How can we improve our distance teacher education program? Voices of students and school administrators

Abstract

At the University of Iceland, School of Education (UISE), a group of faculty members has been examining its teacher education programme, which has been offered online with face-to-face sessions since the early 90’s as well as being offered as campus-based. One of the group’s aims was to suggest ways to improve the quality of the UISE programmes. To that end views of current students and school administrators were explored. About 12% of all school administrators at the primary and lower secondary level in Iceland were contacted. Also 30 students at the School of Education were invited to participate in phone interviews (random sample) about their experiences and views on how the UISE distance education should evolve. Data collection was completed in April and May 2018. The results are outlined in this paper and discussed how they may be applied in the UISE work group recommendations for the development of distance education at the university.