Preparing Teachers for Effective K-12 Online Learning in the Age of Disruptions: A Call for Transforming Teacher Education

Introduction

As noted in the International Commission on the Futures of Education’s (2021) Reimagining our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education, “in the era of COVID-19 we have seen that digital technologies are essential for public health and public education: an indispensable tool for distance education, for contact and vaccine tracing, for reliable information about the virus and more” (p. 37). Both the reality of this sentiment and the urgency in which it needs to occur has been underscored by other international agencies, such as the European Commission’s European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators or DigCompEdu (Punie & Redecker, 2017) and UNESCO (2023) through the digital competencies in their ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (i.e., ICT = information communications and technology). Globally, teachers need to be prepared to teach online because of the need for students to engage in remote or online learning with increasing frequency due to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, war, or personal preference – among other reasons.

However, as Horváth et al. (2022) concluded in their review of teaching and learning in schools in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic, “many schools were ill-prepared for this unprecedented situation” (p. 3). In this article, we outline the necessity of equipping teachers with the skills to effectively teach in an online environment and provide recommendations for improved teacher preparation for online learning, which consist of two general areas: (1) research directions and supports for scholars, and (2) changes to teacher preparation programs. These recommendations rely on the needed digital infrastructure to support online learning, but a discussion of that infrastructure is beyond the scope of the present paper. Before providing the goals and recommendations, we begin with a discussion of the state of K-12 online learning globally prior to the pandemic.

State of K-12 Online Learning Prior to 2020

Prior to the pandemic, K-12 (i.e., primary and secondary level) distance and online learning had a long history in certain jurisdictions. For example, correspondence education has been used in the K-12 environment in places like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States for over a century (Barbour, 2014; Clark, 2003; Rumble, 1989; Stevens, 1994). Educational radio has been used since the 1940s (Moore & Kearsley, 1996; Stacey & Visser, 2005), and telematics-supported learning has been implemented since the 1980s (Brown et al., 2000; Oliver & Reeves, 1994). Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, nations on just about every continent began to experiment with K-12 online learning (Barbour, 2018), but the level of K-12 online learning activity varied from nation to nation. There were a small number of jurisdictions, such as South Korea (Cho, 2009; Jang, 2006), where K-12 online learning was prevalent. However, even in countries where K-12 online learning was common, it often only touched 5% to 10% of the overall K-12 student population (Barbour & LaBonte, 2023; Digital Learning Collaborative, 2024). Unfortunately, the examples cited above do not include any examples from Europe, where there has been much less of a focus on virtual schooling (Bergdahl & Hietajärvi, 2022; Jakobsdóttir & Jóhannsdóttir, 2018). Finally, in most cases K-12 online learning only accounted for a very small portion of the overall K-12 education system (Bacsich et al., 2012a, 2012b; Barbour et al., 2011).

While distance education may have a long history in the K-12 system, the use of K-12 online learning was still quite uncommon in most jurisdictions prior to the pandemic. Even in locations where it was more common, few teachers had direct experience with teaching online, and even fewer had been provided specific training as a part of their teacher preparation (e.g. Barbour, 2012). Kennedy and Archambault (2012) found only 1.3% of U.S. teacher education programmes were preparing pre-service teachers for K-12 online learning by providing field experiences in virtual settings. More recently, Archambault et al. (2016) reported an increase to 4.1% of teacher education programmes who prepared pre-service teachers for online learning. Further, Archibald et al. (2020) indicated similar findings when they found 32% of Canadian teacher education programmes offered field experiences in K–12 online programme settings to pre-service or in-service teachers. This problem was compounded by the fact that researchers behind the “Going Virtual” studies into K-12 online teacher professional development found that less than 40% of all K-12 online teachers reported receiving professional development prior to beginning to teach online (Dawley et al., 2010; Rice and Dawley, 2007; Rice et al., 2008). Similar findings have been reported in India (Nautiyal & Sinha, 2015), the United Kingdom (Kidd & Murray, 2020), and elsewhere (Bacsich et al., 2012a, 2012b). For example, Coyle et al. (2010) found that Spanish teachers were unprepared to engage in digital teaching techniques in their own instruction, while more recently the European Commission (2020a) reported that less than half of teachers had any formal information and communication technology training prior to the pandemic. Despite the important role European Schoolnet (2017) has played in the wider European context, before the pandemic, learning to teach online had not been a focus area.

