Based on a survey from a large teacher education institution in Norway, a multi-campus university with a high level of collaboration and flexible learning opportunities for both teachers and student teachers, we aim to investigate how teacher trainers experience teaching in a Vestland-class offered by the university.

The Vestland-class is a format of study offered at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (WNUAS) that is online and flexible, and the courses are entirely or partially web-based. All courses added to the 5th semester in initial teacher education (ITE) at WNUAS are in the Vestland-class format aiming to provide an equal offer of subjects to all students in the different campuses.

In this study, we have collected experiences from teacher trainers who have been teaching Vestland-class students during 2023 and 2024. The goal of the study is to improve the quality of cross-campus teaching in teacher education. This paper presents teacher trainers’ voices and the research question that guides the study are:

Which indicators related to presence do teacher trainers find challenging when teaching student teachers online in a multi-campus university?

This study builds on the theoretical heritage of Dewey’s and Vygotsky’s learning perspectives where our culture, communicative and cognitive activities are closely connected to a social and collaborative context. Drawing on three interdependent concepts: social, cognitive, and teaching presence, we use Garrison’s Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework and its Community of Inquiry Survey Instrument to collect and analyze data.

In fall 2023, we invited all involved teachers teaching 5th-semester student teachers in 13 different courses in initial teacher education (ITE) at WNUAS to participate in our study. A survey using a five-point Likert scale structured following the three presences (social, cognitive, and teaching presence) from the CoI framework was distributed to all student teachers through SurveyXact. Participation in the study was voluntary. The same survey was conducted in fall 2024. This article is based on a preliminary analysis of the two surveys.

We expect that size and subject matter manifest differently in digital and hybrid learning contexts. We will also not be surprised to find that teacher trainers experience social presence having greater complexity and are more demanding in digital settings than in physical settings.

The project is to be considered as a study that will contribute to a better knowledge base about how teacher trainers experience their digital didactic performance, and which indicators related to presence they find challenging when teaching student teachers online in a multi-campus university. Identifying these factors, and thus potential for improvement will help increase the quality of education - when an ITE course becomes digital.

Keywords: Multi-campus, teacher education, blended learning, presence.