Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2021

Education: Making the Grade REAL-WORLD MENTORING FROM ONLINE EDUCATORS Before COVID-19 made online education the only way for students to learn, Cedarville University education majors were learning how to teach in an online environment from virtual mentors. The Cedarville University School of Education partners with the Ohio Connections Academy and the Ohio Virtual Academy to provide mentoring for education majors as online educators. Both organizations teach students in kindergarten through grade 12. Cedarville education majors can jump-start their teaching experience through e-learning and online educator mentoring as early as freshman and sophomore year. “Christian teachers need to rethink how they can integrate educational technology into a faith-based vision of education,” said Tianhong Zhang, Assistant Professor of Education and program administrator. “Christian teachers, like any competent professional, need opportunities to keep abreast of these curricular and instructional innovations.” Students complete a semester-long integration project as part of their field experience, which allows them to work closely with their mentor teacher. They are required to spend 15 hours observing an online live classroom, learning how teachers instruct in the virtual environment. As a part of this integration project, students work with their mentor teachers to design an interactive mini-lesson for an online class. Some mentor teachers have invited Cedarville education majors to teach these mini-lessons and interact with students in their online classes. C e d a r v i l l e e d u c a t i o n majors learn how to integrate i n t e r a c t i v e e d u c a t i o n a l technology tools into a lesson that will engage students, deliver content that is uploaded to an online learning platform such as Google Classroom, and manage their time as they condense content into a 50-minute virtual class. For Mary (Kronk) Kallis ’22, a junior early childhood education major from West Jefferson, Ohio, it was helpful to speak with a mentor teacher who had taught in a brick-and- mortar school and then transitioned to an online classroom. “It was interesting to see how my mentor teacher made the lessons engaging and interesting for students,” Kronk said. “Ultimately putting the students and their learning first and ordering the class in a way that promotes this enriched my own understanding of what it means to be a teacher.” Christian teachers need to rethink how they can integrate educational technology into a faith-based vision of education. Tianhong Zhang 28 | Cedarville Magazine