Virtual Professional Experience Observation: Lessons Learned from Five years of Implementation, Development, Cross-Institution Collaboration, and Research

This chapter tracks the experiences and development of virtual observa-tion as a method to support and assess initial teacher education students on their field-experience practicum, or professional experience (PEx), with three pioneering initial teacher education providers in the United States, Ireland, and Australia. Through observation and the sharing of practice by two institutions (NUI Galway and UTS), we have developed a model of virtual observation that can offer the same support to pre-service teachers regardless of location. The chapter demonstrates the effi-cacy of virtual PEx observation as a high-impact innovation before the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic; during the pandemic, when traditional school place-ment assessment was infeasible; and beyond, as an innovative new approach to enhancing teacher education internationally, post-pandemic.