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The study describes the experiences of a cohort of instructional technology students in an online practicum, all of whom were current K-12 teachers in the United States at the onset of the pandemic. Data were obtained from students' responses in online journals; reflection prompts focused on their transition to emergency remote teaching during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis revealed that these teachers were unprepared to teach remotely due to lacking training, technology tools, and support. Additional preparation is needed to facilitate the needs of in-service teachers and their students in case future shifts to remote teaching are required.

For some students enrolled in online courses, receiving tutoring may be a key component to their success. This study sought to determine if the use of an outsourced online tutoring service (OOTS) was associated with course success in online English Composition courses. The authors employed chi-square tests to analyze the relationship between tutoring usage and final grades for students in two different composition courses, English Composition I (n = 888) and English Composition II (n = 1108). The results indicate that in both courses, students who utilized the OOTS passed the course at higher rates than those who did not. For students who utilized the service at least once, 95% passed English Composition I, compared with a 57% passing rate of students who did not utilize the service. Results for English Composition II were similar with 89% of OOTS users passing the course, compared with a 58% passing rate of non-users. This research supports and discusses the importance of online tutoring for students.