Volume 4, Issue 1

Journal of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education Vol. 4 Issue 1

JOURNAL OF THE

WORLD FEDERATION OF

ASSOCIATIONS FOR TEACHER

EDUCATION

Mission: to build a global community of teacher educators and to promote trans- national collaboration, support, and research and development in teacher education

Learning, Teaching and Teacher Education in a Global Pandemic

March 2021 ISSN Volume 4, Issue 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITOR’S COLUMN………….………………….…………………………….……….…...... 2

Guest Editor: Dr. Jenene Burke………………………………………………………………….4

SIXTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE……………………………………………………………..6 Paul Paese, WFATE President; Elizabeth Ward, co-chair; Debby Shulsky, co-chair

LEARNING, TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION IN A PANDEMIC……………………………………………………………………………………..10 Jenene Burke PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES DURING A PANDEMIC……………….……19 Shelley Kokorudz

SHARING FEELINGS, SOLUTIONS, AND MOVING FORWARD DURING COVID-19….31 Lois Paretti, Linda F. Quinn, Anna Maria Behuniak, Jane McCarthy

TEACHING AND LEARNING UNDER COVID-19 IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF CATALONIA AND SPAIN…………………………43 Josep Gallifa. Carme Amorós.Mireia Montané

LEARING IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC: CHILDREN’S ART AND CREATIVITY WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS………………………………………………56 Maxine Cooper

#CIENCIA_CONFINADA: MAKING SCIENCE IN LOCKDOWN……………………………66 Elena Gayán, Fina Guitart, Núria López and Julio Pérez.

PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF STEM TEACHERS: ONE HBCUs APPROACH TO THE RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND TRAINING OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHER CANDIDATES DURING COVID-19..………………….73 Samantha L. Strachan, Salam Khan

SHARED LEADERSHIP: A ROAD MAP TO STUDENT SUCCESS FOR SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEADERS…………………………………………………………82 Rodney T. Harrelson, Gregory R. VanHorn, Pamela M VanHorn,

PEDAGOGY AND 21st CENTURY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: TEACHING DURING A PANDEMIC AND IMPROVING AN OUTDATED MODEL……………………89 Martí Teixidó “WHEN WE THOUGHT WE HAD ALL THE ANSWERS...”: The Binomi. online 3.0 Technopedagogical Project, online and remote teaching………………………...…100 Maria de Montserrat Oliveras Ballús

CONNECTING TEACHER EDUCATORS ACROSS THE WORLD IN THE WAKE OF A PANDEMIC……………………………………………………………………..……………..120 Jenene Burke, Federation University Australia, WFATE President Elect

Editor’s Column: Please read – lots of information included!

On 30 January 2020, the WHO declared the outbreak as a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern‘ and it was finally characterized as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020. As the pandemic has swept across the globe, every aspect of our lives has been permeated, resulting in political, social, and economic upheaval. Governments across the world have responded to the global pandemic in discrete ways and these responses have caused dramatic but different effects on the way people have conducted their daily lives, influencing health, work, commerce, travel, socializing and schooling. As we manage within the crisis, and start to emerge from it, our lives and societies are destined to be changed forever.

Dr. Jenene Burke, President-Elect of WFATE, agreed to guest edit this issue of the Journal of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education. The first article sets the stage for the remainder of the issue and the concluding article wraps it up and looks to the future. WFATE is so appreciative of her work and the insights each article brings to the issues of a pandemic and teacher education at all levels. The next big news is that the 6th Biennial Conference of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education will be held from 12-14 November 2021 and it will be a virtual (on-line) conference. The call for papers is on the WFATE website (https://www/worldfate.org) and is open now. We will work hard to make the conference accessible to all areas of the world. We owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Elizabeth Ward and Dr. Debby Shulsky (co-chairs of the conference) and Dr. Paul Paese (President of WFATE) for their work on switching to on-line and generating the themes and subthemes. The description follows the Editor’s Column. All accepted papers are eligible for publication in the Proceedings which are published as an issue of the Journal of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education Also, we plan to bring our Research Development Groups (RDG) together virtually at the conference. The four approved RDGs are listed on the website and at least two possible groups are under development. If you are interested in developing an RDG, please contact me at [email protected]. The next issue of the Journal is an open themed issue.

NON-THEMATIC ISSUE CALL FOR PAPERS Journal of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education The general theme is Innovation in Teacher Education within a Global Context. Please consider the journal as you develop research reports, issue papers, action projects, and other formats . We also include a Research Notes section for short papers that describe unique methodologies, special topics, and other similar efforts. Possible topics include: 1. Multiculturalism and Multilingualism 2. Technology and Mobile Learning for Pedagogical Innovations in Teacher Education

3. International - Local Teacher Education Networking Models for Knowledge Building 4. Teacher Education Curriculum and School Curriculum 5. School-University-Educational Administrations Partnerships for Creative Initiatives in Teacher Education 6. A Distributed Leadership for School Innovation Management 7. Monitoring and Evaluating Innovations in Teacher Education 8. Change for Innovation in Teacher 9. Initial and Ongoing Teacher Education for Innovation 10. Health, Sport, Physical and Plastic Arts Education (circus, dance and theater) 11. Supporting STEM Education through Teacher Preparation and Professional Development 12. Strategies for Overcoming Inertia in Teacher Education 13. Disability Studies, Inclusion and Social Justice in Teacher Education 14. Innovation in Teacher Training for Early Childhood Education 15. Social Sciences Teacher Education for a New Era NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS: The Journal of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education is an electronic educational research and development journal. All articles are peer-reviewed. We publish articles focusing on empirically driven research in major areas of education, carefully developed issue analyses, and clearly focused development articles. To be reviewed, manuscripts must conform to the publication guidelines available on the website. The WFATE journal does not have a copy editor. Thus, authors are responsible for ensuring that their submissions meet the specified criteria. Since the Journal of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education is an electronic journal, special formatting guidelines must be followed to ensure the readability of the paper by reviewers using a wide range of word-processing software. In addition, the guidelines ensure the accurate rendering of the article on our Web site, irrespective of readers' platforms and systems, should it be accepted for publication. Articles of approximately 5,000 to 8,000 words are preferred.

Articles must be submitted no later than July 30, 2021. Please send the word document to [email protected].

With Thanks to Dr. Jenene Burke and all of our authors:

Ann Converse Shelly Executive Secretary, WFATE

World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (WFATE) Journal - special edition.

Learning, Teaching and Teacher Education in a Global Pandemic Guest Editor: Dr Jenene Burke is the President-elect of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (WFATE). She is an Associate Professor of Education, Learning and Teaching and the Deputy Dean of the School of Education at Federation University Australia. She leads the WFATE Inclusion and Social Justice in Teacher Education in Global Contexts Research Development Group. As a researcher, Jenene is best known for her world-class research into play spaces as inclusive environments for children and their families. Jenene has a secondary teaching background and 20 years’ experience in Higher Education as a teacher educator. Her learning and teaching interests centre on educational responses to student diversity, with respect to inclusive education and disability studies in education. She is a recipient of an Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, in 2013 in the Australian Awards for University Teaching, and was awarded the sole 2012 Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Ballarat Vice- Chancellor’s Award for Contributions to Student Learning.

WORLD FEDERATION OF ASSOCIATIONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION SIXTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE November 12-14 2021 Rescheduled due to COVID-19 Pandemic

Theme: Social Justice in Education: Celebrating Diversity, Inclusion, and Interculturalism in our Global Society

Paul Paese, WFATE President Elizabeth Ward, co-chair Debby Shulsky, co-chair

Social Justice in Education: Celebrating Diversity, Inclusion, and Interculturalism in our Global Society explores the creation of a welcoming and engaging learning environment, examining the promotion and evolutionary advancement of a comprehensive culture and environmental climate throughout resilient learning communities. As suggested by Nicky Morgan, MP, the Secretary of State for Education (United Kingdom Department for Education, 2016): Education has the power to transform lives and, for me, is a matter of social justice – extending opportunity to every child, wherever they live and whatever their background. Good schools and a well-educated population make our country stronger, fairer, wealthier and more secure, and higher standards in the classroom mean better life chances for everyone. Investing in our education system is an investment in the future of our nation. (p. 3)

The conference theme, Social Justice in Education: Celebrating Diversity, Inclusion, and Interculturalism in our Global Society, serves as a call to teacher educators to lead the way towards modeling and celebrating the transformation of lives through a civilized, educated society that embraces understandings around social justice. Reveling in diversity, inclusion and interculturalism is reflected through the following five strands that relate to the conference theme.

The call for papers will open April 1, 2021. Peer review of proposals will be on a rolling basis. The call will close July 1, 2021

Registration for the virtual, on-line conference will begin July 1, 2021 (early registration open until September 15).

SEE THE WEBSITE (https://www.worldfate.org) for proposal forms. Registration will also be through the website.

Social Justice in Education: Celebrating Diversity, Inclusion, and Interculturalism in our Global Society explores the creation of an inclusive learning environment that welcomes all learners, all educators and all from within the community. The ability of learning to transform the lives of people through opportunity aligns with emphasizing an investment in humanity’s future.

Every child, and every adult, deserves the opportunity to live within a civilized society, with education acting as the instrument of social justice and basis of our culture. Embracing educational excellence also reflects the understanding, engagement and responsiveness around social justice in education.

Embedded within each strand is the engagement of differentiated understandings around innumerable areas of subject matter expertise, research, and scholarly understandings that clearly articulate and embed teacher education engagement through:

• knowledge base acquisition. • coursework experiences. • field-based engagement; and, • policy development and influence

STRAND I: Celebrating Diversity

The celebration of each person’s gifts, talents, history and experiences from the past, the present and future-leaning understandings highlights the celebration of diversity within the instructional environment as well as a humanist understanding of engagement.

Social justice pedagogy embraces the celebration of diversity, while including the ability to model and actively engage within new understandings that are supported by the community culture. In addition, the potentially transformative power of social justice throughout the educational landscape is an imperative aim for the development of a justice oriented global community. Presenters are encouraged to consider the following, possible questions as guides for proposal development within this strand:

• How are teacher education programs promoting and implementing social justice pedagogy in transformative ways? • In what ways are programs and candidates grounded in social justice pedagogy challenging or altering inequitable systems? • How are policy constraints impacting social justice practices being addressed by teacher education? • What are the societal implications of power and influence upon the educational system?

STRAND II: Honoring Inclusion

Maintaining and fulfilling the obligations around inclusion is integrally important towards honoring, understanding, and implementing the tenets of social justice. Moving forward inclusionary understandings and respect around race, gender, religion, socio-economic status, cognitive ability, physical abilities, and experiential engagement are imperative considerations towards welcoming all persons into the educational process. As such, creative instructional practices and spaces highlight the opportunity towards honoring inclusion. Presenters are encouraged to consider the following, possible questions as guides for proposal development within this strand:

• In what ways might inclusion be honored? • What does “honoring inclusion” look like, within different spaces? • How do we support anti-oppressive actions? • What is the understanding of contextualization of principles and ethics in teacher education?

STRAND III: Embracing Interculturalism in a Global Society

With the recognition of a global society becoming an ever-present concept, the ability to embrace interculturalism is not only appropriate but necessary to the development of citizens of an increasing more globalized society. With physical borders fading, cross-cultural engagement and understanding are vital to the development of a global society grounded in respect, intercultural exchange, and multi-national discourse.

Transformative abilities associated with embracing interculturalism in a global society intersect with the engaged politics of education that hopes for and supports the promotion of social justice in education. As such, presenters are encouraged to consider the following, possible questions as guides for proposal development within this strand:

• What does critically oriented multicultural education and critically oriented intercultural education look like in teacher education? • How does global citizenship education support interculturalism? • How can programs of education integrate meaningful intercultural experiences within their curricula? • How do we navigate resistance to the ideas of interculturalism and the teaching practices that support it?

REFERENCES

Applebaum, B. (2018). The Importance of Understanding Discourse in Social Justice Education: The Truth and Nothing But the Truth?. Philosophy of Education Archive, 1-14. Bamber, P., Lewin, D., & White, M. (2018). (Dis-) Locating the transformative dimension of global citizenship education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(2), 204-230. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220272.2017.1328077 Retrieved from https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/60778/

Carlson, D., & Apple, M. W. (2018). Power/knowledge/pedagogy: The meaning of democratic education in unsettling times. New York: Routledge. Duncan-Andrade & Morrell (2008). Critical pedagogy: Possibilities for moving from theory to practice in urban schools. New York: Peter Lang. Giroux, H. (1992). Language, difference, and curriculum theory: Beyond the politics of clarity. Theory into Practice, 31(3), 219-227. Giroux, H. (2018). Pedagogy and the politics of hope: Theory, culture, and schooling: A critical reader. Routledge. O’Neil, J. (1978, Winter). Merleau-Ponty’s criticism of Marxist Scientism. Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 2(1), p. 45. Sehr, D.T. (1997). Education for Public Democracy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Shanton, K. (2011). Memory, knowledge and epistemic competence. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2(1), p. 89-104. Smith, E. (2018). Key Issues in Education and Social Justice (2nd edition). London: Sage Publications Ltd. Retrieved from https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm- binaries/93444_Smith_ch_1.pdf Sosa, E., (2007, January). A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297023.001.0001 United Kingdom Department for Education. (2016 March 17). Educational excellence everywhere. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational- excellence-everywhere

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PROPOSAL FORM CAN BE FOUND ON THE WorldFATE WEBSITE: https://www.worldfate.org.

LEARNING, TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION IN A PANDEMIC Jenene Burke School of Education, Mt Helen Campus, Federation University Australia ABSTRACT: On 31 December 2019, a pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan, China was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in China (WHO, 2020a). This disease, later identified as a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) (WHO, 2021), was eventually given the name COVID-19 (WHO, 2020c, 2021a). On 30 January 2020, the WHO characterized the outbreak as a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ (WHO, 2020b) and it was finally declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 (WHO, 2020d).

LEARNING, TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION IN A PANDEMIC

Declaration of a pandemic On 31 December 2019, a pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan, China was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in China (WHO, 2020a). This disease, later identified as a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) (WHO, 2021), was eventually given the name COVID-19 (WHO, 2020c, 2021a). On 30 January 2020, the WHO characterized the outbreak as a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ (WHO, 2020b) and it was finally declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 (WHO, 2020d). At the time, the Director-General of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was reported as stating: All countries must strike a fine balance between protecting health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights….This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector – so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fight. I have said from the beginning that countries must take a whole- of-government, whole-of-society approach, built around a comprehensive strategy to prevent infections, save lives and minimize impact (WHO, 2020d). The meaning of those words is now becoming fully appreciated. As the pandemic has swept across the globe, every aspect of our lives has been permeated, resulting in political, social and economic upheaval. Governments across the world have responded to the pandemic in discrete ways and these responses have caused dramatic, but often different, effects on the ways people have been able to conduct their daily lives. As we manage within the crisis, and start to emerge from it, our lives and societies are destined to be changed forever. The papers in this collection School closures implemented early in 2020 to contain the spread of COVID-19 were considered to be placing “unprecedented challenges on governments to ensure learning continuity, and on leaders, students, caregivers and parents” (Chang & Yano, 2020). As time has passed, pandemic conditions have created an environment in which governments and school systems, and educators in general, have sought ways to cope with their changed circumstances and been forced to rethink how to support their students and their families and student learning with the resources at their disposal. This special edition of the Journal of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (WFATE) offers a collection of scholarly papers and academic research drawn from the WFATE community from countries such as Spain, the USA, Canada and Australia. The analysis that follows draws partially on the papers presented in this issue – Volume 4, Issue 1. In this publication we look beyond our own borders in an attempt to discern the impact of COVID-19 on education across the world. In regard to schools and student learning, which by extension impacts on teacher education and its knowledge base, we also examine the direct impact on teacher education. Finally, we consider how teacher education organizations such as WFATE might meet the needs of the teacher education community in realizing established mission statements and aims (Burke, Volume 4, Issue 1). While we might expect a gloomy

outcome from the changed circumstances brought about by a global pandemic, the papers in this special edition reinforce the ingenuity and resourcefulness of teachers and teacher educators and their ability to adapt swiftly and creatively to find ways to teach and support students in their learning. Disruption to learning on a global scale The worldwide outlook, however, is ominous. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has published a global monitoring map (2021a) which shows the status of school closures and openings during the pandemic. UNESCO estimated that more than half the students in the world (around 800 million students) faced “significant disruptions” to their education. An examination of 80 countries by UNESCO identified school lockdowns from full closuresi in 31 countries to reduced or part-time academic schedules in another 48 countries (UNESCO, 2020b), equating to two-thirds of an academic year lost (on average worldwide) due to COVID-19 full or partial school closures (Giannini, 2021; UNESCO, 2021b). This learning loss may be less of a problem than it appears on the surface. Sundstrom and Blackmore (2020) draw on experience from Christchurch, New Zealand, and other significant events where children have lost blocks of time in attendance at school due to school closures. These authors provide evidence of children’s ability to make up lost time quickly and effectively when they do eventually return to school.

