Open AccessAn Evaluation of Local Mentor Support in AE E-Teacher Educational Technology Integration Online Teacher Training Course
Author(s) -
Yasemin Yilmaz,
Seher Balbay
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of educational research and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2167-8693
DOI - 10.5590/jerap.2020.11.1.19
Subject(s) - online course , psychology , training (meteorology) , medical education , course (navigation) , teacher education , mathematics education , pedagogy , professional development , computer science , engineering , medicine , physics , meteorology , aerospace engineering
This study addressed a different approach to online language teacher training programs. The researchers investigated the pros and cons of having local mentor support for an online course titled Using Technology in the English Language Classroom provided by the AE E-Teacher Program. The course was offered to preservice teachers from 24 different universities across Turkey. The study collected data through a pre- and post-online survey and individual semistructured interviews. The results revealed that while local mentoring as a supplement to the main course content contributed to teacher candidates’ emotional and professional attachment to their profession by helping them relate theory to contextualized educational settings, it can still be improved by the integration of more interactive tasks that would help the attendees refer to specific practical implementation of the educational technology tools introduced in the program.