Using the How People Learn Framework for Online Course Design in Teacher Education

Introduction

Collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving are critical skills for teachers in the 21st century. While teaching in the past century tended to be more of an isolated activity, teachers today are expected to be active participants in decisions that affect the entire school and to work collaboratively in teams to address school and student issues. In addition to that of a collaborator, the role of the teacher has been described as one of an adaptive expert (Darling-Hammond, 2007; Darling Hammond & Bransford, 2005) who is able to solve problems, construct new knowledge and in turn, solve new problems as opposed to a worker who engages in routine tasks. Filling the role of an adaptive expert requires considerable reflection, critical thinking and evaluation. As an adaptive expert, teaching is viewed as the work of a professional as opposed to that of a technician. While technicians practice a set of known solutions to known problems, the work of professionals involves crafting new solutions to problems and predicaments that change on a daily basis.

Preparing teachers for their work as collaborators and problems solvers is a challenge facing teacher educators. Online courses are often criticized for focusing on the knowledge acquisition level rather than engaging students in complex problem-solving activities. Additionally, collaboration in online courses is often limited to superficial discussions on discussion boards. In this case, faculty used available technology and the How People Learn (HPL) framework as a conceptual model to design courses to maximize collaboration, reflection, and problem solving. The distance teacher preparation program provides evidence of high level learning outcomes that involve collaboration, reflection, mentoring, and problem solving