Abstract:

A thematic synthesis was conducted to find out ten early childhood educators’ perceptions of creative teaching during the post-circuit period of COVID-19 in Singapore. The study was designed with adjustment of data collection done by using digital conferences such as video conferencing, mainly due to regulatory guidelines stating no crossing of staff from one centre to the other or visiting of a centre from a different centre. Upon receipt of the approval from the university ethic board, the second author sent out the invitation. Three participants who were colleagues of a kindergarten had their interview in the classroom after the class where no children were present. Another two from the same kindergarten group had video conferencing. Four participants from personal contacts had their interview via video conferencing. The remaining one participant from personal contact had her interview in a restaurant over a meal after work. The interview transcripts were thematic analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2012) in six phases. Two authors were the coders. They developed the coding scheme. They read the transcripts independently. The first author was knowledgeable in the theory of creative teaching. She set up the coding scheme. The second author was experienced in the field of early childhood education added new categories to the coding scheme. After the independent coding, the codes were compared. The eight synthesized themes were creative teaching and role(s) of teacher, physical environment (indoor and outdoor, and learning centres), social-emotion, space and time, creative activities, peer interaction, fostering creativity strategies, and Covid-19 constraints. Strengths and limitations of the study were discussed.

Keywords:

COVID-19, creative teaching, thematic synthesis, and teacher role, early childhood.