Teachers' Experiences in Online Professional Development Environment

Year 2006, Volume: 7 Issue: 4, 110 - 122, 01.12.2006

Bahar Baran Kursat Cagıltay

Abstract

This qualitative study aims to explore teachers’ opinions on traditional professional development (PD) courses and their experiences from an online course. 10 teachers from a private school participated in an online professional development (PD) course. After completing the course, they evaluated their PD experience. A focus group discussion and individual interviews were performed to collect data. The teachers determined the problems in traditional PD courses and online PD courses. They generally emphasized the lack of practice in both traditional and online PD courses. Further, abundance of theoretical concepts and context independent examples are determined as other problems. They proposed that PD programs should be developed together by both academician and expert teacher.

Keywords

Teachers; Professional dDevelopment; E-learning; Experience

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