On-line learning within Higher Education has become prevalent in recent years and is now seen as an effective medium for teaching and learning (Gehring, 1994; McCollum, 1997).  Despite the ubiquitous nature of the mode of delivery, tutors who teach on-line are generally those who have moved from wholly face-to-face (F2F) delivery to becoming on-line educators with limited, if any, training in pedagogy.  It has been argued that tutors require training in the pedagogy as well as in the technical aspects of on-line teaching (Phipps and Merisotis, 2000).  The subject area of education has been one which has embraced on-line learning (Bell et al, 2002).  Saltmarsh and Sutherland-Smith (2010: 15) argue that although on-line modes of delivery are not new, they are, nevertheless interesting to study since they provide evidence of how technology can reconfigure the nature, process and practices of both learning and teaching.  Teacher educators and those engaged in working with practising teachers provide an insight into the debates on the relative advantages and disadvantages of on-line delivery, with various stages along the spectrum, particularly as they have specific understanding and expertise both in the epistemological and methodological dimensions as well as disciplinary interests in pedagogy (ibid.)

This study, which was funded by the UK Higher Education Academy for Education (ESCalate), focused on the practices and pedagogies of teacher educators who had moved from teaching solely face-to-face to on-line teaching, in particular investigating what on-line teachers do and why (Oliver, 2006).  It took as its initial framework Salmon’s (2003) five-stage taxonomy of e-moderator competences and Laurillard’s (2003) conversational framework.  The study considers the interfaces between subject context, tutor expertise and level of experience on-line.  It focuses on the skills and strategies for success on-line and analyses the underlying pedagogies which inform participants’ practice and incorporates initial findings from a parallel study conducted in Canada.

The following research questions are examined in detail in this paper:

·         What are the experiences of teacher educators as they move from F2F to on-line teaching?

·         Which strategies do teacher educators employ before, during and after their on-line courses to ensure quality of the student learning experience?

·         Which strategies do teacher educators employ to enable the development of a community of practice?

·         What are the main enablers and barriers to successful on-line delivery?

Bell, M, Bush, D, Nicholson, P, O’Brien, D and Tran, T (2002) Universities online: a survey of online education and services in Australia. Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training Gehring, G (1994) A degree program offered entirely on-line: does it work? In Foster and Jolly (eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Telecommunication in Education, 104-6; November 10-13, Albuquerque, New Mexico Laurillard, D (2003) Rethinking University Teaching, 2nd ed., New York, NY, RoutledgeFalmer McCollum, K (1997) A professor divides his class in two to test value of on-line instruction, Chronicle of Higher Education, 34, 24, A23 Oliver, M (2006) New pedagogies for e-learning?, Research in Learning Technology, 14, 2, 133-4 Phipps, R and Merisotis, J (2000) Quality on the line: benchmarks for success in internet-based distance education. Whashington, DC: The Institute for Higher Education Policy Salmon, G (2003) E-moderating: the key to teaching and learning online, 2nd ed., London and New York, RoutledgeFalmer Saltmarsh, S and Sutherland-Smith, WS (2010) S(t)imulating learning: pedagogy, subjectivity and teacher education in online environments, London Review of Education, 8, 1, 15-24