Stefania Giannini, who is the Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO, expressed her concern that the implications of COVID-19 were already far-reaching and that the pandemic has “laid bare and deepened inequalities in education” (2021b). Giannini bases this statement on UNESCO estimates that close to 500 million children worldwide will miss out on opportunities for remote learning and that, due to the economic impact of the pandemic, an estimated 24 million children and youth will not return to school (UNESCO, 2021b). Significant school attrition has also been predicted in Australian schools (Baker, 2020) and chronic absenteeism and reduced learning time have been identified as a concern in the USA (Garcia & Weiss, 2020).

As well as identifying the adverse consequences of school closures (2020b), UNESCO identified 10 “recommendations to ensure that learning remains uninterrupted” (2020a). The advice is as follows:

1. Examine the readiness and choose the most relevant tools. 2. Ensure inclusion of the distance learning programmes. 3. Protect data privacy and data security. 4. Prioritize solutions to address psychosocial challenges before teaching. 5. Plan the study schedule of the distance learning programmes. 6. Provide support to teachers and parents on the use of digital tools. 7. Blend appropriate approaches and limit the number of applications and platforms. 8. Develop distance learning rules and monitor students’ learning process. 9. Define the duration of distance learning units based on students’ self-regulation skills. 10. Create communities and enhance connection. (UNESCO, 2020a)

UNESCO monitoring shows that mass school shutdowns were prevalent across the board in March and April of 2020 and that by May 2020 schools were beginning to partially open. At the

time of writing in early March 2021 approximately 200 million students are still experiencing school closures in 26 countries, while nearly 700 million students are in schools that are partially open (2021a). This also means that many more countries have found ways to fully open their schools in 2021.

In Brazil, Cruz, Maciel, Clozato, Serpa, Navaux, Meneses, Abdalah, & Diener (2020) identified issues associated with school closures, that included the economic impacts on families when parents cannot work because they are supervising their children, and on the “industries associated with school attendance” (e.g., transport, clothing, food); and the increased potential for exposure to others while at school, as young people tend to be asymptomatic while carrying high viral loads. These researchers pointed out that “in-person classes are often hard to replace with online learning, especially in developing countries and for impoverished families, due to lower availability of broadband Internet and fast laptop computers with cameras” (p. 3). UNESCO’s long list of identified potential adverse consequences of school closures include “interrupted learning; poor nutrition; confusion and stress for teachers; parents unprepared for distance and home schooling; challenges creating, maintaining and improving distance learning; gaps in childcare; high economic cost; unintended strain on health-care systems; increased pressure on school and school systems that remain open; rise in [student] drop-out rates; increased exposure [particularly for girls and young women] to violence and exploitation; social isolation; and challenges measuring and validating learning”. (UNESCO, 2020b). Partial school openings in some countries enable vulnerable children to access a place of safety for targeted small group learning with peers and healthy meals and shelter (Drane, Vernon, & O’Shea, 2020; UNESCO, 2020c).

Having identified that global inequities present more sharply in developing countries, they are also pervasive in vast or remote locations. Australia, for example, has close to four million school children, and the challenges for schools, according to National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, are “the risk of long-term educational disengagement, digital exclusion, poor technology management and increased psychosocial challenges” (Drane, Vernon, & O’Shea, 2020, p. 3). Many students face disadvantage in home learning during the pandemic due to identified ‘divides’. These divides include the “material divide” – lack of basic resources that support home learning; the “digital divide” – lack of ICT resources and knowledge; the “skills and dispositions divide” – differences in students’ personal preparedness for remote learning; the “parental support divide” – where some parents struggle to manage their children’s learning from home, and the “adjustments divide” – where individual student’s educational adjustments do not fit well into remote learning arrangements (Lamb, Maire, Boeke, Noble, Pilcher, & Macklin, 2020, p. 3). This disadvantage during the pandemic is compounded by the fact that children from low socio-economic circumstances already face negative learning outcomes (Lamb et al., 2020; UNESCO, 2020b).

Children’s vulnerability can be categorised as social and educational (Masters, Taylor-Guy, Fraillon, & Chase, 2020). Those considered socially vulnerable are often also educationally vulnerable (Masters et al., 2020; UNESCO, 2020b). Groups of children in Australia who are considered more vulnerable in are “those who live in poverty, often characterized by low socioeconomic status, those with a disability or additional learning needs, students in rural or remote parts of Australia, and those who are indigenous” (Lamb et al., 2020, p. 1).

Cruz et al., (2020) raised their concerns about the impact of reopening schools in Brazil after a period of closure. They report that children are the least likely to be impacted by being infected, but they can “act as infection vectors, causing massive spreads to more sensitive people, such as their family and teachers” (p. 11). The favoured strategy identified by Cruz and colleagues mathematical and computer simulation modelling was to reopen schools only after a vaccination campaign was introduced.

Teacher Education voices from around the globe

Amid concerns that during the pandemic children’s learning has been seriously impacted (Cruz et al., 2020; Garcia & Weiss, 2020; Giannini, 2021; Strachan & Khan, Volume 4, Issue 1; UNESCO, 2020b, 2021b) it has been necessary to turn our attention to what we are able to do in the face of imposed restrictions. Digital technologies have made many things possible, that were previously unachievable, and in some cases inconceivable. While many people have had access to PCs and smart devices for a number of years, their ability to use them while maintaining physical distance from others has become much more important and urgent. Terminology that begs clarification here is the type of learning that takes place using digital technology. As explained by Masters et al., (2020), online learning is “an approach that typically provides anytime, anywhere access to resources”, and remote teaching is “an approach which acts as a direct replacement for face-to-face teaching” (p. 2). According to Masters and colleagues, in remote teaching “teachers use video technology, or similar, to interact with students in real-time and rely on students having set schedules” (2020, p. 2).

Teixidó (Volume 4, Issue 1) identifies the potential of 20th century pedagogy, when transferred to the learning context of a pandemic with access to 21st century technology. Mass communication and digital technologies enable new ways of learning and teaching that have been exacerbated by the pandemic and are different to how digital technology has been used in a classroom. Teixidó proposes an enhanced model of learning where 20th century pedagogy can be integrated with 21st century technology to cater for remote learning contexts. Oliveras (Volume 4, Issue 1) notes the sudden movement of our pedagogical boundaries and explores personalised learning as the “online psychoeducational process” and the potential realised in remote teaching context through the Technopedagogical Project Binomi.online 3.0. The uniqueness of individual students is embraced, offering each learner the prospect of learning how to think, to know, and how to use their knowledge.

Gallifa, Amorós & Montané (Volume 4, Issue 1) describe how the pandemic crisis has presented opportunities to transform education and play a role in the development of Initial Teacher Education using technology for knowledge building, through the Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP), in a collaboration within a cluster of eight schools and two universities in Catalonia, Spain. We can read also of the impact of the pandemic on the Spanish population, and how these impacts were met with creative strategies that displayed empathy and deep concern for the wellbeing and welfare of the community at large. The utilization of digital technology to support children’s learning is not confined to schools. Cooper (Volume 4, Issue 1) reports on an ethnographic study which examined a small group of

children and families/carers in Melbourne, Australia, who celebrated 2020 Children’s Day by “making art and connecting with new friends online” using a web-based video conferencing tool. In previous years the activities have been conducted in one physical space for the children attending the event, together with their parents or carers. Cooper was able to demonstrate how the children and the teacher artists thrived and learned together, exploring new spaces and their creativity, using innovative remote technological communicate means through art making. Gayán, Guitart, López and Pérez, (Volume 4, Issue 1) explain the genesis of #ciència_confinada, a project of the Centre de Recursos Pedagògics Específics de Suport a la Innovació i la Recerca Educativa (CESIRE), from the Department of Education in the Catalan government in Spain. The project grew out of necessity during the pandemic to support student learning in Science. The learning materials, available online, allow students to apply Science in authentic situations to facilitate their learning. The impact on institutions that deliver teacher education has been significant and the experiences of teacher educators are likely to vary across the world. Like schools, teacher education has been pressed with little time for preparation and planning to find ways to prepare preservice teachers for a changing educational landscape (Kokorudz, Volume 4, Issue 1; Paretti, Quinn, Behuniak & McCarthy, Volume 4, Issue 1; Strachan & Khan, Volume 4, Issue 1). As schools in some countries have also moved to remote learning, preservice teacher practicums have been disrupted. Kokorudz (Volume 4, Issue 1) examines this disruption in detail in the Canadian initial teacher education context by examining the day-to-day experiences of a graduating group of preservice teachers in a study that examined the implications of a global pandemic on in the future preparation and certification of teachers. According to the preservice teachers, their students lacked significant engagement in online learning during lockdown. Preservice teachers used pedagogies such as individualised student learning plans to “gauge the impact of home learning on students with diverse learning needs”. Paretti, Quinn, Behuniak and McCarthy (Volume 4, Issue 1) examined what happened when field experiences for preservice teachers moved to an online format in a university in Nevada, USA. An array of strategies was quickly put in place using materials delivered remotely University supervisors and preservice teachers shared their challenges, concerns, modes of communication and the lessons they learned, as revealed in the paper. As well as engaging in online learning, preservice teachers also learnt new ways to deliver remote teaching, particularly using resources their students had access to at home (Gayán et al: Paretti et al.; Strachan & Khan, Volume 4, Issue 1). Preservice teachers also learned about student diversity and equity associated with a global pandemic, particularly in regard to Maths and Science teaching (Kokorudz; Strachan & Khan, Volume 4, Issue 1). Strachan and Khan (Volume 4, Issue 1) provide an overview of how the global pandemic impacted the AAMU Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program in Alabama, USA has worked to recruit, retain, and train science and mathematics teacher candidates. Effective school leadership becomes important in times of crisis. Harrelson, VanHorn and VanHorn, (Volume 4, Issue 1) reinforce the importance of shared leadership practices. School and district leaders needed to use the collective knowledge, expertise and experience to make

informed decisions and implement new models of learning including remote, hybrid and traditional face-to-face learning. Finally, Burke (Volume 4, Issue 1) shares her thoughts on how an international organisation, such as WFATE, that has relied on bringing teacher educators together from across the globe, might prosper in times of pandemic. The concept of digital dispersions as dimensions of digital teams is used to interrogate the challenges and possibilities. Burke concludes that available technologies can be employed in new ways to achieve established goals. Conclusion As we, as teacher educators, gaze beyond our own countries and begin to take stock of the impact of COVID-19 on education across the world, it becomes apparent that the full repercussions of the pandemic will not be fully realized or identified for many years to come. The projections, broadly construed, across the globe are not promising, and many students are expected to face a variety of potential negative outcomes. What is becoming clearer though is the capacity for teachers to be responsive, adaptive, creative, and supportive to their students, applying imagination, resourcefulness and creativity to their educational contexts. The potential for positive pedagogical change in a short time span has never been more possible. References Baker, J. (2020, April 12). The kids who will never return to school after COVID-19. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved February 1, 2021 from: https://www.smh.com.au/national/the- kids-who-will-never-return-to-school-after-covid-19-20200411-p54j0e.html

Chang, G.C., & Yano, S. (2020, March 24). How are countries addressing the Covid-19 challenges in Education? A snapshot of policy measures. World Education Blog. Retrieved March 2, 2021 from: https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2020/03/24/how- are-countries-addressing-the-covid-19-challenges-in-education-a-snapshot-of-policy- measures/

Cruz, E., Maciel, J., Clozato, C., Serpa, M., Navaux, P., Meneses, E., Abdalah, M., & Diener, M. (2020). The impact of reopening schools during COVID-19: A case study of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Drane, C., Vernon, L., & O’Shea, S. (2020). The impact of ‘learning at home’ on the educational outcomes of vulnerable children in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Literature Review prepared by the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, Curtin University, Australia.

Garcia, E. & Weiss, E. (2020a, Sept 10). COVID-19 and student performance, equity, and U.S. education policy: Lessons from pre-pandemic research to inform relief, recovery, and rebuilding. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved February 1, 2021 from: https://files.epi.org/pdf/205622.pdf

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1 Countries categorised as ‘Closed due to 19-COVID’ includes national enrolment figures at pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary levels as reported in the UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data base. http://data.uis.unesco.org/#

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES DURING A PANDEMIC

Shelley Kokorudz, Brandon University

ABSTRACT

This research evaluated the experiences of pre-service teachers during their final practicum placement when COVID-19 arrived in the province of Manitoba, Canada, forcing a suspension of face-to-face learning and the eventual closure of all schools. A survey was used to collect data on the day-to-day experiences of this graduating group of pre-service teachers and to understand the implications that a Global pandemic may have on faculties of education in the future preparation and certification of teachers. Data collected from participating pre-service teachers indicated a need to review current faculty curricula and its mode of delivery. As the pandemic maintains its grip on society, future reform and evolution in public schools will almost certainly become a reality (Government of Manitoba, 2020). Post-secondary institutions must also be ready to adjust pedagogy and program requirements to ensure that perspective educators are prepared to meet potential K-12 curricula reforms and delivery of education. Pre- service teacher respondents to this survey offered valuable feedback that could guide discussions around future provincial and national reform in education.

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES DURING A PANDEMIC

Introduction

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019. In March of 2020, COVID-19 made its presence on the Canadian prairies. As most schools in Manitoba were planning for spring graduation ceremonies, pre-service teachers and faculty in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada were preparing for final practicum placements which would finalize the graduation requirements for a promising new group of emerging teachers. Political leaders in the province scrambled to formulate health and education plans to slow the spread of the Global pandemic. In the absence of a cure or vaccination for the disease, health measures to contain the virus such as social isolation, reduction of economic activities, creation of home offices, and a move to remote classroom learning (Cruz, Clozato, Serpa, Navaux, Meneses, Abdalah, & Diener, 2020) were imposed by the province. By the end of March, schools were closed, and face-to-face learning in Manitoba schools was suspended. The decision to educate children from their homes via various on-line platforms was made in an effort to slow the infection spread of the highly contagious coronavirus and to reduce the stress that was being placed on the health care system due to the presence of the highly contagious, and sometimes deadly, virus. Due to the presence of the highly contagious, and sometimes deadly virus, it became clear that the inexperience of parents, students and teachers in online instruction was going to be a substantial challenge in the ongoing education of children (Kuhfeld, Soland, Tarsawa, Johnson, Ruzek, & Liu, 2020).

This school closure also posed an enormous challenge to the university’s faculty administration to ensure that graduating pre-service teachers would meet the required contact hours in the field to graduate and achieve provincial certification. The inability to provide a final practicum within a school (due to school closures) for pre-service teachers meant that the graduation and certification of the cohort of education students may be at risk. However, faculty administration devised a plan to keep teacher candidates connected to their teacher mentors in the online delivery of K-12 curricula. This unprecedented process for practicum completion became an experiment of sorts, one for which students and mentors had no experience or preparation. However, it did provide an opportunity for educators to learn more about and plan for the future of education as some doubt whether the world will return to ‘normal’.