An Historical Gap in Teachers’ Preparation to Use Technology to Teach

Shulman (1986) proposed the concept that there was a type of knowledge that went “beyond knowledge of subject matter per se to the dimension of subject matter knowledge for teaching” (p. 9). Today pedagogical content knowledge is embedded in most teacher education programmes. Yet more than 15 years after it was first introduced, Mishra and Koehler (2006) proposed expansion of this framework to include technological pedagogical knowledge has not gained similar acceptance within the broader teacher education community. However, the recent sudden and dramatic shift to technology-mediated forms of learning – such as K-12 online learning – have exposed a long known reality. While some pedagogical skills from a standard teacher education programme still apply, many of the necessary online teaching competencies are completely new to even recently licensed or registered teachers (An et al, 2021; Davis & Niederhauser, 2005; Davis & Roblyer, 2005). For example, the European Commission’s DigCompEdu framework is an excellent example of the gap that exists (Punie & Redecker, 2017). More recently, researchers are still noting a significant gap in many teachers’ skills when it comes to effectively using technology for teaching purposes, and that addressing this gap is an ongoing challenge in teacher education and professional development (Bueno et al., 2023; Ferdig & Pytash, 2021).

An interesting international example of the exposing of this lack of preparation can be found at Monash University in Australia. Out of necessity during the pandemic, the university began to seek out alternative ways for their pre-service teacher education students to be able to undertake the field experience component of their degree (Phillips & McDougall, 2024a). In the post-pandemic examination of this ‘virtual school’ training opportunity, the university recognised the potential impact that the virtual field experience had on the students’ ability to teach with technology (Phillips & McDougall, 2024b), as such the programme was continued and even expanded to include students from an Italian university (Carli et al., 2023). Essentially, the closure of schools worldwide due to the pandemic forced the university to explore alternative solutions to provide their traditional teacher education programming (e.g., Glaser et al., 2021; König et al., 2020; Vu et al., 2021). In doing so, it exposed a gap in teacher’s readiness to teach online that was identified by various researchers (Francom et al., 2021; Trust & Whalen, 2021; Zinskie et al., 2023).

This is not to suggest that teacher education programmes are solely to blame for the lack of preparation witnessed since 2020, or even that the problem began with the dramatic shift to remote learning that was caused by the pandemic. For example, Bond et al. (2019) wrote that “issues of educator professional development with technology have been a particularly recurring theme across the past five decades, with institutions at all levels struggling to find the resources to release educators, or to implement sufficient preservice teacher education with technology” (pp. 39–40). More recently, Lahr and Welch (2023) indicated that while “teacher preparation [had] grown to accommodate and consider virtual teaching practices, to a degree, but integration into pre- and in-service teaching preparation [was] nowhere near universal, and the curriculum of teacher preparation for online teaching [was] murky at best” (p. 162). The reality is that even if teacher education programmes had sought to include this knowledge the research in the field is so fragmented “that teacher preparation programmes cannot even determine what future teachers who may be working in an online or blended environment should be exposed to” (Molnar et al., 2021, p. 69).

Recommendations for Teacher Preparation

A New Social Contract for Teacher Education

As the International Commission on the Futures of Education (2021) indicated, “key responsibilities fall to governments whose capacity for the public financing and regulation of education should be strengthened” (p. 4). This sentiment is true not just of the provision of public education, but also in the preparation of the teachers who work in the public education system. As the commission succinctly summarised:

There must be a public investment into research that develops promising practices and frameworks that teacher education programmes can use and be evaluated against. Then teacher education programmes need to use that research to provide teachers with experience in designing, delivering, and facilitating instruction, as well as the opportunity to learn online themselves. In Europe, the European Commission has an important role to play in supporting research and helping member states to develop policies that prepare teachers to harness the potential of digital education (e.g., the European Commission’s [2020b] Digital Education Action Plan). In fact, Montiel et al. (2021) reported based on their research that international and multi-national organisations – such as the European Commission – are better placed to guide, and even accelerate, the development of educational strategies and initiatives designed to address the gaps exposed by the pandemic (such as this one with respect to teacher preparation).

