Oct
2020
call for chapters: K12 in virtual learning environments
Call for Chapters: Transforming Teachers’ Online Pedagogical Reasoning for Teaching K-12 Students in Virtual Learning Environments
https://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/4854
Call for Chapters
Proposals Submission Deadline: November 16, 2020
Full Chapters Due: February 21, 2021
Submission Date: February 21, 2021
Introduction
How can students learn safely amid the challenges of the global pandemic? Currently, it is not safe to have them crowded in a classroom engaged in face-to-face learning. The challenge has forced K-12 teachers to think differently about teaching. Unexpectedly, and with little warning, they have been confronted with redesigning their curriculum and instruction from face-to-face to online virtual classrooms to protect students from the COVID-19 virus. The critical questions include: Has this shift assured that students will learn the identified essential content and skills for the 21st century? Will they develop the skills identified through the 4C’s: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity (Thoughtful Learning Organization, 2016)? The rapid shift of K-12 education to being online left educators and parents lacking in confidence that students will receive an appropriate education through the virtual environments proposed for keeping students safe. The speed with which this transition was made prevented educators from developing the necessary knowledge and skills needed to create engaging learning in the unfamiliar virtual environment. Superficial observations of the online features and organizations for virtual environments suggest these environments lack key elements for guiding students in engaging in the skills such as those identified by the 4 C’s. A more serious question is: Are the bold claims true that students cannot learn online in virtual environments? Some say that teachers lack the knowledge of how to think about online teaching in a virtual environment. This begs the question, are today’s teachers simply applying their classroom strategies as they have done in their face-to-face classrooms, only now in front of a web camera?
Objective
The primary objective of this book is to gather and present actual best practices and pedagogical reasoning for designing online strategies that work for K-12 virtual learning. The chapters will provide ways to think about teaching in virtual environments that can be used to guide instructional strategy choices and ultimate decisions. The ideas and frameworks will present effective online pedagogical reasoning for the redesign and implementation of K-12 virtual classrooms.