Educators have adapted and adjusted to the reality of COVID-19. In November 2020, the Government of Manitoba (2020) announced a multimillion- dollar funding package to establish a remote learning support centre. In the report, the education minister stated, “COVID 19 has changed a lot about our lives, and some of the greatest impacts have been on how we teach, learn, and deliver education” (p. 30). The minister also announced three additional professional development days for school divisions “so that schools can focus on collaborative planning as they shift and adapt to remote learning” (p. 30). This substantial commitment to support the changes that stem primarily from current digital platforms being utilized in Manitoba schools is an indication of continued reform within the system. With a multimillion-dollar commitment to training teachers in online pedagogies, virtual teaching and learning will undoubtedly remain on the horizon for future educational implementation. As the province, and perhaps the nation, focus on a new way to school children, the question of how this new reality impacts the future of

education reform is raised. What can be learned from the experiences and opinions of the graduating cohort in this study to influence the delivery of teacher preparation programs at a post-secondary level? This study is relevant to education decisions made in the province of Manitoba and other Canadian provinces that have similar curriculum outcomes. In addition, the study may have international appeal where post-COVID education reform is occurring.

Purpose

The purpose of the research was to gain knowledge about the practicum experiences, responsibilities, and tasks of a graduating cohort of pre-service teachers at the onset of COVID- 19. This cohort, along with their mentoring teachers, made radical pedagogical adjustments as schools moved to online platforms to deliver curriculum to K-12 students. Their experiences and reflections provided valuable data towards the (re)thinking of teacher education programs and provided some insight into inevitable changes that could emerge onto education landscapes across the nation’s provinces. The researcher also probed participants on their interactions with students who had individualized learning plans to gauge the impact of home learning on students with diverse learning needs. Human research ethics approval (File Number 22657) was attained from Brandon University Research Ethics Committee (BUREC).

The Survey

The survey, consisting of 21 questions, was posted to Survey Monkey, an online website that allowed participants to post their responses anonymously and confidentially. However, for the purpose of this article, not all questions were included in the review of the responses. The researcher chose to focus on questions that pertained specifically to the day-to-day teaching tasks of pre-service teachers as they completed their final practicum. The final question probed the opinions of participants for potential curricula improvements that could be implemented into teacher preparation programs. Eight focus questions were selected:

Please indicate all alternative options that were made available to children as they continued their education from home.

How effective were the plans for home learning in your practicum?

Did your students have adequate technology resources such as computers, hand-held devices, etc.? And how adequate was their access to Internet?

How satisfied were you with the ability to create positive relationships with your students during the home learning portion of your practicum?

How engaged were your students learning from home?

How effective were your teaching/learning experiences with students who had special needs or may have had an Individual Education Plan (IEP)?

Please list any ideas that might have improved the teaching/learning experiences that you had during the closure of schools.

What type of courses would you suggest in the education of pre-service teachers to be prepared for unexpected changes in learning such as the home learning that occurred because of the pandemic?

A deadline for responses was included to expedite a timely response to the survey. Following the closure of the survey, several pre-service teachers contacted the researcher via email to provide an account of their final practicum experiences. These email respondents expressed regret for not responding to the survey in a timely manner but wanted to provide comments that they felt were noteworthy. Given the challenges that were being experienced during the unprecedented events associated with COVID-19, the researcher made the choice to include the comments submitted through email correspondence, merging the email submissions into the online survey data.

The Respondents

A total of 91 pre-service teachers completed their final practicum placements and were invited to participate in the survey. The survey link and invitation to participate in the study were emailed to the potential respondents through the field experience office at the Faculty of Education. Fifteen pre-service teachers responded to the on-line survey, and 11 pre-service teachers submitted email comments after the survey response deadline expired. Of the 26 pre-service teachers that responded, 54% were from the early years cohort (Kindergarten to Grade 6), 20% were from the middle years cohort (Grade 7-8), and 23% represented the senior years cohort (Grade 9-12).

Findings

Question #1

The first question required the respondents to indicate all alternative options that were made available to children as they continued their education from home. A summary of responses is shown in Table 1. The table indicates the percentage of times a learning option was chosen for home learning by students who were in pre-service teachers’ classrooms.

Table 1 Alternative Options for Home Learning Listed by Respondents

Home Learning Option Percentage Zoom Meetings 33 Microsoft Team Meetings 67 Moodle 0 Phone Meetings 27 E-mail 60 Hard copy assignments picked up and returned to school 80 Other (Google Classroom, Classroom Dojo, Office 365) 40 Recorded video lessons to be uploaded online 25

The most notable option for the continuation of learning was the choice to access hard copy assignments with physical drop points to provide students with assignments and retrieve them for evaluation purposes. Microsoft Team meetings appeared to be the preferred choice for virtual meetings, while email became an important means for communication. The data also indicated that a variety of online platforms were used for online supports. Participants did not express reasons for choosing the various platforms.

Question #2

The second question posed to pre-service teachers was, “How effective were the home learning plans in your practicum?” Table 2 reflects the responses submitted.

Table 2 Effectiveness of Home Learning Plans Expressed by Respondents

Level of Effectiveness Percentage of Responses Very Effective 20 Somewhat Effective 60 Not Effective 20

The responses from the second question indicated that home learning plans were only somewhat effective, while 20% said they were not effective. These low ratings may be reflective of the very little preparation time for pre-service teachers and their mentors to adequately implement home- learning plans for their students. The decision to close schools and begin learning from home was made with short notice from government leaders after realizing that a return to school posed too great a risk for the transmission of the virus within the general population of citizens.

Question #3

The third question asked the respondents to rate their opinions of the adequateness of technological resources such as computers and hand-held devices to which students had access. Respondents were also asked to rate the adequateness of Internet access. Table 3 is a summary of the responses.

Table 3 Adequateness of Internet Access and Technological Resources

Level of Adequateness Access to Internet Access to Technological (Percentage) Resources (Percentage) Adequate 33.3 20 Somewhat Adequate 53.3 46.67 Not Adequate at All 13.3 33.3

Pre-service teacher responses indicated that access to the Internet was slightly better than access to technological resources such as computers. Although 53.3% indicated they felt that access to the Internet was somewhat adequate, less than half felt the access to technological resources was somewhat adequate. While 13.3% felt that access to the Internet was not adequate at all, a

marked increase to 33.3% of respondents felt that access to technological resources was not adequate at all. If virtual learning is going to continue to be a part of the teaching and learning landscape, equity regarding access to resources and Internet service will be a major consideration in securing effective virtual learning experiences for all students.

Question 4

The fourth question asked, “How satisfied were you with the ability to create positive relationships with your students during the home learning portion of your practicum?” Table 4 represents the levels of satisfaction expressed by the respondents.

Table 4 Satisfaction of Teacher/Student Relationships

Level of Satisfaction Percentage of Responses Satisfied 6.7 Somewhat Satisfied 40 Not Satisfied 53.3

Question 4 focused on the teacher/student relationship during the respondents’ final practicum. Relationship building with students is an important part of the teaching and learning process. As teachers become more familiar with their students, they are able to plan appropriate and authentic lessons that serve to keep children motivated in their learning (Cisero Durwin & Reese- Weber, 2018). An overwhelming 53.3% of responses indicated that pre-service teachers were not satisfied with the teacher/student relationships, 40% were somewhat satisfied, and only 6.7 were satisfied. Relationship building between teachers and their students should remain a consideration as online learning platforms become possible options for the future delivery of curricula.

Question 5

The fifth question asked, “How engaged were your students learning from home?” Table 5 reflects the opinions of the respondents.

Table 5 Level of Engagement with Students

Level of Engagement with Students Percentage of Responses Significantly Engaged 0 Somewhat Engaged 71.4 Not Engaged 28.6

Interestingly, none of the respondents indicated their students were significantly engaged in learning from home. While 71.4% of the pre-service teachers felt their students were somewhat engaged, 28.6% felt their students were not engaged at all. As decisions continue to be made for future possibilities around home learning options, engagement and autonomy of students in their learning must be considered. While it is somewhat troubling to think that many students are only somewhat engaged or not engaged at all in home learning processes, it would be interesting to

gather the opinions of educators as they reflect on student engagement in regular face-to-face classroom learning. Is it possible that some students who are not engaged in the traditional spaces of classrooms continue these patterns in home learning experiences? Alternatively, is it possible that students who were more engaged with home learning platforms may be less engaged in face-to-face learning? A comparison of the degree of engagement in either learning environments may provide further insight into learning preferences and may also contribute to future reforms in education.

Question 6

The sixth question asked participants, “How effective were your teaching/learning experiences with students who had specific learning needs or may have had an Individual Education Plan (IEP)?” Table 6 indicates the level of effectiveness expressed by respondents.

Table 6 Effectiveness of Experiences with Specific Learning Needs

Level of Effectiveness Percentage of Responses Significantly Effective 0 Somewhat Effective 50 Not Effective 50

The percentage of responses to the question of the effectiveness of teaching/learning experiences with students who have diverse needs is rather alarming. Zero respondents indicated that they felt the teaching/learning experiences of students with specific learning needs were significantly effective. As advocates for students with disabilities have worked tirelessly to improve and ensure an appropriate and quality education for children with disabilities in inclusive learning spaces (Chu, Craig, Yeworiew, & Xu, 2020), a shift to virtual or other forms of home learning will require careful consideration of the impacts the various learning platforms will have on diverse learners.

Question 7

The seventh question asked participants to list any ideas that may have improved the teaching/learning experiences during the school closure. The participants were not provided any dropdown responses from which to select possible responses. The responses to this question originated from their personal experiences as they pertained to their particular school placements. A number of suggestions were offered by pre-service teacher participants which included (a) providing parents with a weekly plan so they had clear expectations of the week’s goals and objectives, (b) providing access to families for free WI-FI and ensure that all students have access to laptops, either through small rental fees or at a reduced purchase price, (c) eliminating Friday classes since were not well attended online, particularly as the weather got warmer, (d) providing free mental health services to teachers, (e) providing on-line learning training to students so they have a better understanding how to do school online, (f) reducing the number of assignments required by students, and (f) providing more clarity to pre-service teachers regarding their responsibilities during times of home learning.

Most of the responses are reflective of a system that had little time to prepare for a shift in learning platforms from face-to-face classroom to home learning. Students and teachers had no opportunity to become familiar with the processes of home learning. As a result, some families were ill equipped to ensure that their children could participate in a virtual learning option. As schools were being shut down in the province, many parents were also being asked to work from home. Working Manitobans experienced a radical shift in how they were being expected to do their jobs. Some respondents suggested that it was important to have planned meetings with parents so that adjustments to the learning plans could occur based on the family’s personal situations that may affect weekly learning.

The combination of parents working from home and students requiring access to technology and the Internet to engage in their own learning caused difficulties. Even those families that chose to pick up and deliver assignments using traditional learning materials were faced with the challenges of finding the time to supervise children in their learning. Many parents were still expected to either go to work as essential workers or work from home with children too young to be responsible for their independent learning. Appropriate supervision for children’s learning was not always possible. As education planners adapt to the new realities associated with a global pandemic, careful consideration of these potential barricades is required.

Question 8

The eighth question asked was: “What type of courses would you suggest in the preparation of pre-service teachers that may have helped you be more prepared for the unexpected changes to your final placement?”

Responses included (a) self-care and mental health, (b) lesson planning for remote learning, (c) evaluation and assessment for remote learning, (d) creative activities for remote learning, (e) scheduling for remote learning, (f) ICT for educators to cover on-line platforms for learning such as Moodle, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, (g) one counselling course for teachers to learn more about counselling their students on a day-to-day basis, (h) one course in crisis management for schools, (i) online learning methods, (j) education law course focusing on on-line learning scenarios, and (k) a minimum of one practicum to be completed at a First Nations school.

The list of suggestions for courses in teacher education programs is an interesting combination of learning that builds direct skills for on-line teaching and learning platforms and includes a course in the self-care of teachers, as well as the inclusion of a course for teachers to assist students in their own mental health. As public education in Manitoba continues to build supports (Government of Manitoba, 2020) for virtual learning options, faculties of education should consider how their own programs will facilitate the preparation of pre-service teachers to teach virtually. The final suggestion highlights diverse culture differences that require consideration for teaching and learning. In particular, schools continue to work to improve the education experiences of Indigenous children and families by incorporating access to Indigenous cultural programming (Milne & Wotherspoon, 2020). The respondent who suggested the requirement to complete a practicum at a First Nations school added that the reserve school in this particular placement had challenges that were specific to the culture. The respondent did not elaborate on these challenges, but in response to The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC)

that calls “attention to the damage induced by government policies and practices” (p. 34), experience in Indigenous schools could provide an authentic space to learn more about the cultural diversity associated with the teaching and learning preferences of Indigenous students and their families.

Discussion of the Study

In this study, pre-service teachers reported on their experiences while completing their final practicum placements during the onset of COVID-19. Despite the unprecedented move to remote teaching and learning and the challenges associated with the mode of delivery, Lieberman (2020) reported, “many teachers are seeing how online learning can make it easier to move students in the same class at different paces and provide one-on-one feedback for struggling students, when they’re not all in the same physical space” (p. 13).

World Bank Washington (2020) suggested that the crisis of COVID-19 could be turned into an opportunity by not replicating the failures of pre-COVID systems, “but instead build toward improved systems and accelerating learning for all students” (p. 5); what implications does this have for faculties of education? Kirk and Mitchell (2020) reflected on the future of education for medical students as well by reflecting and moving forward “with excitement regarding what has worked, and have the courage to leave behind what has not” (p. 334). Burnette (2020) spoke about the impact of an economic recession that will undoubtedly have effects on public education funding and argued that, more than ever, advocates must stand firm in ensuring that support for education is not reduced. One should also be concerned about the impact that COVID-19 may have on the retention of teachers or the attraction of new teachers to the profession. As COVID-19 is testing the limitations of the health care system, it is also placing tremendous stress on educators. Lambert, Trott, and Baugh (2020) reported that one third of teachers in the United States will leave the profession due to the increased health risks of COVID-19, leaving a shortage in the system. Although Lambert et al. report hailed from an American perspective, it is possible that Canadian educators may also be reconsidering their commitment to the field of education. The combination of economic uncertainties, the risk of contracting the virus and the unknown forms of delivery for future education equate to the necessity of reimagining teacher education programs and finding ways to ensure adequate numbers of education professionals.

In an Alberta study to learn more about teacher preparedness to accommodate student needs in inclusive classrooms, Chu et al. (2020) argued for more support and training for educators “to adequately address students’ diverse needs” (p. 222). Chu et al. conducted their study prior to the arrival of COVID-19. When the virus forced school closures, advocates for students with disabilities voiced concern (Corey, 2020) about the quality of education for students with individual education plans (IEPs); would they be able to experience appropriate learning during the vast changes that were occurring? The Alberta study highlighted the need for additional training for educators when education was being conducted at a time that most people would consider ‘normal’. A commitment to providing an appropriate and quality education for all students through the lens of disability and the philosophy of inclusion is extremely important in the efforts of advocates to ensure that the diversity among learners is considered in any planning

for future education reforms. The importance of meeting the needs of all learners must not become overlooked as change becomes inevitable in education.

Limitations

One of the limitations of this study was the small sample of pre-service teacher respondents who chose to respond to the survey. Only 15 of the total 91 respondents engaged in the survey. The responses are somewhat limited to the experiences of a small sample of potential participants.

The second limitation of this study is the timing of the survey. The survey was completed by pre- service teachers in the early onset of COVID-19 in the province. Little knowledge existed about the virus. As the virus has maintained its presence in society, researchers have gained considerable knowledge of the virus, and educators have had more time to plan for the safer delivery of curricula to their students. The more time that passes, the more information is gained to contribute to educational planning and policies for which the virus has had a direct impact. However, the responses of the participants, combined with the continual adaptations being made in Manitoba schools, do offer pertinent data to education faculties in their efforts to ensure authentic programming for pre-service teachers. More research is needed to assess the adjustments that educators are making in the teaching/learning processes as COVID-19 remains a threat in society.

