Empowering pre-service teachers: leveraging quantitative ethnography to enhance online education

This study investigates the impact of experiential learning through collaborative online team-teaching by pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) on their development within the Monash Virtual School (MVS). Established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, MVS provided a unique setting for PSTs to design, deliver, and reflect upon their teaching in online classes. This research examines how this collaborative model, where PSTs develop and teach lessons synchronously online, influences their Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK).
A case study methodology focusing on PSTs working within the MVS was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted before and after the PSTs’ teaching experiences. The analysis, integrating both a priori and emergent codes, highlighted the situated learning processes—induction, transferability, interdependence, synchronicity, and negotiability—as key to understanding changes in PSTs' TPACK. Additionally, these processes appeared to shape PSTs' identities and future anticipated behaviours in other contexts, underscoring the importance of emotional safety and collegiality in collaborative environments.
The MVS model actively partners PSTs in team-teaching roles, equal in status and responsibility, diverging from typical face-to-face placements where independent planning and teaching with a mentor with more experience and power are more common. This study found that the PSTs not only developed in their content, pedagogical, and technological knowledge but also perceived benefits from the supportive and inclusive nature of the collaborative context.
Given the scarcity of research integrating PSTs’ team-teaching and online teaching experiences within the TPACK framework, particularly in the Australian context, this study contributes novel insights into the experiential learning processes within virtual teaching environments. This research underscores the transformative potential of experiential learning in online teaching contexts for PSTs, with implications for future teacher training programs.