As I mentioned in SITE Interactive 2022 and K-12 Online and Blended Learning, I’m attending this conference and wanted to blog some of the relevant sessions.  The seventh of which is:

Developing Teachers Online: Challenges and Advantages to Virtual Education Courses

Live Paper Presentation ID: 61486

1. Caitlin Riegel
   Niagara University

Abstract: As we prepare for the future of teacher education, we need to address the influx of virtual education courses as a result of the pandemic. While some education courses may have already been taught online or lent themselves nicely to a shift from on-ground to online, others may not. In an effort to maintain effective teacher preparation, this study (on-going) analyzed the challenges and advantages of virtual course as outlined directly by education instructors. This study used a convergent parallel mixed methods approach to simultaneously gather qualitative and quantitative data through a web-based survey that involved participant consent to complete a survey designed to address the following research question: What were the challenges and advantages to delivering education courses virtually? Purposive sampling was used to identify faculty listed on the webpages of colleges and universities with accredited educator preparation programs from across the nation. Participants were contacted in a state-by-state method to participate. A total of 2040 potential participants have been contacted with 165 participating in a survey asking them to identify course characteristics for educaiton course taught virtually, as well as share challenges and advantages for each course. Preliminary results were analyzed to identify themes related to challenges and advantages to delivering specific types of education courses virtually.

This session was not K-12 distance, online, and blended learning specific, but it was of interest to someone in our field.  This presentation was a part of a larger project that was basically designed to determine if it was sustainable for teacher education programs to continue to operate virtually or online.  This part of the project looked at the challenges and advantages of virtual courses from a faculty perspective, more specifically, which type of courses lent themselves to online delivery.

I’m going to stop my notes about the session here because the findings just aren’t valid.  The reality is that virtual is JUST a modality.  This is like asking if it is better to use a blackboard, a green chalkboard, a whiteboard, or a smartboard?  The reason is if you are using each the exact same way it doesn’t matter!  The same is true with the impact of modalities…

The modality is simply the context or environment in which the instruction is delivered.  As such, what impacts learning is the instructional design, pedagogy, and student support that is used in that environment.  Now some modalities lend themselves to different strategies for each of those three variables, but the true limitations are the tools available in and the set-up of the environment – as well as the lack of knowledge, expertise, and experience of the professionals in that environment.

So instead of asking which type of courses lent themselves to online delivery, this study – and its findings – are really focused on what are the limitations of faculty and universities for teaching different types of courses online?