Teaching and Assessing Problem Solving in Online Collaborative Environment
Online teacher programs are diverse in their models, expressing a variety of learning objectives, pedagogies, technological platforms, and evaluation methods. Promoting and assessing collaborative learning of an online teacher programs is one of the major challenges, in part because collaboration includes complex cognitive and social-emotional dimensions. This chapter focuses on teachers’ academic program in online learning environment and examines the conditions for effective teaching and assessing collaborative problem solving. The chapter provides readers a look at the rationale, implementation, and assessment of collaborative learning in online teacher program and presents the conditions for effective design of collaborative learning for pre- and in-service teachers. Examples from two empirical studies will be provided on how the collaborative learning environment leverages teachers’ constructivist teaching, ongoing feedback, and evaluation to prepare teachers for instruction in technology-rich environments.