There is a story developing in Florida that has been appearing in my inbox via my Yahoo News Alert for virtual school and the ASCD Smart Brief. It’ll show up tomorrow in the Virtual Schooling in the News weekly feature, but it caught my attention this morning and I wanted to talk a bit about it.
“Virtual internships” prepare future educators to teach online classes
Future teachers at the University of Central Florida are participating in “virtual internships” to prepare them to teach students via Internet courses. The students are paired with teaching mentors at the Florida Virtual School — the first public school in the country to conduct all classes online — allowing them to familiarize themselves with the technology they will be using and with the teaching methods used in a virtual classroom. Orlando Sentinel (Fla.) (1/14)Florida Virtual School, UCF to train future teachers how to instruct online
Orlando Sentinel Wed, 14 Jan 2009 1:23 AM PST
The Florida Virtual School — the country’s first entirely online statewide public school — and the University of Central Florida are teaming up to offer future teachers what they call first-of-its-kind training: virtual internships.UCF, online school ink partnership
Orlando Business Journal Wed, 14 Jan 2009 6:27 AM PST
The University of Central Florida and Florida Virtual School are partnering on a new program allowing college students to intern with the Florida Virtual School.Virtual interns will learn online teaching
Sun-Sentinel Thu, 15 Jan 2009 3:29 AM PST
UCF grads will learn how to teach online The Florida Virtual School — the country’s first entirely online statewide public school — and the University of Central Florida are teaming up to offer future teachers what they call first-of-its-kind training: Virtual internships.
As best I can tell, the program is associated with the Internship Opportunities provide by the Instructional Technology program at University of Central Florida (see PreK-12 for the specifics available).
As you may have noticed, over the past week or so I’ve been talking a bit about Teacher Education and K-12 Online Learning (see Teaching And Learning Online and Telelearning And Rural School Teaching for these recent examples). So, a few words about this development…
While it is a comprehensive approach to preparing pre-service and in-service teachers for teaching in a K-12 online learning environment, I’m not sure that I would classify it as the “first of its kind”. There have been other programs that have included virtual field experiences (although I’m not sure if they have been as long or as extensive as the ones proposed here).
As one quick example, there was a fellow blogger who posted about her experiences doing observations of a virtual school course (see here and here and here and here). I believe that this was at the University of Florida, so I’m going to guess Cathy Cavanaugh was responsible for that course (maybe even the Virtual School Philosophy and Pedagogy course).
Another, probably more comprehensive example would be the Teacher Education Goes into Virtual Schooling (TEGIVS) program at Iowa State University (see TEGIVS tag). I note that in addition to their general curriculum, they have courses that appear to be associated with a field experience (see here and here).
Also, as I mentioned a few days ago in Teaching And Learning Online, Geoff Roulet at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario has a course entitled Teaching and Learning Online that offers an alternate practicum, which he describes as:
Agencies delivering online education programs have indicated support for courses such as FOCI 291, introducing teacher candidates to teaching and learning online. They are willing to explore the possibility of providing opportunities for candidates to experience both online teaching and the development of online curriculum and learning activities. Candidates may wish to spend the Alternate Practicum period participating in the development and delivery of online courses in jurisdictions beyond Ontario and Canada.
A significant number of individual classroom teachers are interested in developing learning objects and websites to complement their classroom activities. Many are just in the initial stages of such experiments and would welcome assistance in the design of web-based learning environments and online interaction with students. Course participants could find Alternate Practicum placements working with these teachers.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that here at Wayne State University we had students enrolled in our IT7130 course (i.e., Facilitation of On-Line and Face-To-Face Learning) who completed practicums with the Illinois Virtual High School during the Winter 2008 and Fall 2008 semesters.
And I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed (e.g., the Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching at Boise State University could very well have a field experience – Kerry or Lisa care to comment?).
Please note that I am not trying to diminish this particular initiative at the University of Central Florida. Do I believe this to be a good program? Based on what I have read, yes. Do I think that there should be more programs like this? Absolutely!
However, I think it is important for the media to get things write (and for people to speak up when they don’t). Otherwise, we’ll be heading off to overthrow some dictator, totally devastate some underdeveloped country, be stuck there for years to come, all because our leaders told us about these weapons of mass destruction and the media never bothered to question it! Oh wait…
The truth is important, even well we are talking about good and welcome news…
I would love to see an increase in the integration of online student teaching into teacher preparation programs that match the integration of online courses into high schools around the country. Unfortunately, it seems like the student teaching programs are far behind. Considering how quickly online courses are growing for K-12, its not completely surprising that teacher colleges are lagging.
Teacher prep programs are one of the most important facets of changing the face of education in this country. We have to get them moving.
Comment by Cory Plough — January 16, 2009 @ 11:27 am |
It’s great to see the Florida Universities addressing the differences in virtual school teaching over traditional classroom teaching. You are right. I participated in the internship at UF during Spring 2008 under Dr. Richard Ferdig. But, Dr. Cathy Cavanaugh is one of my dissertation committee members and one of the most active researchers with the Florida Virtual School (and virtual schools in general). I have not asked her, but my guess is that she is aware, if not involved, with the UCF work. She earned her Masters there and has worked with a number of other professors around the state at UCF, UNF, and USF. She is teaching other classes at UF to prepare pre-service teachers for virtual school teaching. EDG 6931 Virtual School Philosophy and Pedagogy (online) is her course.
Comment by Wendy Drexler — January 16, 2009 @ 11:30 am |
Cory, I think the issue for a while was trying to figure out what those programs at the post-secondary level might look like (in terms of content and format) took some time. And in reality, we still don’t have a lot of good research out there on how to effectively teach adolescents and children online – so I think many universities are waiting to figure out what these strategies are before they begin to create programs that offer them
Wendy, I forgot about Rick in this post (although I have mentioned some of his teaching in this area in the other posts). What course what is that he was teaching where your internship was a part of? I’d like to go on the University of Florida website and check it out (as UofF, or at least that program, has been very good at posting syllabi).
Comment by mkbnl — January 16, 2009 @ 11:59 am |