From Autonomous Learners to Self-Directed Teachers in Telecollaboration: Teachers Look Back and Reflect

This chapter presents data stemming from surveys and interviews of students who have taken part in a teacher education course that consists of project-based collaboration between geographically distant classes (one in the USA, the other in Spain; often known as telecollaboration) as part of the course program. This study has been produced in part under the framework of the PhD program on Education from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The historical evolution of the course during the 16-year continuous collaboration (since 2004 and ongoing) between the two teacher educators is briefly outlined before presenting the context of the data compilation and the most predominant outcomes from the survey of former students who had graduated between 2004 and 2015. The focus of the analysis is to discern whether the design of the initial teacher education program, which aims to promote a gradual but steady increase in learner autonomy, and exposure to telecollaboration can promote eventual teacher autonomy. It is assumed that these teaching characteristics will be important for student-teachers to implement telecollaboration in their own teaching in the near future.