Blended Learning in Teacher Education: Uncovering its Transformative Potential for Teacher Preparation Programs

This chapter acknowledges that there is sparse literature to consult about the pedagogical and empirical foundations of blended learning in teacher preparation programs because this field is in its infancy. This chapter will first define blended learning, identify the challenges in teacher preparation programs and indicate how blended-learning approaches will assist teacher educators to meet long-standing and newly emerged challenges, and help future teachers to be reflective practitioners, better problem-solvers, and critical thinkers. This chapter also will discuss pedagogical values of blended learning and factors affecting blended learning course designs, and then showcase best practices using blended learning in order to show the effectiveness of blended learning approaches in teacher education. Lastly, this chapter will discuss considerations when blending teacher education courses.