"I felt that all the novice teachers were equal in the eyes of the lecturer": A virtual course and a frontal course for novice teachers as an educational tool for a technological change

The research objectives are: characterisation of the learning-teaching processes in the course entitled "Novice Teachers ’Professional Development" studied in two different frameworks; and examination of the difference between a physical learning environment culture and a virtual learning culture. The study comprised a follow-up of six learner groups with 108 participation for a period of one year. The courses were taught by three lecturers at an academic college of education and were compulsory for novice teachers during their first year of practice. Each lecturer taught two groups in both frameworks. The study was conducted in a qualitative method as a case study. The research tools consisted of open-ended questionnaires and reflection processes. Central themes in the data were content analysed and a triangulation between the researchers was performed. The prominent findings are differences between the two course types regarding the change characteristics of the learning environment culture: teaching methods, illustration aids, lecturers ’profile and novice teachers ’profile. The research recommendations are developing virtual learner communities which will allocate room for individual expression in the forum on the one hand and integrating virtual teaching modules in a frontal course on the other.