Implications of the Study and Future Directions for Research

The pandemic impacted public schools and post-secondary faculties of education without warning, causing ripple effects that forced educators to deliver curricula to students in ways for which they were unprepared. Feeling the pressure to keep students engaged in learning, school leaders scrambled to provide suitable home learning options. If COVID-19 has taught educators anything in all its chaos, it is that the system was not prepared for the extreme shift necessary to maintain teaching and learning processes.

One implication drawn from this study is the need for more research into the impact of virtual learning platforms on specific school-age groups, cultural groups and students with disabilities. Levels of engagement of student learning is also an area that requires further understanding. If future reform in education may include a choice in learning platforms, pertinent data reflecting preferences for learning platforms across a diverse population of learners may be valuable. As well, teachers should also be polled so that more can be known about teacher preferences pertaining to learning platforms. These preferences may be useful as the education system considers the option to teach and learn in a traditional face-to-face classroom or from an alternative location through a virtual online platform.

The probability exists that even with the eradication of COVID-19 through medical advancements, education may not return to its pre-coronavirus state (Lieberman, 2020). As such, the second implication derived from this study is that faculties of education must engage in the processes of reflecting on current programs and making changes that will best prepare future educators for the reality of various modes of delivering curricula. Data from a larger sample of pre-service teachers are necessary to better inform faculties of education in the provision of

appropriate learning platforms and courses that are authentic and effective. This study, coupled with the recent literature confirming the future of virtual learning options, reinforce the need for appropriate teacher preparation in the inevitable changes to pedagogical practice. Additionally, as the province committed to investing in a virtual support learning centre, government must commit to ensuring that all geographical locations have the infrastructure to support highspeed Internet service. All students must also have access to appropriate technological equipment to ensure equity through virtual learning platforms. Finally, a continued commitment to support diverse learners with physical and learning disabilities must be established to protect their fundamental human rights to a quality appropriate education (Chu et al., 2020).

REFERENCES

Burnette, D. (2020). Why the pandemic’s recession may fuel legal push for more K-12 aid. Education Week, 40(11), 14.

Chu, M., Craig, H., Yeworiew, L., Xu, Y. (2020). Teachers’ preparedness to accommodate student needs. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 35(3), 210-224.

Cisero Durwin, C. & Reese-Webber, M. (2018). Ed psych modules (3rd Ed.). Sage

Corey, M. (2020). Serving special needs students during COVID-19. Education Week, 39(33), 13.

Cruz, E., Maciel, J., Clozato, C., Serpa, M., Navaux, P., Meneses, E., Abdalah, M., & Diener, M. 2020, October 13). The impact of school reopening strategies during COVID-19: A case study of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Cornell University. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.08426.pdf

Government of Manitoba (2020, November 13). Province announces $10 million for provincial remote learning support centre. Government of Manitoba. https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?item=49677&posted=2020-11- 09&fbclid=IwAR08neAxBCQFLctRqhIc7oR53L9mQzmFC6Pla5K8d5XE3c9RBBfDRx Lv-ds

Kirk, L. & Mitchel., I. (2020). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical education. Medical Journal of Australia, 213(7), 334.

Kuhfeld, M., Soland, J., Tarasawa, B., Johnson, A., Ruzek, E. & Liu, J. (2020). Projecting the potential impact of COVID-19 school closures on academic achievement. Educational Researcher, 49(8), 549-565.

Lambert, J., Trott, K., & Baugh, R. (2020). An analysis of K-12 school reopening and its impact on teachers. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 11, 1-8.

Lieberman, M. (2020). Like it or not, K-12 schools are doing a digital leapfrog During COVID- 19; The move to remote learning revealed huge tech equity gaps. Education Week, 39(4), 13.

Milne, E., Wotherspoon, T. (2020). Schools as “really dangerous places” for Indigenous children and youth: Schools, child welfare, and contemporary challenges to reconciliation. Canadian Review of Sociology, 57(1), 34-52.

World Bank Washington. (2020). The COVID-19 Pandemic: Shocks to Education and Policy Responses. World Bank.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Shelley Kokorudz is an Assistant Professor in Department of Educational Psychology & Student Services in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada.

SHARING FEELINGS, SOLUTIONS, AND MOVING FORWARD DURING COVID-19

Lois Paretti, Linda F. Quinn, Anna Maria Behuniak, Jane McCarthy University of Nevada, Las Vegas

ABSTRACT:

March 2020, something called COVID-19, caused the world to come to an abrupt halt like slamming on the brakes and coming to a dead stop in traffic. All educational institutions in Nevada, USA closed. All schools in the Clark County School District closed (Las Vegas Review Journal, March 2020). Shock and uncertainty reigned. Imagine that teacher education candidates see becoming a licensed teacher but a grasp away. They are deeply involved in field experiences; learning from mentor teachers and from interactions with the students. They are beginning to understand the complex nature of teaching and learning. They appreciate the opportunity to learn about teaching in someone else’s classroom. They are practicing newly acquired skills in real-life situations. Suddenly, all school doors and classrooms are closed. So how do they move forward in learning to teach?

SHARING FEELINGS, SOLUTIONS, AND MOVING FORWARD DURING COVID-19

With no time for preparation, or guidance from previous circumstances there was a scramble to create pathways to ensure the teacher education candidates would be able to successfully complete their field experience courses. Knowing that students still had to be educated, teachers still had to teach, and teacher candidates still had to have teaching experiences to learn their craft caused professors, university field supervisors, mentor teachers and teacher education candidates to take a deep breath and move forward. After an initial period of confusion and perhaps discontent, virtual and face-to-face communication among all concerned were increased to uncover ways the candidates could continue to benefit from interactions with students and practice instructional methods. Brakes were released and wheels were back in motion.

Moving Forward

Literature on learning to teach strongly supports the act of practice in classrooms (Boyd et al., 2008). Standard 8 of the Association of Teacher Educators Standards for Field Experiences in Teacher Education (2015) focuses on teacher candidates having the opportunity to routinely reflect upon and throughout their field experiences. What happens when field experiences move to an online format?

Teacher educators and site-facilitators (university supervisors) brainstormed ways to make connections among candidates, mentors, and assigned groups of students. The teacher candidates are placed in cohorts at a partnership school site, and the role of the site facilitator is to coach and mentor both the teacher candidate and the teacher who serves as a mentor to the candidate. Site- facilitators contacted the candidates to reassure them, offer support, and work at expediting connections with mentors and students. Candidates assumed leadership roles and created innovative ways to continue interacting with their K-12 students. University faculty provided optional activities to supplement or replace the teacher candidates’ classroom experiences such as reading journal articles and writing reflections, watching and critiquing videos of their peers and on the teaching channel and YouTube. Virtual teaching was supported by the local school district as approximately 200,000 chrome books and nearly 50,000 additional devices were distributed to schools and individuals. Museums, zoos and libraries added to the resources for teachers, teacher education candidates and students to help expand opportunities for teaching and learning.

Teacher education candidates learned new methods for teaching remotely. They met virtually two or three times per week with students specifically to answer the students’ questions about online learning. Some of the virtual, shared time with students was used for socialization, so students could talk about what they were doing and how the shutdown of school was affecting them. Older and younger siblings were invited to join these virtual meetings. Teacher candidates also developed lessons and projects for students to complete independently using materials they had at home through activities such as scavenger hunts, and recording readings to share with one another.

Candidates’ experiences during this time of virtual teaching and learning ranged from joy at their successes, to worries about reaching all of their students, and to the challenges of communicating complex concepts virtually. Student teachers were the candidates with the greatest concerns, wondering, and worrying whether they would be able to complete the necessary requirements for graduation and licensure. We are in the process of seeking ethics approval for the study and have submitted an application to the Internal Review Board.

The Data

In order to learn from these unexpected concerns and innovations, the university supervisors and the teacher education candidates were asked to respond to four questions about their challenges, concerns, modes of communication and lessons learned. Their insight and compassion during unprecedented times were expressed thoughtfully and with candor in their own words. The responses were collected, reviewed and summarized by the authors. Representative quotes were selected for inclusion in this paper.

Questions to the Site-facilitators

1. During spring 2020 when schools closed and the practicum students and student teachers had to complete their field experiences virtually, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced as a site-facilitator? 2. In what ways did you interact with your candidates? 3. What were your candidates’ biggest concerns and what suggestions did you provide to alleviate these concerns? 4. What is something you learned during this semester that you will use in the future?

1. Site-facilitators’ Responses to the Challenges

Many challenges emerged. This was a new arena for the site facilitators. In the face to face setting, they were able to meet with the teacher candidates as a whole group; provide immediate feedback during lessons; and speak with each candidate on a one to one basis. Now they had to create meaningful tasks for their students as a replacement for their face to face observations, and figure out ways mentors and the candidates could continue to provide instruction for all students even though some did not have access to technology or the Internet. Some site facilitators were challenged by not being able to see their students in the physical classroom environment:

I really enjoy seeing them teach in the learning environment and interacting with the students. I also think that by going to the schools I get to see the school culture that each teacher works in (A.P., 2020).

Even though there were challenges, it was comforting to know that, as one site facilitator put it:

I assured the mentors that the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) students [candidates] were ready to help and I sent suggestions of things students [candidates]could create that the mentor could send out to their students. I sent the same suggestion to the students [candidates] and told them to offer to help in any way they could. After an adjustment period, distance learning activities took hold and many mentors appreciated the offer and made requests of the students [candidates] (K.H., 2020).

Other challenges the site-facilitators faced included but were not limited to:

“Trying to answer their questions often not knowing the answers myself either”, and “Helping students [candidates] through the unknowns as we figured out what would count for satisfying licensure requirements (G.M-B., 2020).

Helping student teachers figure out ways they could participate in distance learning. The mentor teachers were still figuring this out from their perspective and were participating in eLearning to varying degrees. Another challenge the mentors and student teachers faced was continuing distance learning for students who did not have access to technology (J.H., 2020).

I felt it was difficult to build the relationships needed to build strong teachers, especially the student teachers. They were looking for new jobs and guidance. Of course, being sick didn’t help. We didn’t share as many ideas, and conversation seemed limited (S.A., 2020).

The biggest challenges were making a transition from face to face vs virtual instruction. My group responded remarkably. Their adaptability to the situation was, in most instances, very swift. The biggest challenge and concern were the fulfillment of hours” (D.S., 2020).

One of my biggest challenges was to make sure each mentor realized they still had a responsibility for their UNLV practicum student. I wanted them to know the UNLV students could be of help to them rather than an additional burden. At the start, mentors were certainly in shock about how to proceed (K.H., 2020).

2. Site-facilitators Responses on Ways They Interacted with Their Candidates

Site facilitators relied on technological tools to keep the lines of communication open with their candidates. Virtual meetings were held, phone calls were made, and texts and emails helped connect them with their students

Students’ [candidates’] weekly reflections provided insights to their struggles, their questions, and their feelings.

“Most of my productive interactions with my students [candidates] resulted from their weekly reflections. The information that I received in their weekly reflections helped me to be more specific in the kind of help I could offer. It also helped me pair students [candidates] up who had similar struggles and/or successes (R.W., 2020).

“We had virtual meetings, and they did call, text, or email. The spontaneity of ideas was limited, as individual conversations regarding common goals were missing.” (S.A., 2020).

“I set up WebEx meetings every Monday, so students could attend and ask questions if they wanted to.” (G.M.B., 2020).

Using a variety of communication strategies, the site facilitators gained insight into the challenges and needs of the candidates they were working with and were able to coach them successfully.

3. Site-facilitators Attempts to Alleviate Teacher Candidates Concerns

As the site facilitators wrestled with new concerns, they also made sure they addressed the concerns their candidates were facing. They received concerns from the teacher candidates ranging from having difficulty in not being able to join Google Classroom to how they were going to be able to meet their required hours of field experience and fulfill licensure criteria, and to how were they supposed to learn about teaching if they were not in the classroom? The expectations of many mentors were different, so the ability of the teacher candidates to interact with students and staff varied.

One of the biggest concerns from the teacher candidates was the students’ lack of and access to technology.

They were concerned with adherence to strict conventional classroom conditions and norms. All of my students [candidates] began the transition to distance education by simply taking their classroom lessons and putting them online. They slowly began to adapt instruction to the online format but struggled with knowing whether their students were truly engaged. By the end of the semester they began to build richer activities designed to keep students engaged while they were working on their own (R.W., 2020).

Virtual meetings were held with mentors, teacher candidates, and site facilitators to discuss oncerns and come up with solutions. Two mentors created narrated videos coupled with Power Point presentations on topics such as data, the first few weeks of school, differentiated instruction, and classroom management. A second companion Power Point with additional links and videos was also provided by the mentors. Flexibility with deadlines and providing additional support whenever needed also helped ease concerns.

They wanted to be sure that they would still be able to complete their required field experience hours as well as be prepared to have their own classroom in the fall. To

alleviate those fears, we had a collaborative virtual meeting with the school administrator, the mentors, the students, and me, to address the tasks, lessons, and future meetings that the students would engage in to complete their hours. We also continued our weekly meetings virtually, and I added a second weekly meeting that was focused on specific topics that the students had wanted to know more about (A.M.B., 2020).

I gave them supplemental assignments such as reading and responding to education related articles, watching and giving feedback to other student videos, writing lesson plans, creating video lessons and screencast lessons, and participating as much as possible in the online forum with their mentor teachers (T.T., 2020).

4. What Site-facilitators Learned that they will use in the Future

Site facilitators learned “how to roll with the punches and just make the technology work regardless of the circumstances.” Dendrites were growing as they learned about new technology and programs as well as ways to use them to support their students, and the biggest takeaway was “becoming more aware of the need for life/work balance” (G.M.B., 2020).

Terms and experiences like adaptability, creativity, perseverance, communication, adjustment and frustration, all played a big part of their learning experience. I don’t believe any of us (supervisors, mentors or student teachers) have ever experienced a similar situation. This experience will truly better prepare these student teachers for the “unknown” future (D.S., 2020).

I learned more about virtual learning and technology. For an old codger like me, that was a huge learning curve. I confirmed that person-to-person learning is much more powerful than technology, especially with elementary students. They love their teachers and they need personal relationships (S.A., 2020).

“I think our students [candidates] need constant reassurance that we were there for them. I tried to act like I was not worried about anything, and that they were doing fine---which they were” (K.K., 2020).

I learned a few things to do in the future. Research and become familiar with additional technology options that can be used in virtual meetings such as interactive whiteboards or even breakout rooms. The second thing I would do would be to have the students be part of their virtual lesson so I could provide immediate feedback (A.M.B., 2020).

“Despite early trepidation, I was impressed with my group’s adaptability and perseverance. I believe this horrific pandemic has provided a major learning experience for my student teachers” (D.S., 2020).

“I learned that although classroom experience is essential, preservice teachers can hone in on their teaching by writing detailed lesson plans and creating video lessons. I advised several students [candidates] to implement a Flipped Classroom approach” (T.T., 2020).

I would make sure my students [candidates] understood that establishing a sense of learning community and making a personal connection with students is more crucial now than ever. I would also make sure they understood that there is so much more to on-line learning than taking material you've provided in class and putting it online. I’d help them adapt their lessons for an online format, choose content carefully and then build meaningful and rich activities that keep students engaged while they are working on their own (R.W., 2020).

I decided to add some "lists" for my students [candidates] to do for "Bonus hours" when they were bogged down reflecting on the assigned articles. Their lists told me some very personal and poignant things about themselves and their lives that I would have never known. They seemed to open up about many goals, and things from their pasts that they needed to work on. I really felt a part of their lives, and I told them some of my teaching experiences that went along with what they shared. I always felt I got to know my students as I visited them once a week in their schools, but we never got to the level we got to this semester. They would say, "You probably don't know this about me..." and then shared about their lives, their families, and their early school years and where they grew up. The lists were my favorite part of each day of grading and often I laughed out loud or shed a tear.” (R.B., 2020).

