An Evaluation of the use of an Online Demonstration School

In 2016, a change was made to the approach taken for delivery of the first practicum placement experience for initial teacher education students at [the university]. Rather than the traditional 20-day in-school observation placement, an alternative 10-day online experience, called the Online Demonstration School (ODS), was developed. The ODS provided students with a fully online practicum experience involving viewing videos of a variety of classroom situations developed in conjunction with local schools. Subsequent reflection and collaboration with peers and academics allowed targeted aspects in the classroom situations to be examined in depth. This article summarises the literature supporting this change and presents a comparison of the effectiveness of these two alternative approaches based upon an analysis of mentor teacher grading of the second practicum placement completed. The analysis indicates that there are few significant differences in grading of the second in-school practicum placement by mentor teachers based upon whether students complete the in-school placement or the ODS. The benefits of the use and possible future development of the ODS are discussed.