Pedagogic shift - in international virtual schools

Facilitating Change

Facilitating Change can be broadly sub-divided into two areas:

• Firstly change is about the people.
• Secondly, it is about the mechanics of the change process.

McKenzie (2001) suggests that preparing teachers to teach online requires substantial investment in professional development, which goes beyond the short workshops that are typical of in service training (INSET). This view is shared by others, such as Berge, et al., (2005) who suggest that for a collaborative virtual school to be successful there needs to be a good model of teacher development, which includes a “widely recognized online professional development system for its instructors” (2005:204).