I learned about myself that I do not like just grading assigned work. The part I like about being a Site Facilitator is that I can get out to the schools, visit with the P1 students, chat with the school office staff, and see the mentors and students in action. I sat at my computer for hours, planning my next snack and break. We all did what we needed to do to make this semester successful (R.B., 2020).

I liked having students interact more with the Acclaim videos. I usually have a couple of seminars where we watch Acclaim videos but having them view and comment on each other's videos from home were also beneficial” (J.H., 2020).

After the initial shock of schools being shuttered, the site facilitators pressed forward to find solutions to the challenges their students and mentors were facing and ways to alleviate their concerns. Though this was something that they had never experienced before, the site facilitators had positive takeaways that they could use in the future.

Questions to the Teacher Education Candidates

1. During spring 2020 when schools closed and you had to complete your field experiences virtually, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced? 2. In what ways did you interact with your students, mentor and site facilitator? 3. What were your biggest concerns and what suggestions did you receive to alleviate these concerns? 4. What is something you learned during this spring semester that you will use in the future? 1. Teacher Education Candidates’ Responses to their Biggest Challenges

Teacher candidates faced challenges ranging from technology issues to missing their students and concerns about their students’ well-being. These challenges tugged at their heart strings in so many different ways.

As one candidate stated:

The biggest challenge I faced was not being able to communicate with my students face- to-face. It was hard not being able to see their growth and to see their smiling faces every day. I missed being in the classroom so much and it made me realize how much I really do love being a teacher and being in the classroom” (S.J., 2020).

And another:

I knew my students wouldn’t have access to a stable food supply let alone technology to complete any online work I assigned. The hurdle of me learning how to distance teach was something I caught onto quickly, I was just more so worried about the safety and well-being of my students” (M.C., 2020).

Some concerns had to do with delivering lessons.

Internet connectivity was not always reliable for teachers or students (J.N., 2020).

Determining what my role would be in relation to my mentor in continuing to be a positive educator who is able to help the students complete their work (D.M., 2020).

Perhaps the biggest challenge was recording lessons without my students (E.L., 2020).

2. Ways the Candidates Interacted with Their Students, Mentors, and Site Facilitator

As with the site facilitators, the teacher candidates still had to interact with their students, mentors, and site facilitators. They problem-solved this dilemma in a variety of ways. They utilized similar technological tools to keep their lines of communication open. G Suite applications, texts and phone calls, emails, and virtual meetings became the mainstay for staying connected.

I interacted with my mentor teacher through text, phone calls, email, and the same G Suite applications as my students” (A.C., 2020). “I attended virtual meetings with her (my mentor). We coordinated on the learning material often via text or email. We would also spend one-on-one time after each Google Meets to discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what we could do better next time” (J.N., 2020).

3. Teacher Candidates’ Biggest Concerns and Suggestions They Were Given to Alleviate Them

Teacher candidates often felt at a loss. They had many questions and concerns about their students, their practice and what would be expected of them in the final weeks of the semester.

Student safety and nourishment became priorities. As one teacher candidate shared: “I was concerned whether or not my students would have food and a safe home environment. Prior to the closure, school was able to be their safe haven and also provide them with consistent meals” (M.C., 2020).

Student learning was also on the forefront of the teacher candidates’ minds. Students who were already behind might not be able to graduate. Some suggestions were to teach lessons over video calls.

The students were happy to see me teach and participated in the lesson. It wasn't the same as in person teaching at all, and I know they would have learned so much more if it was in person. I'm glad I was still able to teach them a lesson and that they were able to learn from it (I did a Kahoot with them at the end to see what they learned.) Overall, it made me realize how much being in the classroom really does make a difference in the lives of students” (J.D., 2020).

My biggest concerns were that students who were behind may not graduate and may lack a sense of urgency sitting at home. The multiple methods of contact, along with myself and my mentor's efforts, alleviated some of these concerns. It was still hard to get some students to respond” (D.M., 2020).

Concerns about their own course requirements were also shared.

My greatest concern was how we would get the remaining practicum hours done with school not taking place in the classroom, but once my mentor and I came up with a way to accomplish remote learning, the preparation hours and collaboration hours added up quickly (J.N., 2020).

4. What Teacher Candidates Learned from Teaching Remotely and how they would use this Knowledge in the Future

Reflection was key to the teacher candidates as they looked to the future. Comments focused on being ready for whatever happens in the future and being positive. They mentioned being sure to “Always have a plan, but always stay flexible” “...whether it is in person or online instruction, have a schedule/plan set out” (J.N., 2020).

“Organize your goals and lessons for whatever might come your way. Even if one thing fails you will have another thing scheduled/planned right after that, keep moving forward” (V.H., 2020).

Now knowing that “I must be ready for any adversity and be able to adapt accordingly. Helping the students understand that life can throw us curve balls and to not give up is important at any time, but especially during these times “(D.M., 2020).

Having the life skills of flexibility, patience, perseverance, and initiative were noted. “I've also learned to be more flexible and more communicative with families” (E.L., 2020).

I learned that patience is important. So many things were unknown this semester. There was a point where we didn't even know if we would be able to finish our student teaching hours, which was a terrible feeling. I have learned that things aren't perfect and that sometimes we have to be patient and wait things out, even though it may be difficult. This will help me in the future as a teacher because I may have a student who I will try to help and they may give up easily, but I know that patience will be key. Not giving up and trying my best to stay positive will make things work (S.J., 2020).

I learned that I need to take the initiative to complete the Google Certification training that provides instruction on how to use all of the G Suite applications to their full potential so that I can be prepared to teach in any form/method when the new school year starts (A.C., 2020).

I will start the year off (if we go back traditionally) by implementing blended learning. One disadvantage I had during the spring semester was the fact that I hadn’t prepared my students to learn online. I will be immediately starting with Google Classroom in the future (M.C., 2020).

How to be flexible when teaching. You can have the best lesson plan ready to go and all it takes is a split-second decision to completely derail that lesson plan. You need to be ready to go with the flow as things change. I also learned many helpful tips on how to create successful virtual lessons and videos to help students and engage with them online (M.C., 2020).

Conclusions

Teacher education has a long and complicated history. Preparation of teachers has vastly improved since colonial times, when anyone could be a teacher since the only qualification was that they had been a student, to the present, when one must meet rigorous requirements for permanent teacher certification.

With continued uncertainty, one notion has become quite clear. It is essential that teacher preparation programs must include preparation methods to teach virtually. Forced out of familiar comfort zones, innovation to prepare teachers for the future is necessary. Effective practitioners need skills that are applicable for teaching and learning in both real and virtual classrooms. The delivery system has changed (Marzano, 2017).

Is it possible that what was done in the past to prepare teachers is still viable today? In the past and the present, experience in classrooms has been viewed as the cornerstone to learning to teach. If teaching is indeed a complex practice, and not something that individuals will naturally develop on their own, then teacher educators must develop new approaches for preparing ordinary people in an extraordinarily brief amount of time, to be prepared for the challenge.” (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009, p. 289).

As the 2019-2020 school year ended, site facilitators, mentors and teacher candidates breathed a sigh of relief. They had made it. Everyone looked forward to the new school year and

getting back into the brick-and-mortar classrooms again. Since the teacher candidates had half a semester working with students in face-to-face classes, they felt confident that they would be able to return to the classrooms. Site facilitators, too, looked forward to being able to work with their assigned student teachers and practicum students in a face-to-face environment. However, as the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year neared, returning to face-to-face teaching appeared to not be an option for all teachers and students. Again, educators were scrambling for ways to be effective in virtual classrooms. Teacher candidates had to become familiar with the programs that their mentors would be using, and site facilitators had to figure out ways to continue to support their students via ‘Zoom’ or ‘Google Meet’ classrooms rather than face to face settings. Teaching remotely will continue to challenge all educators and may, in time, offer unknown benefits in preparing candidates to teach.

Twenty-five years ago, Wideen (1995) noted that the radical reconceptualization of teacher education was a must if the activity as we know it is to survive. The task of teacher education is to seek and apply the best methods of preparing teachers and to ensure that rigorous professional training, aligned to standards, is implemented (Johnson et al. 2018). The future of our children demands it.

REFERENCES

Association of Teacher Educators. (2015). Standards for field experiences in teacher education https://www.ate1.org/resources/Documents/Standards/Revised%20ATE%20Field%20Ex perience%20StandardsII.pdf

Boyd, D., Grossman, P. L., Hammerness, K., Lankford, R. H., Loeb, S., McDonald, M., Reininger, M., Ronfeldt, M., & Wyckoff, J. (2008). Surveying the landscape of teacher education in New York City: Constrained variation and the challenge of innovation. Educational valuation and Policy Analysis, 30(4), 319–343. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373708322737

Grossman, Pam, Hammerness, Karen & McDonald, Morva (2009) Redefining teaching, re‐ imagining teacher education, Teachers and Teaching, 15:2, 273-289, doi: 10.1080/13540600902875340

Johnson, James A., Musial, Diann., Hall, Gene E., & Gollnick, Donna M. (2018). Foundations of American Education: Becoming Effective Teachers in Challenging Times (17th ed.). New York: Pearson.

Marzano, R. J. (2017) The new art and science of teaching. Solution Tree Press: Solutiontree.com.

Wideen, M.F. (1995). Teacher Education at the Crossroads. In M. F. Wideen, & P. Grimmett. (Eds.). Changing Times in Teacher Education, (pp. 1-16). London: Falmer Press.

Authors:

Lois Paretti, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; [email protected] Linda F. Quinn, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; [email protected] Anna Maria Behuniak, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; [email protected] Jane McCarthy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, [email protected]

TEACHING AND LEARNING UNDER COVID-19 IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF CATALONIA AND SPAIN

Josep Gallifa. FPCEE Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University. Barcelona

Carme Amorós. Societat Catalana de Pedagogia. Institut d’Estudis Catalans

Mireia Montané. Col·legi Oficial de Doctors i Llicenciats en Filosofia i Lletres i en Ciències de Catalunya

ABSTRACT

This article presents a description of the situation faced by the schools and universities of Catalonia and Spain under the pandemic waves of COVID-19. The point of view comes from a network of eight schools and two universities that cooperate in an international project of educational innovation using technology for knowledge building, the Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP). The paper also contains a presentation of the different lessons learned and learning acquired from the disruptive lived crisis. These lessons, and the learning from them, have the potential to change mentalities about education towards more holistic or integral approaches that will prospectively influence teacher education.

TEACHING AND LEARNING UNDER COVID-19 IN THE EDUCATIONAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS OF CATALONIA AND SPAIN

Introduction

As is well known, the coronavirus has led to a global pandemic known as COVID-19. At the time of writing this paper in December 2020, more than 40 million people have been diagnosed and infected all over the world, out of which more than a million have died. In Spain alone, there have been more than 1 000 000 cases diagnosed and more than 35 000 deaths. Unfortunately, the daily numbers have kept increasing. This pandemic has been terrible and caused diverse crises: personal (suffering, sickness, death), economic (devastation of companies in some sectors), social (people of poor neighborhoods have been more exposed), psychological (solitude, sadness, anxiety), among others (Escolà-Gascon, et al., 2020). This, as far as we know, unprecedented critical situation, with lockdown periods, has caused understandable fear. All of these variables have impacted educational and higher education systems all over the world, and, of course, in Catalonia and Spain, one of the worst affected regions of the planet.

The coronavirus crisis has reflected the weaknesses of our health, social, cultural, and political organizations. At the onset of the pandemic, there were frequent discussions between politicians, a lack of trust in the official figures, an inability to make quick decisions, and dictation of erratic norms forbidding and allowing social behaviors. These actions have helped to create a situation of community distrust. All of this has impacted education.

In this paper we will present a view of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis in the Education and Higher Education systems of Catalonia and Spain. This view is derived from a network of eight primary and secondary schools and two universities from Catalonia that cooperate in an educational innovation: the Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP). This is a global project that involves schools and universities from countries all over the world, led by the University of Toronto in Canada. The node of Catalonia is known as ‘Com Conèixer’. We will present, from the perspective of that network, the evolution of education and higher education systems under pandemic in our context. We will include a view, not only about the schools and universities of the Catalan KBIP network but also about the general situation of many schools and universities from our context. The purpose is to extract lessons and learning of these crises to continue innovating in Education and Higher Education, and to be preparing the post-pandemic times, having in mind teaching and learning in a global context, and teacher education.

The First Wave: Reactive Education Emergency

In response to the coronavirus crisis, in the second week of March, the government of Spain decreed a precipitated lockdown that proposed closing schools and that all students of all levels had to stay at home. In the beginning, it gave the impression that would be only for a few days. Some of the schools didn’t start special activities, because they were thinking that in a few days school activities could be resumed. Nevertheless, with the passing of the days, the educational

sector realized that the health crisis was more serious and deeper than expected and the lockdown was continuing. Emergency solutions were implemented.

In the implementation of emergency teaching solutions, the situation of the schools was unequal. Some schools changed quickly to online teaching, but others couldn’t do it because of different kinds of situations and limitations. Although computer use is very generalized in secondary schools, it isn’t in primary schools, and on the other hand, home wifi was not available in every family. The creativity of many teachers was in jeopardy. They had to contact children and families and make individual efforts to solve day-to-day problems. These efforts of teachers and schools made possible emergency solutions to guarantee minimum work during that long period. Regular teaching did not recover until the next school year.

The situation of the universities also varied. The general situation was that the faculty changed to online teaching as an emergency solution. In this case, it was more effective than schools, because computer use is generalized and, although wifi reception problems were an issue for some, at least almost all the students could make contact online via mobile, which is a common device owned by university students.

Some universities gave freedom to teachers to continue teaching the way they wanted: Online recorded classes, on-line simultaneous classes - as they were in the classroom, facilitation to the students, some materials to read, etc. In some cases, the university decided to continue classes with the same schedule but teaching on-line. That solution, although not very innovative, helped students to better organize their home schedules under lockdown. Every faculty was affected, including those more enthusiastic about technology, and those more reluctant to introduce it. In very few days all had moved to online teaching. The system had made a complete and incredible change.

In this period all academic acts, international conferences, research meetings, etc. were affected and had to be moved online or postponed.

Results and lessons from the first wave

Many crises have been interconnected: health crisis, economic crisis, a crisis of unemployment, and political and social crises (Escolà-Gascon et al., 2020). Faced with a very difficult situation for many, in general, teachers in schools and faculty in universities did a great job. Educational administrators and government agents had to respond with unprecedented measures to adjust institutions to the novelty of the situation. When the school year was over, much new learning had taken place but many more learning had not been produced and had been left behind. The responsiveness of educational systems and institutions was tested. This very uncommon situation caused, as a general result, a reduction in the content learned. The home situation, especially in the younger students, determined if they took more or less advantage of the situation.

Educationally, that break was not necessarily completely bad. The biggest opportunity to interact inside the family, with parents that were often doing telework, allowed the reinforcement of emotional bonds, which are important for developing self-esteem and basic trust (Salvà et al., 2015). These elements are important to consolidate future motivation towards learning. On the

other hand, students had to be responsive to learning. There were weaknesses, but students had to be self-engaged in learning. This caused, for sure, many good experiences, that can be built upon them in the future. The opposite case was possible, too. The case where things became worse, but in these cases the associated problems, for example at the familiar environment, were already there.

New common problems appeared such as the need, in many cases, to cope with death or sickness of known people. In some cases, grandparents died, or a close member of the family was infected. These were hard situations to cope with. Other difficult situations were loneliness or not having the possibility to visit family members. COVID-19 was a situation of high psychological risk (Escolà-Gascón et al., 2020). Social networks had a role to play.

On the other hand, the country opened first of all bars and restaurants, then schools and universities, which was a very clear symptom of what were the social priorities. Nevertheless, after that period, people in the European summer took consciousness of the importance to safely open the schools in September. Educational issues were debated in the media as never before. After all, people started to recognize that schools and universities were a social priority.

