Shifting to Online Education and Back Again One Educators Experience Learning to Teach Online, Online, and Transferring Instructional Knowledge to Face-to-Face Practice

Online distance education is quickly growing across the globe. As more move to this mode of education, instructors are beginning to look towards their teaching practices and techniques of instruction when looking at this new environment. This study, through interviewing and analysis of archived course documents, examines the experiences of one participant in the Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality program designed to increase knowledge and abilities in online instruction. Her personal traits, social influences, and course content/dynamics were explored to find several factors she attributes to her successes in this program. Anecdotes were explored to further discern her experiences within the program. An ability to transfer knowledge obtained in and intended for an online teaching and learning environment to her face-to-face practice is paid particular attention. From this study, it would appear that the two modes of instruction are not as difference as many might think. Furthermore, social influences were not seen as a major contributing factor in knowledge transfer for our participant