Changing Direction with Teacher Educators in Distance Education Provision

Abstract

An action-research project used pro-active evaluation to change participants from teacher-centred instruction with print-based format in distance education teacher education courses to collaborative online teaching approaches. In response to the central research question, "What types of professional development experiences teacher educators would require to design interactive distance education learning environments?" the research findings, discussed within Senge's systems-thinking framework, indicated that it is important to address issues of personal mastery, in order to change mental models thereby enabling the development of relevant technology skills and e-pedagogy hand in hand.