Abstract:

The highlight of teacher education studies, and the most significant component in terms of investment of both students and the college is pre-service teaching, which involves the weekly or bi-weekly attendance of the students in the kindergarten or school classrooms. The students accompany the class home room teacher, who instructs them on a regular basis. In addition, they are mentored by pedagogic instructors from their college or university with whom they meet weekly.

During the school year 2020-2021, with the outbreak of Covid-19 and the ensuing quarantines and social distancing, schools and kindergartens were closed for weeks at a time, with learning being conducted by remote teaching using computer programs such as ZOOM software. The schools were conducted differently during the Corona period, with no interactive activities, no frontal meetings, and with no inclusion or mainstreaming of students with special needs into regular classes. As a result, pre-service teachers did not regularly experience interpersonal face-to-face interactions with pupils in the classrooms or kindergartens.
Several articles have been published about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on students and academic studies. However, the present article is unique in its focus on a critical aspect in teacher training, which is pre-service training. This study examined the impact of the change from frontal, face to face pre-service experience to remote, distance learning on the quantity and quality of acquisition of teachers' core practices. The study examined this impact both from the perspective of the students and in the eyes of the pedagogical instructors who accompany these students in their pre-service work.

205 students of teacher education studies whose pre-service was partially by remote learning and whose pedagogic instructors were unable to enter the classrooms completed a questionnaire measuring their knowledge and experience performing core practices in teaching. They once again completed this questionnaire the following semester after experiencing frontal, face to face pre-service teaching. The pedagogic instructors of these students also completed a similar questionnaire rating the impact of remote pre-service teaching on the students' learning. Results point to a differential influence of the remote pre-service on two types of core practices: "pedagogic content knowledge" which includes many theoretical aspects was less affected by the distance learning whereas "knowledge of learners" which is highly related to interaction with pupils and peers was reduced by the lack of interactive pre-service teaching.

This study sheds light on the contribution of interaction with both the children and pupils in the kindergarten and school room, as well as the importance of peer learning and staff teamwork.

Keywords:

Pre-service in teacher-education studies, core practices, remote learning, Covid-19.