Another issue was the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children of more vulnerable environments. This is one aspect that deserves special attention. Teachers of schools in these environments reported that between 30% and 40% of the children in these schools missed the year. This meant for them a significant delay that has been difficult to recover. The Jaume Bofill Foundation did a call to make an effort to have an enriching summer for the shortcomings and inequalities of a considerable number of children, which in Catalonia was estimated at 300,000. They were asking for support from the town-city councils, proposing that they should guarantee 80 hours of educational activities to vulnerable students in the summer. In many cases that call was followed.

During this time, many summer camps, and leisure activities were offered, such as those organized by the Pere Tarrés Foundation, who called for a solidarity campaign that no children were left out of an enriching summer. The Schools of Peace of the Community of Sant’Egidio, proposed a Summer School with young volunteers to help the children to recover the months of school lost. They were based on Milani’s pedagogy in Barbiana, which showed that when there is interest in the person, and children feel accepted and loved, their motivation to learn increases. In those summer schools, every young volunteer took care of a child, providing summer books to encourage them to not give up and to re-engage in the educational process. It is also very important to highlight how, in addition to the benefits for children, these enriched leisure activities were a first-rate training element also for the young people who organized and participated in them. These days, hundreds of summer camps, leisure activities, and scout groups were doing such activities all over Catalonia, intended to repair at least some of what the most vulnerable children had lost during the COVID-19 school closures. It was a very good job.

Universities, and especially Teacher Education Colleges, have an educational mission. Effectively, their mission is not just transmitting knowledge, but providing a more integral education for young students. And that had to be maintained. For this reason, small group seminars were organized online, which turned out to be a very enriching space in this situation of

confinement for students to share different experiences: fears, loneliness, sadness, difficult situations nearby, etc. Seminars became a necessary reception structure in these times of anxiety and worry. The universities carried out online tutorships and personal or vocational guidance services. Perhaps the confinement situation helped to value personal contact. The psychological counseling services were also playing a key role, providing emotional support to students who required it. Some faculties of sports helped to organize a physical activity in confinement. The service of pedagogical innovation through ICT was very active, for obvious reasons. However, not only personal care services but all services continued to be offered electronically: the library service, the Registrar’s Office service, the computer service, the guidance and pre-registration services, etc. There had also to be organized online the information sessions for prospective students of the next year. This was another difficulty for admission offices; to be present for prospective students and their families online. Christian-inspired universities, in the network, offered services of University Pastoral Care in an online mode, giving spiritual support to students, their families, and the whole university community to support difficult times of sickness and death. Dialogues in webinar format were organized with experts about the effects of the confinement situation.

Universities are also participatory institutions. A key role was being played by the delegates of the different studies, who were meeting frequently with academic administrations and were talking to other students, to adapt and resolve the needs that arose in the different groups. The organization of online exams was currently also managed and resolved. Students, on the other hand, had also become experts in ‘Google meet’, ‘Zoom’, ‘MS Teams’, or ’Skype’, with digital competence to self-organize for small group work, frequent at our Colleges of Education, and for coordination of meetings. In general, there was a good commitment and co-responsibility in the teamwork and the awareness of being part of an organized group.

One activity that was also fully affected was research. The laboratories and science parks of colleagues who are in more experimental fields had to interrupt their work and had to pass to be doing telework. Some laboratories also collaborated in coronavirus research. A procedure was established to defend research projects and even doctoral theses were defended online!

It was a time that required a special dedication of people with service and management responsibilities, which had been fundamental, starting with the rectors who participated in coordination meetings with other universities, but also the teams, the boards of directors, the deans, the directors, etc. Regulations were adopted, taking into account situations, talking with students and families, changing protocols, and implementing teacher-training processes. And all was done from the limitations of the situation of everyone being confined in their own home!

All these efforts and actions were aimed to preserve –and enrich if possible – the university life of the essential protagonists of the university: the students. With all the difficulties, universities were satisfied to have maintained the university spirit that sits above all the collaboration and learning established between teachers and students, forming an academic community. In this situation of confinement, it was working with solidarity and co-responsibility. We could not change the external situation but could decide how, in an organized way, to respond. Despite the problems, in general, faculty maintained the University spirit.

Second wave: Planned education and research under pandemic

The summer was expected to be coronavirus-free after all the efforts made with the strict lockdown and the period of slowly returning from the confinement. Experts, politicians, and people expected new waves might emerge in the autumn. But things didn't go that way. In June – July new unpredicted waves were detected in Catalonia, and new selective quarantines were imposed on the population. This prompt new appearance of the virus meant that schools and universities prepared the beginning of the new academic year with the adaptation of spaces and strict sanitary protocols. At the same time, during the summer, the media discussed daily the beginning of school activity in September. A huge social consciousness raised big expectations.

The school and university administrators and teachers had to work hard during the summer to adopt strict measures to protect the health of all as the priority. Teaching at schools and universities was prepared with strict protocols. The spaces changed, and strict norms were communicated to students and families: wearing of masks, maintaining a ‘social distance’, and ventilation of the classrooms, frequent handwashing with hydro-alcohol, control of temperature in some cases, and bubble groups. At the first symptom of one of the members, the PCR test and quarantine for all the group members were applied. These measures were supervised by health authorities and allowed the quick detection of cases. The year was initiated with relative normality having to follow a quarantine of 2% of groups in the first two months.

Some universities adapted the classrooms to blended or mixed modalities of teaching and learning. Classrooms were equipped with cameras and microphones, faculty taught in more reduced groups, having half group in the classroom and the other half at home following the classes online, but with the possibility of interacting and participating, and changing the half of the group at the classroom in the next class. This guaranteed the minimum presence of half of the groups while the other half was participating online. Students, in general, said that they valued and preferred university attendance than online teaching.

Of course, schools and universities had ‘B plans’. Very soon some groups needed to quarantine. Online teaching, ’survival kits’, had to be applied, as had been prepared.

The current health crisis highlighted the importance of research in the field of health sciences and health professions. Society as a whole is becoming more aware than ever of the need to invest in research. However, public opinion is not always aware of the relevance of research in humanities (Gallifa, 2018b, 2018c.). Our Colleges of Education changed completely their research priorities and adapted them to the situation.

The lockdown had some negative impacts on research. For example, one of our universities had to host a European Conference at the end of June, had already selected the ‘abstracts’, and started the registration. The Conference had to be postponed and in part was celebrated online. Another activity affected was European projects in the framework of the 2020 Horizon. A group of our universities, for example, was forming a European consortium with institutions from various countries. However, as with most hospitals and companies in the healthcare sector, the work had to be postponed because hospitals and companies changed priorities. For example, a multinational company that collaborated with that consortium had to dedicate their time to

import medical supplies from China instead of applying for a research project, so this project was also abandoned. But not all happenings were cancellations. The current crisis made it possible to start or reorient new research projects related to the health crisis. In this sense, research groups applied for special funds at the national or European level.

Another activity common in universities is knowledge transfer. These activities were also altered. The Psychological Guidance Services had to take care of students and families in the difficult situations caused by the crisis experience, listening, accompanying, guiding, helping teachers to individualized responses to the various circumstances that arose. They were doing external activity giving psychological support to members of health professions.

University researchers participated in some counseling activities, special publications or webinars online, in aspects such as the following: Addictions to technology and video games, care for the elderly, children's play, the relevance of family bonds, online psychological assistance, teleworking, comprehensive training or even the mission of the university. All of these topics are coronavirus affected or related. Faculty did all this confined at home! Despite this difficult situation, there was a great deal of activity and response to the situation. The confinement also activated research. In the health, economic and social crises we are living in, alongside the necessary medical research, research in the humanities is also very necessary. Researchers changed priorities. In the social sciences and education, the same happened.

Services adaptation was another of the features of these crises. In the second wave, it was impossible to be infected inside the campuses. All the educational spaces had hydro-alcoholic gel dispensers, arrows with directions, chairs allocated with space between them. All the services were adapted: Libraries, Admission offices, Registrar’s offices, and computer services, of course. All of the administration staff had to work hard to ensure everything was working under these circumstances. Service quality is an important dimension of the overall quality of a university (Gallifa & Batallé, 2010).

All through that the corona curve grew too much, especially among young people. New confinement was decreed in the middle of October in Universities. Not at schools, because to close schools could cause a big social associated problem with parents that work and do not have the time nor economical resources to take care of children during business hours. Moreover, children, unlike young students, don’t have a social activity after class, which was considered the main cause of infection.

This was not an exciting time for administrative positions. When a protocol was decided, different circumstances made it necessary to be adopting new protocols. Norms and more norms, communication with families, attention to extreme cases for exceptions, were common and stressful situations.

Lessons and learning from the new outbreaks and second waves

Despite the mentioned difficulties, there was deep learning from these situations which continue to unfold. COVID-19 has been a kind of phenomenon that has caused a big life disruption. A metaphor for this disruption is a big fire in the night with the blaze of flames illuminating some

dark rooms. Inside the rooms, there is dust and accumulated junk that we were not aware of. Now, this natural catastrophe is making us aware of the accumulation of things. Now we are more conscious of things that are disordered, or we don’t need, in all the rooms: economic, cultural, professional, familiar, educational, even personal and spiritual. And now we can decide to make conscious changes. We can clean, order, and prepare ourselves for the new day after the fire is extinguished, and a new day starts.

Confrontation is very profound and gives all people involved in education opportunities to share our common humanity. Consciousness about the environment and the need for sustainable development, as is expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the Agenda 2030 (UN General Assembly, 2015). Acknowledgment of social issues that are associated causes of suffering in these times, the need for protection of more fragile people: Ageing population, sick people in hospitals, the need for an efficient National Health system, the need of state support for unemployment associated with these crises. All of these issues are important and need to be worked out at different educational levels. Education can be truly educative, not only instructive, that means related to life, life in itself, as Dewey envisioned.

COVID-19 has presented a lot of opportunities to transform education. For instance, moving from teaching in classrooms to teaching on-line. At the beginning reproducing synchronous activities as an emergency, to a more planned approach, optimizing online apps to facilitate processes that could be difficult to be reproduced in a face-to-face classroom. Nevertheless, it is necessary “to determine the purpose innovation serves, especially in relation to providing benefits for the learner” (Shelly et al., 2017, p. 9).

One example of innovation is the Knowledge Building International Project, the previously- mentioned one that involves the eight schools and the universities of Catalonia that participate in this international project of innovation centered on Knowledge Building using technology.

In the information societies in which we live, knowledge creation and use is a critical issue for socioeconomic development. Distributed expertise and networked activities characterize the emerging type of work (Järvelä, et al. 2001). This trend has been affecting the development of educational methods. In this development, computers play an important role as tools for restructuring teaching-learning processes to be better prepared for future challenges (Järvelä, et al. 2001). “Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is one of the most promising innovations to improve teaching and learning with the help of modern information and communication technology” (Järvelä, et al. 2001, p. 365). Pedagogy, technology, content, and context are four dimensions that have to be combined in an integrated approach of teaching with technologies because they are interdependent (Harris, Mishra, & Koehler, 2009). All of this became more crucial under COVID-19.

The Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP) is an international project initiated by Canadian cognitive psychologists Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006, 2014). This approach combines the psychological constructivist principles of knowledge building with the use of technology in a concrete platform, the Knowledge Forum, which allows cooperative learning for knowledge creation. The Knowledge Forum facilitates a

higher-level representation or organization of ideas. The purpose of the project is to help children to create knowledge (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2010).

The KBIP allows the connection between different networks of schools. The international coordination of the different networks is done from the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT), located at the University of Toronto, from where there is a continuous improvement of the technological platform to support the construction of knowledge (Knowledge Forum). Every year, different international face-to-face activities were organized, such as the ‘Knowledge Building Summer Institute’, which this year also had to be postponed to November and was celebrated online. This modality had greater organizational complexity but also allowed the online participation of more attendees from different countries.

Figure 1.0. KB Knowledge communities around the world. Source: https://kbip.co/en/where_we_are.html

In Catalonia, the node of Spain, eight schools and two universities cooperated, as has been explained, in the international KBIP project, renamed with the Catalan acronym “COMconèixer”. The network of the eight schools in Catalonia has the support of the “Col·legi Oficial de Doctors i Llicenciats en Filosofia i Lletres i en Ciències de Catalunya” (CDL), a center for teacher professional development that offers different resources of Continuing Education, and co-responsible for the organization of the Fourth WFATE Biannual Conference, in Barcelona. Two evaluations of the ’COMconèixer’ experience had been completed (Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu de Catalunya, 2006, 2015) in an ongoing process of continuous improvement. In the situation of the pandemic, the creative use of technology supposed that the KBIP project was more necessary than ever, because of the connection between technology and cooperative knowledge building.

Another important lesson is about social inequities. These crises – health, economic, labor and jobs, educational – affect diverse groups that live in our societies and are interrelated (Azkarraga & Gallifa, 2016). Although the virus affects all humans the consequences of the pandemic and its effects differ depending on the human group of belonging. More consciousness of the inequities has to increase the educational predisposition to educate for equity.

Experts have stated that faculty members, and people in general, advanced very much in acquiring digital competences in the COVID-19 lockdown (Gisbert & Prats, 2020). The new school year, which began with a combination of face-to-face learning using digital resources, had as an essential aim to be protecting the health of young people. It was a priority for teachers and administrative and service staff, as it has learnt to live with the current limitations while regaining some normalcy. "Blended learning", hybrid learning, or multimodal learning was generalized. This kind of learning goes beyond taking online classes and tries to incorporate various pedagogical techniques, some face-to-face, others online, to get the most out of technology. That is why teachers were being quickly trained so that this new modality became a reality from September in the universities. Also, some of the techniques that were applied came to rest and transform some aspects of university teaching. If universities have to prepare young people for their futures, they cannot miss some of these techniques and ways of learning and working.

French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Boris Cyrulnik, known for his work on emotional bonds and resilience, explains in a recent interview (Cyrulnik, 2020), how the screen, which improves communication, also alters human relationships. Explains Cyrulnik, we already had less human contact before the pandemic. When we communicate very continuously on-screen or applications like Whatsapp, as young people do, says Cyrulnik, the human relationship is deteriorated and damaged. “I have seen - he goes on - that 40% of young people do not answer their mobile phone when they see their parents calling them, but say that they love them. They love them but there is no longer any relationship with them” (Cyrulnik, 2020). It is a wake-up call from the expert in emotional bonds on the emergence of screens in more and more aspects of our lives.

Cyrulnik (2020) is not pessimistic, as he also states in the same interview, that he believes that after the pandemic there will be an explosion of relationships, associations, places of dialogue, following the logic of this fundamental human need to establish personal bonds. Educational professions have to be careful to know how to channel it. So it is unlikely that screens can replace the face-to-face quality of relationships, although we need to keep their potential in mind. In the meantime, we hope that this explosion of relationships to which Cyrulnik refers is delayed a little bit, waiting for coronavirus to be well controlled!

Conclusion

The pandemic has affected education and universities, but also the general systems of values, and was a potential situation to extract lessons and learning. This article explored the first and second waves in Spain and their effects on the educational and university systems. Spain has been one of the more affected countries. Nevertheless, that bad situation has been a learning opportunity. Especially relevant will be to understand that all the dimensions are interrelated: The natural, health, social, jobs, culture, technique, and even personal dimensions. All these situations

predispose towards holistic consciousness, which is the basis for holistic education (Gallifa, 2018), as well as for using new modalities for thinking about the problems of our world and reality, as in integral thinking (Gallifa, 2019) a need for a more integral education in our common world. It is a trend that has relevance and will play a role in the evolution of teacher education.

REFERENCES

Azkarraga, J., & Gallifa, J. (2016). Mindfulness y transformación ecosocial. Revista interuniversitaria de formación del profesorado, 87(30.3), 123-133.

Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu de Catalunya. (2006). Avaluació del projecte COMconèixer. L'aprenentatge a través de comunitats virtuals. Documents. N. 8. Barcelona: Consell Superior d’Avaluació, Generalitat de Catalunya.

Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu de Catalunya (2015). Avaluació del Projecte COMconèixer 2014. Documents. N. 32. Barcelona: Consell Superior d’Avaluació, Generalitat de Catalunya.

