Special Issue: Teacher Education in the Online Environment

Teacher Education in the Online Environment

Online education – whether in the P-12 or teacher education context – necessitates the routine use of educational technology. Researchers in the field of educational technology have cautioned us to not just focus on the technological tools, but to consider how these tools are used to support learning goals and larger essential questions. Building on Schulman’s work in Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler argue that intentional, thoughtful teaching with technology is a complex additional form of knowledge they call “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge” (TCPK). In this issue we seek to build knowledge in TCPK not for teaching P-12 students, but as teacher educators providing online education to pre- and in-service teacher candidates.

For this themed issue, we are seeking articles that go beyond the technology tools and provide insight and advance our thinking as teacher educators in challenging areas such as:

  • Creating meaningful fieldwork/clinical experiences for teacher candidates when P-12 in-person schools are not available
  • Observing student teachers when they are teaching synchronously and asynchronously
  • Designing methods courses, with their associated embodied, enacted practices, in the online environment
  • Providing anti-racist curriculum and addressing equity in the design and implementation of online teacher education
  • Considering how to mirror in teacher education those technological platforms used in P-12 settings
  • Modeling online teaching practices that P-12 teachers may find hard to implement due to lack of access in schools and districts
  • Using technology to foster the professional development of teacher educators through, for example, peer faculty observations, and virtual seminars to support faculty learning.

While these issues have in some contexts been forced upon us because of the coronavirus pandemic, we invite authors to draw on their studies, experiences, and perspectives that may have preceded the crisis as well as those that emerged in more recent months.

The New Educator is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal that serves as a forum on issues that teacher educators, teacher education programs, and school systems encounter in the preparation, recruitment, induction, retention, and ongoing support of educators. Defining “educator” broadly to include classroom teachers, administrators, counselors, support staff, teacher educators, and those who educate outside of school settings, the journal is particularly interested in work that links theory with practice, is generated through practice, is useful and accessible to the field, and reflects the needs and perspectives of the diverse communities served by educational institutions in this new century.

For more information contact Laura Baecher (lbaecher@hunter.cuny.edu) and Julie Horwitz (jhorwitz@ric.edu).