This paper describes the ways in which social constructivist learning was fostered in an online teacher education program. In fall, 2010 we launched an online Masters of Education (M.Ed) and in spring, 2011 and began an online version of the on-campus Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) at a small liberal arts university. The development and implementation of these online programs presented new pedagogical challenges and questions. We focused the inquiry on how to adapt a community-focused, constructivist, oncampus pedagogy to an online format.Grounded in and driven by social constructivism, we identified several essential online tools and instructional methods that facilitated the kind of candidate-candidate and candidate-teacher interaction desired.  This paper explores the potential of certain online tools and methods to facilitate a social constructivist approach to preparing teachers in a virtual program model.

This paper describes the ways in which social constructivist learning was fostered in an online teacher education program. In fall, 2010 we launched an online Masters of Education (M.Ed) and in spring, 2011 and began an online version of the on-campus Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) at a small liberal arts university. The development and implementation of these online programs presented new pedagogical challenges and questions. We focused the inquiry on how to adapt a community-focused, constructivist, oncampus pedagogy to an online format.Grounded in and driven by social constructivism, we identified several essential online tools and instructional methods that facilitated the kind of candidate-candidate and candidate-teacher interaction desired.  This paper explores the potential of certain online tools and methods to facilitate a social constructivist approach to preparing teachers in a virtual program model.