Cyrulnik, B. (2020). Après l'épidémie, il y aura une explosion de relations. L’Illustré. Retrieved from https://www.illustre.ch/magazine/boris-cyrulnik-apres-lepidemie-y-aura-une-explosion-relations

Escolà-Gascón, A., Marín, F. X., Rusiñol, J., & Gallifa, J. (2020). Pseudoscientific beliefs and psychopathological risks increase after COVID-19 social quarantine. Globalization and Health. 16(72). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00603-1

Gallifa, J. (2018). Holonic theory and holistic education. Journal of International Education and Practice, 1(1), 36-46 DOI: https://doi.org/10.30564/jiep.v1i1.415

Gallifa, J. (2018b). Paradigms and methodologies for knowledge building. Review of Educational Theory, 1(3), 70-81

Gallifa, J. (2018c). Research traditions in social sciences and their methodological rationales. Aloma, Revista de Psicologia, Ciències de l’Eduació i de l’Esport, 36(2), 9-20.

Gallifa, J. (2019). Integral thinking and its application to integral education. Journal of International Education and Practice, 2(1), 15-27 DOI: https://doi.org/10.30564/jiep.v2i1.603

Gallifa, J., & Batallé, P. (2010). Student perceptions of service quality in a multi-campus higher education system in Spain. Quality Assurance in Education, 18(2), 156-170.

Gisbert, M., & Prats, M. A. (2020). El coronavirus ha aumentado las competencias digitales de la ciutadania. Educaweb. Retrieved from: https://www.educaweb.com/noticia/2020/09/16/coronavirus- ha-aumentado-competencias-digitales-ciudadania-19299/

Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(4), 393- 416, DOI: 10.1080/15391523.2009.10782536

Järvelä, S., Hakkarainen, K. , Lehtinen, E., & Lipponen, L. (2001). Creating Computer-supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) culture in Finnish schools: Research perspectives on sociocognitive effects. International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 11 (4/5/6), 365-374.

Knowledge Building International Project (2020, December 20) Where we are. Schools participating in the project. https://kbip.co/en/where_we_are.html

Salvà, A., Postigo, S., & Gallifa, J. (2015). Identidad y sentido. Nous. Boletín de Logoterapia y Análisis Existencial, 19, 93-110.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 97-118). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2010). A brief history of knowledge building. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology/La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie, 36(1), 1-16

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2014). Knowledge building and knowledge creation: Theory, pedagogy and technology. In The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 397-417). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Shelly, A., Gallifa, J., Amorós, C., Lund, S. (2017). Syntesis document of the fourth biennial international conference innovation in teacher education within a global context”. Journal of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education, 1(3b), 6-11.

UN General Assembly. (2015). Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Report No. A/RES/70/1. Retrieved from: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcom pact/A_RES_70_1_E.pdf

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

Josep Gallifa is full professor at FPCEE Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University in Barcelona. He conducts research on Higher Education and on Integral Development. E-mail is: [email protected]

Carme Amorós. Societat Catalana de Pedagogia. Institut d’Estudis Catalans. She works in the network of educational innovation Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP). E-mail is: [email protected]

Mireia Montané. Col·legi Oficial de Doctors i Llicenciats en Filosofia i Lletres i en Ciències de Catalunya. WFATE Past President. She coordinates the Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP) in Catalonia. E-mail is: [email protected]

LEARING IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC: CHILDREN’S ART AND CREATIVITY WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Maxine Cooper Adjunct Researcher, Federation University, Australia.

ABSTRACT:

A public health emergency of international concern was declared on 30 January 2020 by the World Health Organisation. Then on 11 March 2020 it was characterised as a global pandemic. This led to great political, social and economic upheaval with challenging medical and health concerns worldwide. Learning, socialising, travelling, businesses and families and children everywhere children have been affected in a myriad of ways and consequently the governments in all countries have adopted different responses.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic effect on the state of Victoria, Australia and the city of Melbourne. Two waves of COVID restrictions in Melbourne have led to some of the very strict sanctions that have affected families and people of all ages. Children and their learning possibilities have been constrained with childcare centres and schools closed and children required to stay at home. Travel was limited to 5 kilometres from home. People were confined to their homes except for essential services. The lockdown was declared from 29 February 2020 and it was only eased when ‘Melbourne’s 25 km ‘ring of steel’ was ended on 9 November’ (Tsirtsakis 2020).

This paper is based on an ethnographic study which examined a small group of children and families/carers who did a range of creative activities together on-line. The activity was a celebration of 2020 Children’s Day and was funded by the Victorian Education Department. Participants’ responses, including those from artists/performers, children, and family and carers responses are documented and reflected upon. ‘Making art and connecting with new friends online’ was the official title of the project. It was conducted using a web-based video conferencing tool and it had a range of positive and not so positive elements that will be reported.

Life is simple. Include. Be kind, help the world journey on. Why? Because you can make a difference. You can start or continue a chain like others have done before you. Show your emotions and be kind. That’s what matters most. Bringing things together it forms happiness, all you have to do is work together and be kind. (Tartakover et al., 2015)

LEARNIG IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC: CHILDREN’S ART AND CREATIVITY WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Introduction

This article is a report about a creative art and learning project involving 5 artists/performers and a number of children whose ages ranged from one child who was nearly 2 years old, one child who was 4, another 6, another 7 years old and then there were two 11 year old children. For the purposes of this paper we will focus on 5 of the artists and 6 of the children and their learning and visual and emotional responses to these creative online activities. The children and the artists came from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds. Drawing on Bourdieu’s work on agency, habitus, and social and cultural capital, this qualitative research explores how intercultural experiences contribute to the individual’s developing identity, sense of agency and inclusion in a local and global context. Through this exploratory and ethnographic study, we will examine how the children and the families/carers, and the artists experienced the online activities in diverse and adventurous ways. The main focus is on the creative learnings of the children and the artists involved and their feelings in this time of creativity in the pandemic. Critical pedagogy principles have been applied in the research and participants were encouraged to critically reflect on their personal and creative experiences and their personal journeys as they explored their identities as artists and creative learners. Pseudonyms have been used throughout for the children however, the artists have all agreed to have their names used in this research. Art made by community members has something to say about culture, belonging, history and how we know ourselves and each other and these things are not often represented in public space. (Quadri, 2015, p. 386) The context

The 2020 Children’s Week celebration in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia drew, in particular, on the idea that children have human rights too. Article 15 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that “Children have the right to meet with other children and young people and to join groups and organisations, as long as this does not stop other people from enjoying their rights” (UNICEF, 2021). Therefore, this project is based around the idea that all children have the right to join beneficial groups and to make friends.

This paper begins with my reflections since the first cases of coronavirus were detected in Melbourne, Australia, and the city was effectively shut down. The Premier of the State of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, declared a state of emergency through two waves of the pandemic, commencing in March 2020 and again in July 2020.

The Melbourne lockdown was, globally, one of the most severe of all responses to the pandemic, after the first and the second COVID-19 waves swept through the city. At the time of writing this paper in December 2020, Melbourne had survived over 7,000 cases, over 800 deaths and had over 28 days of no new cases, and no active transmission so Victorians were celebrating what was defined as ’the elimination of COVID-19 in the community.’ It is not called eradication yet.

However, since the first case was recorded on 25 January 2020, the people of Melbourne have spent many months in isolation and lockdown and the diverse population of the city has suffered in complex ways. For example, families and children have been challenged in their everyday lives. Children were told to stay home from school and childcare and their learning was limited in many ways. They were only able to spend time with friends and classmates using digital technologies.

Just prior to the beginning of the pandemic, in November 2019, I visited a rural school in a remote part Madyha Pradesh, India. While I was in this remote rural school I met with the principal, the teachers and some of the students and I was very impressed with the wonderful artwork that clearly inspired the children in their learning. So then, when I went into isolation back in my home in Melbourne in March 2020, I started to think about painting and art again. I had an art exhibition with some children and their artwork and was inspired to apply for a grant when I saw that the Victorian Education Department was offering 2020 Children’s Week grants to celebrate the rights of children. In July 2020 I submitted an application on behalf of The Victorian Friends Centre Quakers Australia. The theme I developed was making art and connecting with new friends. However, Melbourne as a city was then declared to be in a state of emergency and businesses were locked down. We were all confined to our homes to try to control the spread of COVID-19.

I then received an email to say that my application to Celebrate 2020 Children’s Day was accepted for funding but, because of the strict COVID-19 regulations, I had to apply again doing all the activities online. Therefore, I took some time to reapply with the new title which was called ‘Connecting creatively with new friends online’. This paper is based on a report of the activity that I conducted on 31 October 2020 from the courtyard and the children's room at the Victorian Friends Centre in West Melbourne. These activities involved five artists and myself offering a range of activities over Zoom, a web-based video conferencing tool that aimed to inspire the children to think about documenting how they were kind to each other and how they made new friends and what their feelings were in all this.

Research questions

In trying to be creative and to act positively on the numerous challenges happening in the pandemic I decided to consider the following three research questions for this project: Did the activities provided stimulate the children to learn and create new art works? How can we encourage and stimulate the children’s creativity in times of pandemic stress? What were the main artistic and other outcomes of the 2020 Children’s Day activities at Friends House in Melbourne?

Methodology

This research is based on a qualitative, mixed method research design grounded in the interpretative tradition. A case study approach (Berg, 2007) is used where the narratives of the participants are explored in some detail. How the participants interpret and negotiate the challenges in their own contexts, exploring and developing ideas of creativity with their family and friends, is the main focus of this project. The data was collected through listening, observing

the activities and analyzing the artistic products and reflections by myself and others of the learnings involved. This is a form of narrative inquiry that goes back to the theoretical and educational works of John Dewey. Narratives help explain the knowledge of relating people’s experiences in common social contexts (Bruner, 1991). Toledano and Anderson, have written that:

Because the narrative method places personal experience at the heart of research, the epistemology of knowledge is knowledge about experience. Narrative epistemology can this be viewed as the ways that individuals enact and represent their meanings and understandings of their life worlds through their personal experiences (past, ongoing and future). (Toledano & Anderson, 2017, p. 304)

Reflexiveness and practical thinking emerged from this process. This takes different forms at different levels as we respond emotionally to lived experiences and practical reflections that guide our future actions (Toledano et al, 2020). So, in this case tentative patterns of meaning emerge, and this is what is being documented in this paper. New knowledge and better understandings may emerge in this form of self-reflexive process. This is likely to involve empathetic relationships established among individuals and, in this particular case, amongst families and naming new friends. We need to understand and accept that there is nothing standard about the journey of learning and creativity for children and that being with new friends is a legitimate way of being and becoming in a time of pandemic crisis for children throughout the world.

Data and analysis of the adults and the children involved in the activities

The data was collected through participant observation of the activities, recoding of the web- based video conferencing activities. Also notes and observations of the children doing their activities and the responses given by the children and the parents/carers and artists on the day of the activity and in the days and weeks of physical isolation following the activity were used as data.

Firstly, using the notes I made on the day and after watching video conference as it was recorded on the day of Saturday 31 October 2020. Each of the invited artists presented over video conference. The artists were:

Debbie Harman Qadri is an artist, and teacher who works with ceramics, mosaics, paints, draws cartoons, and does public and community art. Debbie showed the children how to make simple peg or stick dolls, as well as making a cardboard box she cut and turned inside out to make a theatre for the peg dolls and also how to make other simple decorations for any type of celebrations.

David Chandler is a magician and storyteller who loves performing for diverse groups, young and old and everything in-between. He is an engaging performer who adores magic and wonder, in whatever form it comes. On the day David video conferenced with the children and showed them how to do magic with colorful scarves and little foam stars, he read them a story about

friends and family with beautiful illustrations and he got the children to do some singing with their microphones switched off.

Anne Brown is a teacher and an artist and loves to do gardening, reading and thinking. On the day over video conference Anne showed the children how to make simple pot plants out of glass jars with soil and pebbles and then demonstrated how to plant some succulents in the pots so they would last for many years.

Sharee Harper is an artist and botanist who specializes in plant usage of Aboriginal People in South Eastern Australia for food, medicine, tools and fibre and makes children’s books. On 2020 Children’s Day Sharee demonstrated to the children how to write and draw a simple story book about their family and friends and the activities the children liked to do with them. She showed them some beautifully illustrated children’s books over video conference.

So, this report will include some of the outcomes of the activities conducted over Zoom on the day and the feelings and reflections of the children and other participants involved.

The actual notes taken after observing the recording of the artists’ presentations of the day reminded me how much fun that they were each having by learning about what they were doing. The artists were challenged in different ways by the ways the cameras and the shadows from their cameras meant sometimes they had to re-position themselves and admit they had made a mistake, or had dropped something or couldn’t find something. David even joked that what happened was ‘Zoom doing magic’. It was certainly challenging for me to make sure I was in the camera as needed, and I didn’t stumble too much with my words and my actions when I had to sit on small children’s chairs and move the computer around at times to be both seen and heard when necessary. I do think the children enjoyed seeing the diverse range of adults present, the way the adults showed they were still learning new things and the amazing variety of creative activities presented in simple but stimulating ways.

Secondly, we will examine the children as they were involved on the day.

Miriam is a toddler who was one year and 11 months old on the day of the 2020 Children’s Week Activity. She joined in all the activities and made a paper person and we stuck it on a stick. She made a spoon person, put some soil and stones in glass jar and potted a plant and she watched the video conferenced presentation with the magician, singer and storyteller, David for most of the time. There were times when she was distracted by other people however, I was surprised how involved she was with each activity. Since that time she has also made a small pottery person that she called by her own name of Miriam and she made a little pottery dog called after her pet Labrador dog that she loves as a part of her own family. She also drew a picture of her daddy with a head, body and eyes and she did some circles with red paint and black and white eyes which she calls Elmo, who is like her doll and the character on the television program Sesame Street. So, she certainly sees her family as consisting of her mother, father, her pet dog and her toys such as Elmo and her toy koala that she also draws pictures of when she can. Mostly she draws dots and dashes and paints circles and eyes, and she calls the shapes different types of animals like whales, dolphins and fishes. She does enjoy doing art, making shapes with colors and various mediums and her approach to art has inspired me to learn

more about how little children can be creative with words, colors. dance movements and song and making loud drumming noises.

Lorel is aged 7. She lives with her great grandma who is her carer. So, there are many generations in her family and Lorel was thrilled to be able to make her first book as a follow up to the Zoom meeting. The words and the pictures she drew in her book indicated what she does in her everyday activities. The first page of her book has a picture of a child labelled ‘Me’, a woman named Nan, a smaller girl labelled Violet and a woman called mum and a man called dad. The second page of her book has a picture of two children playing on some swings with the words ‘this is me and Violet we like to go to the swings’. The next page has a drawing of herself holding a parcel and a woman who she indicates is her nan with the words ‘I like to go shopping with nan.’ The next page is a simple drawing of a school and the words are ‘I like to go to school and to see Miss M’. The next page is a drawing of a slide, a set of monkey bars and a frame from a playground and the words are, ‘I like to go to the playground with mum.’ The last page is a drawing of a house and a car and the words are ‘I like to see Shree.’ Sharee is the artist and children’s book maker who was a participant of the online presentation on the 2020 Children’s Day video conferenced program.

