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This case study examined learning experiences of three nontraditional online learners who were unsuccessful in an online course, Middle Level Education, and opted to repeat it in a face-to-face setting. Their unique experiences and perspective provided an opportunity to shed light on the nature of preservice teacher education for nontraditional learners in both contexts. Self-regulated learning and the Community of Inquiry model underpin the research and were lenses for analysis. Findings indicated the importance of establishing all elements of the Community of Inquiry model, but specifically, effectively establishing teaching presence and cultivating social presence among students to support online success.
INTRODUCTION
The comparison of online and face-to-face learning experiences has been studied extensively in educational research (Braun, 2008; Ernst, 2008; Mullen & Tallent-Runnels, 2006; Reisetter, Lapoint, & Korcuska, 2007). However, teacher preparation in an online context is a relatively new phenomenon with unique disciplinary challenges, but it has grown rapidly in the past decade for both undergraduate and alternate route programs leading to initial licensure (Huss, 2007; Olson & Werhan, 2005; Thornton, 2013). Online teacher candidates tend to be nontraditional students with unique characteristics (Carr, 2000). The purpose of this study was to examine the learning experiences of three nontraditional online program area students who were unsuccessful in an online course, Middle Level Education (MLE), and opted to repeat it in a face-to-face setting. Their unique experiences provided an opportunity to shed light on the nature of preservice teacher education for nontraditional learners in these different contexts. Given the unique disciplinary context of middle level teacher preparation online, we initially attempted to ground our research in this literature. However, only a small research base was found with limited relevance for this study. We expanded our review of the literature to online teacher education experiences.
Online Versus Face-to-Face Instruction
Although there are many similarities between online and face-to-face learning experiences, there are unique challenges to online learning, especially with adult learners (Park & Choi, 2009). Often online programs are populated by nontraditional students, with multiple competing demands on their time, including families and other job responsibilities. This can result in higher attrition of students in online programs than those taught face to face (Herbert, 2006; Rovai, 2003; Walsh, Abi-Nader, Poutiatine, 2005).
Despite this reality,...