Abstract:

Educating preservice teachers in a time of social distancing and crisis increased the collaborations between staff, preservice teachers, and schools [3]. Timmermans & White found that teacher educators adopted an innovative stance, and they wished to harness the best of both worlds (pre- and post-COVID-19). We, at the Faculty of Education at a well-known College in Israel, felt the need for documenting this transformation focusing mainly on challenges and obstacles in preservice teacher preparation during the crisis. Therefore, we collected Lecturers' ethnographic [2] documentations for a research book [1]. Simultaneously two surveys were conducted by the Centre for Innovative Teaching (CIT) in our college to assess the teaching experience of the academic stuff as well as the learning experiences of the students. The survey questions were answered by 518 of the college students and by 101 lecturers.

The results, which were published inner online newsletter, indicated that 94% of the students experienced a transition in their courses to synchronous teaching. These high percentages illustrated the immediate response of the lecturers, shifting their teaching to the new virtual medium. Most of the students mentioned the variety of learning tools lecturers used during the online learning (e.g. forums and blogs that were embedded in the MOODLE). 35% of the students preferred synchronous sessions, and 26% of the students preferred asynchronous sessions based on recorded presentations or recorded videos of the lecturers. Furthermore, students reported about overload and ask lecturers for assistance in learning management with a clear definition of weekly content and tasks; diversification of different teaching methods that are suitable to a variety of input channels (written text, audio, video); reducing the quantity materials and tasks; and assisting in task mediation - breaking down complex tasks into smaller units.

A match was found between the student and the lecturers attitudes regarding to the use of diverse teaching tools and the feeling of workload. Both students and lecturers experienced significantly higher workload levels during this period. The gaps (as expected) were in aspects of teaching-learning experiences and teaching effectiveness. Although most of the responding lecturers felt that their workload was heavy, most of them felt capable of integrating distance teaching although they were not trained professionally for this kind of teaching. They also indicated that the level and the professional quality of their courses were not harmed. Lecturers' documentations reinforce this point and indicate that, Like Timmermans & Whites' findings, they have not just responded reactively to the changes that have transpired around them. In this conference we would like share and to discuss the main themes that emerged from the surveys and from the process of documenting in the book.

References:
[1] Biberman-Shalev, L., Broza, O., & Patkin, D. (Eds.). (In press). Teacher education in a reality of a world crisis: The narrative of a faculty of education in a teacher education college. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
[2] Boyle, M., & Parry, K. (2007). Telling the whole story: The case for organizational autoethnography. Culture and Organization, 13(3), 185-190.
[3] Timmermans, M., & White, E. (Eds.). Being a teacher educator during the COVID-19 pandemic. Avans: Avans University of Applied Sciences, 2021.

Keywords:

Remote teaching, ethnographic, MOODLE, preservice taechers.