Page 89 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

The Necessity of Preparing Teacher Candidates to Teach Online CHAPTER 6

to content and presentation. These modifications are especially important when
providing links to websites, online tools, or videos.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) released the ISTE
Standards for Educators (2017), which provide an excellent guide for teacher
educators to help teacher candidates master the educational technologies they will
encounter as they develop their teaching skills. Some standards fit well with the
goals of infusing teacher preparation programs with curriculum that addresses
online teaching skills. For example, consider Standard 5, Designer:

Educators design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments
that recognize and accommodate learner variability. Educators: Explore
and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital
learning environments that engage and support learning.

Teacher educators can take the following approach, grounded in the work of Reiser
and Dempsey (2018), to infusing instructional design strategies when preparing
teacher candidates to meet ISTE Standard 5.

Analysis. In the instructional design process, teacher candidates must analyze
learners, their learning contexts, and the objectives of the instruction. Learning
analysis would include an examination of learner skill level, cultural back-
ground, attitudes, and motivation. Teacher candidates must also become
proficient with helping learners to access content and instruction in online
learning systems. Analysis would also include the identification of learning
objectives.
Selection. In this time-intensive phase, teacher candidates would become
proficient in identifying content sources and selecting lessons to support unit
goals. They would also need to learn how to develop new digital content and
determine applications and techniques for supporting group interaction as
well as methods of assessing learning, both formative and summative.

Implementation. In this phase, teacher candidates would practice the lesson
or unit with students either in a real classroom setting or with fellow teacher
candidates. The feedback from learners is an essential iterative element of the
instructional design process. Through this feedback, they would be able to
make informed modifications to the course interface, content, and instruction
to meet the needs of learners.

Championing Technology Infusion in Teacher Preparation 115

Excerpted from Chapter 6, “The Necessity of Preparing Teacher Candidates to Teach Online.”

Championing Technology Infusion in Teacher Preparation 89