Is Virtual Teaching, Real Teaching?

Abstract

Read as two case studies in “putting teacher education online,” the investigations reported in this chapter represent a small contribution to the small but growing body of “case law” focussed on how the increasing expectation to provide teacher education online plays out for those engaged in doing it, and on what might constitute effective practice in virtual (teacher) education. We provide an account of two action research studies looking at the incorporation of an email component and an online discussion board component into two teacher education courses, and the practical androgogical lessons learned from those experiences. Read as a formative, collaborative self-study, however, the investigations may also stand as a reminder that professional renewal is, or should be, as often the consequence of self-critique as it is of self-affirmation. It can be, as in the cases reported here, the consequence of active reflection on experiments and strategies which, though perceived as innovative and progressive in their inception, in the end were felt not only to have only partly worked, but in not working stimulated a valuable review of professional beliefs which went much deeper than the initial stimulus to try something out demanded. For us, what began as an exercise in expanding our repertoire of techniques and modes of teacher education course delivery, became an enquiry into what we really valued most in the experience of teacher education.