Chapter 2: Triumph And Turmoil Of Teacher Preparation In A Virtual Educational Psychology Course

Prior to student teaching in K–12 classes, teacher preparation programs require that teacher candidates complete certain core courses. One core course that teacher candidates complete in their teacher preparation programs is educational psychology. The goal of such a core course is to prepare preservice teachers to teach in K–12 classes (Verdi & Johnson, 2005). Because educational psychology classes integrate student learning, development, motivation, classroom management, and assessment and also address school and family contexts, language acquisition, and cultural influences on learning, they make a major contribution towards preservice teacher preparation in alignment with standards established by national accreditation agencies for teacher preparation programs (Patrick et al., 2011). Although undergraduate courses have traditionally met face-to-face in college classrooms, advances in educational technologies have increased online teaching, both synchronous (online teaching in real-time) and asynchronous (online teaching not in real-time) at higher education institutions (Blankson & Kyei-Blankson, 2008; Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006). Adoption of online teaching in different academic areas of higher education has also led to online instruction in teacher preparation programs (Downing & Dyment, 2013). Accordingly, educational psychology courses have also transitioned to teaching and learning in an online environment in keeping with higher education institutions’ focus on offering teacher preparation programs that are affordable, flexible, and accommodating (Archambault et al., 2022; Verdi & Johnson, 2005).