussion platform. Undergraduate students in an online teacher education course were randomly assigned to either the text-based discussion platform or the video-based discussion platform. A switched replications design was used and halfway through the semester students switched platforms. Analysis of student interviews and surveys administered at the end of the semester indicated self-reported perceptions of social and teaching presence were significantly higher when using the video-enabled discussion site. Implications of the added value of video, both in synchronous and asynchronous contexts, are discussed and recommendations for further study are provided.

Implementing Active Learning in an Online Teacher Education Course

The purpose of this project was to evaluate an online course in child development in which active learning strategies were infused. Preservice teachers taking the course were future elementary teachers seeking initial prekindergarten to sixth-grade teaching certification. Sixty-one persons were enrolled in a traditional face-to-face section of the course, and fifty-four were enrolled in an online section of the same course. Online discussion postings and reflective journals were analyzed to determine the preservice teachers’ use of higher-level thinking skills. Mastery of course content was measured through final course grades. Results showed no significant difference between the two groups in overall achievement, but a significant difference was seen in the use of higher-level thinking. Preservice teachers in the online class showed a significant increase in the use of higher-level thinking from the beginning of the course to the end; however, those in the face-to-face course did not. In addition, higher-level thinking for all preservice teachers in the study was positively correlated with greater course achievement. Finally, preservice teachers in the online course experienced the most higher-level thinking when posting to the online discussion board.

Portuguese

This paper brings reflections and notes on the professional development of teacher educators (elementary education and higher education) by means of distance education; more specifically, via online education, considering that distance education, in conjunction with Information and Communication Technology (ICT), constitutes a promising path to new school-centered opportunities for teacher professional development. To this end, it first expounds concepts concerning professional development approaches, teacher educators, and distance education, by relating them to different epistemological conceptions of knowledge. Then, it presents – from the angle of professional development – an online teacher education course taken by sixteen practicing elementary school teachers and two researchers from a public university in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It concludes with notes on the professional learning collectively and collaboratively constructed by the participating teachers in a virtual learning environment, which indicates that professional development factors relating to online teacher education programs are closely linked to the educational and pedagogical basis on which these programs stand. Besides identifying different moments experienced by the teacher educators throughout this process, this paper points to their construction of trust relationships by means of which the doubts, anxieties, fears, certainties, and beliefs that guide their actions are shared among the participants, providing them with opportunities to reflect “in” and “on” practice from a collective perspective. This process allowed teachers to bring forth incoherent or deficient knowledge and promoted their ability to negotiate and construct shared meanings about how to be a schoolteacher. Keywords: distance education; online education; professional development; teacher educators. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/19827199755