Widespread readiness for remote online learning prior to COVID-19 was limited by various factors such as funding, infrastructure, and technical capacity. There were, however, warnings that were either unseen or not addressed. For example, the U.S. Department of Education recommended that schools develop continuity of learning plans in response to possible pandemic flu as early as 2006 (U.S. Department of Education, 2006), and as early as 2010 the U.S. Department of Education (2010) had observed that:

These warnings were not exclusive to the United States. Other countries have been prepared for alternate delivery of instruction for some time. For example, Singapore has prepared to respond to a pandemic or natural disaster through annual drills for online learning (Barbour et al., 2020). Historically, in 1948 New Zealand employed correspondence education and educational radio during a polio epidemic (German, 2020). More recently, Hong Kong learned valuable lessons from SARS and H1 N1 that were useful during this most recent pandemic (Alpert, 2011; Latchem & Jung, 2009), as did Boliva (Barbour et al., 2011). Finally, in addition to instances of disease or disaster, the preparation to teach online would also help to mitigate the impact on schooling in areas of conflict, such as the one presently occurring in Ukraine.

The world does not need to be caught off guard again with respect to the need to deliver quality education in the time of disaster. In their rather direct assessment, Stracke et al. (2022) remarked:

Our vision is that a new social contract for teacher education includes preparation of all teachers to be able to deliver quality instruction online if needed. Additionally, as Darling-Hammond and Hyler (2020) remind us, this recommendation is not exclusive to students’ academic needs. The lack of preparation of teachers to fully engage students in online environments also had impacts on students’ social emotional needs, creating greater expectations for teacher education programmes to be able to equip teachers for equity-focused teaching and learning – even in online settings. To achieve this vision governments must provide funding for scholars to develop and disseminate the necessary tools for effective practice and evaluation of online teaching, and teacher education programmes around the globe must reform to incorporate preparation for online teaching, not as a novelty, but as part of the standard course of teacher preparation. As König et al. (2020) concluded, “preparing teachers for the digitalisation in schools can [and should] be regarded as a chance that teacher education should not miss” (p. 12).

Conclusions

It is often said that you campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose. In Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, Christensen et al. (2008) predicted that by the end of the next decade that half of all learning in the United States would be done online. The prediction was based on their premise that schools had adapted well to the demands of society and had changed dramatically over time – with the authors citing examples such as (1) the transition from one room schools to larger, industrial-size schools, (2) the desegregation of schools following Brown v. Board of Education, (3) the focus upon mathematics and sciences after the Soviet launch of Sputnik, (4) the broadening of the curriculum (such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate), (5) the expansive testing regimes put in place under the No Child Left Behind legislation, among others. While all of these examples represent change in the education system (at least the US education system), do any of them represent a fundamental change in the nature of schooling?

Would any of these changes have made a difference in what someone would see if they walked into a classroom in the year 2008, as compared to walking into a segregated classroom in the American south in the 1950s? Or into a one-room school in rural Australia in the early 1900s? How about as compared to walking into the University of Bologna, the University of Paris, or the University of Oxford in the 1200s? Or even if that individual were walking the streets of Athens listening to Socrates himself? The fact is that the actual act of teaching and learning that occurs within the classroom hasn’t changed all that much since the first “schools” were created (Barbour, 2009). The pandemic-induced worldwide closure of schools and the provision of learning through technology-based remote education was a fundamental change in the nature of schooling. This sudden pivot to remote learning, along with the subsequent calls for fundamental changes to both how we provide formal education and how we prepare those who facilitate that education, invite us to be poets.

The poetry that we wish to write is based on a vision of equipping teachers with the skills to effectively teach in both face-to-face and online learning environments – to allow an education system where the quality of learning is not based on the medium in which that learning occurs. In order to achieve that vision, we propose the following goals for teacher education. (1) While there is an abundance of research to guide teacher education on how to prepare educators for the face-to-face classroom, there needs to be funded efforts to develop promising practices and frameworks that teacher education programmes can use to prepare educators to be effective in the distance and online learning environment. In order to achieve this first goal, (a) validated, research-based standards must be developed and (b) metrics and instruments must be created or refined to assess and support growth of teacher’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes for teaching in the distance and online learning environment. (2) While content related to teaching with technology is often included in teacher preparation, teacher education programmes must fundamentally change their focus to include teaching in distance and online environments in the same pervasive manner as teaching in the face-to-face classroom. In order to achieve this second goal, we need (a) accrediting bodies and state agencies to require teacher education to prepare educators to deliver online learning, (b) sufficient course work to give educators the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to distance and online learning, (c) educators to have experiences as online learners themselves, and (d) the opportunity – even requirement – for educators to undertake field experiences in distance and online learning settings.

Competing Interests

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Author Contributions (CRediT)

Michael Barbour; conceptualization, project administration, resources, supervision, validation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing; Charles Hodges; conceptualization, project administration, resources, supervision, validation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing;. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.