Virtual Schooling lab practice: Case studies for teacher preparation
Abstract: K-12 educators are rarely prepared for distance education, which is becoming relatively common in the USA under the term Virtual Schooling (VS). In the school year 2002/3 over 15% of U.S. high school students became engaged in VS. Due to the shortage of science teachers, one of the most useful content areas is science but it is also one of the more challenging in use of labs to stimulate and clarify complex concepts and scientific processes. In this paper we will illustrate 10 case studies of good practice for VS practical activities. We will also describe the first stage of our work to incorporate this aspect of teaching methods into preservice teacher education programs. Using this paper and presentation, we invite participants to develop their view of the competencies required by all teachers for K-12 distance education today.