Sharee was able to give me her story about what Lorel was doing and thinking as she created her book about her family. As Sharee explained Diana’s granddaughters are in her care:

Seven-year-old Lorel was inspired to do the book after my sharing the workshop event with her and Diana. They couldn’t make it to the Zoom at that time but I talked about what happened in the workshop that afternoon when I visited them and showed them the book I’d produced. I gave a similar talk to Lorel and Diana, as I did during the Zoom, about how to make a book and showed them the one I’d produced during the Zoom event so … .it was inspired by that event. The only thing I added to the book was the staples. Diana herself or Lorel, after I left their place, added my name to the end page with the date - I think for the record. I asked for photos of the book to share with the workshop organisers. From (my own understanding of fostering) experiences it is publishing kids photos and names or where they live that is an issue. Lorel was so thrilled to have made her first book and I saw and heard her read it to her mother on the phone when her mother called her that afternoon. (Sharee, Artist)

As I responded to Sharee I could feel she and the child, Lorel, were really pleased with what they had each done and that Lorel’s mum was thrilled about her daughter writing about her family in such a caring way. Even though she does not live with her mum there is clearly a strong emotional connection with Lorel and the various members of her family, her carers and her friends. I found this a very moving experience of being and feeling to be a part of family and making new friends myself as I got to know Sharee and Lorel through this project. Danny is a six year old boy and his brother Jono is a four year old boy. Their grandmother, Jane wrote:

My grandchildren were unfortunately not able to attend the Zoom art session offered by Quakers so I took the material and ran an ‘in kitchen session’ over about an hour and a half. I had two grandchildren present, a six year and a four year old boy. Both boys were immediately interested with the wooden spoons, pegs and paper plates. They began colouring in the spoons each using his favourite colour and while they coloured they discussed sharing each other’s colours. Then the oldest suggested that he could make stripes as well. After this they both began talking about how they had drawn a lot during COVID lockdown and then talked about how difficult it had been because Mummy and Daddy were very stressed about work. I let them chat on without speaking much except for saying things like, "Are you ready to do the face yet?" (Jane, Carer)

They both became totally engrossed as they began drawing the faces. The older boy said, “I am going to draw a shy face”. Of course, I asked, "Are you shy too?" and elicited a long story about how he had become very shy during COVID because he had not been able to see his friends. He also said he had got fat because he did not play footy. The younger boy did not want to go without telling his story, so told me he was drawing a brave face because he is much braver than his brother. (Jane, Carer)

As I read and reflected on these two children’s responses I was struck by the ways they described their feelings and how they had missed their friends through the pandemic. It was also interesting that the one who listened to his brother drawing a shy face, and admitting he was feeling shy, then decided to draw a brave face as he felt he was braver than his brother. I was also struck by the grandmother’s comments as Jane reported:

The art session was a great success and reminded me, a therapist, how powerful projective identification can be. I have occasionally worked with children and often with adults to offer them a projective screen. This simple arts activity was as successful as many other projective techniques and heaps of fun. (Jane, Carer)

This comment and new learning I had about Jane’s work and thoughts as a therapist, particularly in the ways she has observed the two boys and their projective identification of themselves as shy and brave people, was inspiring for me to understand more about the ways the pandemic and associated social isolation has affected families and friends. I am also glad that it seems it was a fun and learning activity for this family as well as it was for me.

Elaine and Nola are two 11-year-old girls who were present in person on the day. They had never met each other before so it was good to see them doing the creative activities together with their face masks on. I did observe Elaine using her phones or checking her messages when she decided that it was okay to be distracted for a moment of the time. They each reported that they enjoyed painting their family and friends, they each made some succulents in a pot plant and painted the ceramic pots. Nola reported to her grandmother “I thought the day was really good, and I enjoyed making things and being creative. I met another 11-year-old named Elaine and I enjoyed that.”

Elaine reported that she really enjoyed making a little mushroom from air dried clay and that making the pot plant, painting the pots and potting the plants. She also liked doing the creative activities with the other 11-year-old, her new friend, Nola, and with the little toddler, Miriam. Claire was another young adult who was present on the day. She was there to make sure everyone was safe and properly looked after. So, she kept her eyes on what was happening in the garden courtyard area while I was concentrating on the video conferenced activities in the small children’s room. From her written observations and comments on the day she noted that the children who were participating came from very different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. They also seemed to come from different educational backgrounds and had lived through quite different life experiences. I would argue that the children all had quite different social and cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu, 1990). The children used their unique forms of creativity very differently. The used what materials they had in different ways. When the children did relate with each other children at all they did it on their own terms using the spaces thoughtfully. Claire reported that the children who were present in person in the courtyard all seemed to bond on the day and enjoy the activities together. As she stated it seemed that the art, they were doing was universal in its appeal to them in but in different ways and with different meanings for them. She also thought that it was something about the technology that we were all learning about together and even though the total age range of children and artists ranged from 1 years and 11 months to over 70 years of age we were all learning new ways of being in and of the world today in pandemic times. We were all being and becoming different people and would be living different lives after the pandemic is overcome in whatever form that is likely to happen. These were considered really mysterious times but also, we all seemed to be coping with the adventures and the journey involved. Reflections on the original research questions

The evidence provided by the children and their parents/carers indicates that the children all gained some benefit and art outcomes from the day’s activities. Each of the children showed us their works of art through photos of the original works on the day. Stick and peg people and people and pets made from clay were provided to us to admire and be inspired by their excitement of their work. So, the children were stimulated to learn and create new artworks and to think about who their family and friends were and how they were kind and gentle with their friends. The artworks were all original as I did not see any of the children copying others’ styles of creativity although they did share the various materials used and they did talk about the colours and shapes each other used. So, I would argue this was a successful few hours for the children to learn new ways to be creative, to be with other children and to make new friends. The children all also tried to explore new spaces and the new technological ways of communicating with each other when they chose to work with others. So, each of the children were stimulated to be creative in their own style in these times of pandemic stress. The main artistic outcomes of the 2020 Children’s Day activities at Friends House in Melbourne were little spoon people and peg and stick people left in the gardens at the Friends centre. The children all now have their own

little pots with succulent plants in their homes and they have either drawings or small books or pictures they produced about being kind and connecting with their family and friends online and face to face. Conclusions

We have all gained some insights into working with and learning from each other as children and adults and artists. We are all artists in our own ways. It has been a learning adventure for most of us and I do think the children involved were excited by being free to do the activities as they wanted without a lot of strict rules or adult intervention and constraints. Biesta (2014) writes movingly about the beautiful risks of education and my experience of this activity reminds me that learning is always a challenge and a joy, a risk and one that is more a beginning and learning that is more kaleidoscopic than linear. The children showed resilience, excitement, and joy. They were thrilled by the new mediums they could try and seemed grateful to do something a bit different, albeit for a short time on Zoom. Learning about how each of us cope and learn in times of the pandemic has been and exciting and gratifying journey for most of us and we intend to show the evolving artwork displayed at the Friends Centre over the next few months. We also hope to be able to continue regular art with family and friends’ workshops and creative activities with a range of materials and magical connections and new adventures.

Finally, I would like to finish with an excerpt from poem by Stephen Sondheim that summarizes my learnings, feelings and responses from the day’s activities. We all will still struggle somewhat with the sad parts of the pandemic, but there are joyful times as well. I have learnt lots of new ways to listen to the children, to be with the children and enjoy my family and friends. The poem is entitled ‘Children Will Listen’.

Careful the things you say, Children will listen. Careful the things you do, Children will see. And learn. Children may not obey, But children will listen. Children will look to you For which way to turn. To learn what to be. Careful before you say, “Listen to me.”

Children Will Listen. (Intrator & Scribner, 2003, p. 51).

REFERENCES

Berg, B. (2007). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Pearson Boston USA. ISBN 0-205- 48263-5

Biesta, G. (2014). The beautiful risk of education. Paradigm Publishers, Boulder Colorado. ISBN 978-1- 61205-026-3

Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Polity Press. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-7456-1015-3

Bruner, J. S. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 11-21.

Cooper, J. & Ryan, M. (2017). Collectively becoming a/r/tographic: mMking meaning with young people. VIS – Revista do Programa de Pós-graduação em Arte da UnB V.16 nº2/julho-dezembro de 2017, Brasília. ISSN- 1518-5494 e ISSN (versão eletrônica) – 2447-2484.

Cooper, M. & Stewart, J. (2018). Building a global network in teacher education: Professional reflections on the expedition. Journal of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education. 2(2) 18.

Intrator, S. & Scribner, M. (2003). Teaching with Fire: Poetry that sustains the courage to teach. Jossey Bass: San Francisco, USA.

Quadri, D. (2015). Memories in motion: Learning, process, history and art in public space. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 55(3), 379.

Tartakover, S., Ryan, M., & Alishek, A. (2015). Words and pictures. Footscray: College of Education, Victoria University.

Toledarno, N. & Anderson, A. (2020). Theoretical reflections on narrative in action research. In Action Research. 18(3), 302-318. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750317748439

Tsirtsakis, A. (2020, Nov 24). Ending the second wave: How did Victoria get to zero active cases? newsGP. https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/home

Victorian Government Commission for Children and Young People. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on children and young people: Education. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/assets/COVID-Engagement/CCYP-Education-Snapshot-web.pdf

UNICEF, (2021). Children’s rights simplified. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. https://www.unicef.org.au/our-work/information-for-children/un-convention-on-the-rights-of-the- child

Author Note The author of this project received a grant of $970.00 from the Victorian Education Department to do these activities to celebrate 2020 Children’s Day under the auspices of The Victorian Friends Centre Quakers Australia, in West Melbourne.

Author Biography Dr Maxine Cooper is an Adjunct Researcher at Federation University, Australia. Email is [email protected]

#CIENCIA_CONFINADA: MAKING SCIENCE IN LOCKDOWN

Elena Gayán, Fina Guitart, Núria López and Julio Pérez. CESIRE. Department of Education. Generalitat de Catalunya.

ABSTRACT:

In March 2020, the health situation caused by SARS-Cov-2 led to the closure of all schools and education centers in Catalunya1; Students and teachers had to stay home, isolated and without face-to-face contact for a period of time that was initially expected to be two weeks. The situation lasted for successive periods of time and classes were started again, but only in some centers and with some students during the last period of the northern hemisphere school year. This unprecedented situation was marked by uncertainty, since decisions were made periodically based on the state of the pandemic. In a progressive and diverse way, depending on the type of centers, the online classes began in the best way that each center could respond to this new situation. It was a new and unexpected state of affairs that no one was prepared for. How could educational activities continue online? How could teachers communicate with students? Which activities could continue and which ones would be impossible to develop? How would the lockdown affect the learning process of the students?

1 http://ensenyament.gencat.cat/ca/actualitat/notes-premsa/nota-premsa/?id=383884

#CIENCIA_CONFINADA: MAKING SCIENCE IN LOCKDOWN

Introduction. Situation during the COVID-19 pandemic

In March 2020, the health situation caused by SARS-Cov-2 led to the closure of all schools and education centers in Catalunya2; Students and teachers had to stay home, isolated and without face-to-face contact for a period of time that was initially expected to be two weeks. The situation lasted for successive periods of time and classes were started again, but only in some centers and with some students during the last period of the northern hemisphere school year. This unprecedented situation was marked by uncertainty, since decisions were made periodically based on the state of the pandemic. In a progressive and diverse way, depending on the type of centers, the online classes began in the best way that each center could respond to this new situation. It was a new and unexpected state of affairs that no one was prepared for. How could educational activities continue online? How could teachers communicate with students? Which activities could continue and which ones would be impossible to develop? How would the lockdown affect the learning process of the students?

These and many other questions were raised by the educational community. The staff of the Centre de Recursos Pedagògics Específics de Suport a la Innovació i la Recerca Educativa (CESIRE), from the Department of Education from the Catalan government in Spain, thought that different ways of teaching and learning were necessary for this new situation.

CESIRE is a public educational service that aims to support educational innovation and research. Its work focuses on the design and dissemination of activities and resources to support teachers in their professional development and their role of improving the academic results of students. CESIRE’s staff is composed of teachers with different backgrounds – for example, mathematics, languages, sciences, technology, and arts – and different educational levels including pre-primary, primary and secondary.

This is how initiatives such as Posa’t al dia or Socials a destemps, developed by social science teachers, came to be. Other examples were the deliberation/discussion forum for technology teachers Punt de tecnotrobada, or the campaign promoted by the mathematics department called Mates per a emportar-se, and proposals to support teachers in the challenging task of distance teaching were developed.

After wondering which could be the best way to help teachers and students in the new situation, and based on their shared pedagogical background, and their specific knowledge on teaching and learning activities and resources, CESIRE’s science teachers decided to look for and select a set of didactic proposals, organized in reflexively and intentionally created home scenarios which would be the structuring thread of a website called #ciència_confinada (Figure 1).

2 http://ensenyament.gencat.cat/ca/actualitat/notes-premsa/nota-premsa/?id=383884

Figure 1. Logo of the web.

What principles have we taken into account?

When CESIRE’s science teachers started thinking about the designing of the proposal, an analysis of the new social situation was needed; isolation and distance between teachers and students were the important characteristics of the new paradigm. The default way to interact with each other was by online resources, which made challenging the use of regular lab equipment. Students had only access to those instruments and tools available in their houses or in the closest shops or supermarkets. No experimental equipment was available to them, and they had no access to laboratory facilities.

Nevertheless, to get effective student involvement with science learning, working in context is a recognized didactic approach (Gilbert et al. 2011; Izquierdo, 2004). If we are curious and interested in asking relevant questions, we can find science everywhere. In the kitchen, outdoors (balcony, terrace, garden…), in the corridor, in the living room… in all these places we can look closely from a science perspective, and experiment or design questions about why, how fast, how many … Teachers have to go along with their students, involving them in activities based on conflicts or assignments related to relevant contexts and close to the real world, which are very useful to promote deep and transferable knowledge (Aliberas et al, 2015; Marchán-Carvajal & Sanmartí, 2015).

Also, Meinardo, Adúriz-Bravo, Morales and Bonana (2002) propose that scientific contents must be treated in a spiral process to acquire a continuous resignification, that is, the advance in the construction of scientific models is deeply related to its wider knowledge. Regardless of the context, the type of questions and the depth of the answers given by students vary depending on their knowledge of the topic, but all the possibilities are equally valid, if we attend only to the scientific model used. This allows us to address the same working scenario to different educational levels, as in some of the #ciència_confinada proposals.

It is also relevant to remark that the lockdown promoted the establishment of new relations between members of the cohabitation unit and facilitated fresh ways to expand the social construction of knowledge. As Kroll et al (2005) show, the learning process is most effective when it takes place in the company of others but also by interacting with tools constructed by others or interacting with the environment. When students are at school, these interactions

occur between students and teachers, and between the students themselves. In confinement, interactions between these groups decreased and, therefore, the complicity of families had to be promoted to maintain interactions which supported the learning process.

Parents, siblings, grandparents, and other cohabitants were able to play a new role in the process of generating knowledge. This might also offer the opportunity to children and young people to share more time with those closer to them as well as allowing them to ask questions, communicate and share moments or new learning. As Johnson, Johnson and Holubec (1994) said, "Like climbers, students climb learning peaks more easily when they do so as part of a cooperative team." We need to engage relatives to be part of this team.

Finally, this new situation imposed by the lockdown might allow and promote an active involvement of the family as a unit and other people close to students in their learning process, and hopefully this will endure permanently.

What is the final product?

#ciència_confinada is organized from different spaces, scenarios, or elements from home, as a virtual tour, and each tour is linked with different actions or possibilities (Figure 2). These contexts will allow students to apply science in real world situations (King & Ritchie, 2012) as a central structure for learning.

Figure 2. Spaces or scenarios of #CIÈNCIA_CONFINADA

- (#alacuina) #inthekitchen: An experimental lab to work on temperatures, solutions, changes of state, nutrition... - (#perlafinestra) #throughthewindow: A place to observe the closest environment and ask ourselves about it. - (#alsofa) #onthecouch: A space to reflect, discuss, to share and communicate as well as a place to use digital devices with simulations, applets and audio-visual tools… - (#alsprestatges) #ontheshelves: A shelf could be a surprising space of classification. It promotes the search of patterns, arrangements, collections … - (#pelpassadis) #downthecorridor: A suitable place for dynamic experimentation: running, flying, throwing … - (#alscalaixos) #inthedrawers: forgotten objects, scissors, paper, old photographs… you never know what you will find when you open a drawer…

Each space collected different educational proposals whose design was based on the questions or situations that would be generated in the space. The selected classroom activities and resources, which appear in each proposal, are available on the internet. Figure 3 shows the content of one space, and the structure of an educational proposal, with explanations and links to the selected activities and resources.

Figure 3. An example of educational proposal belonging to the #perlafinestra (#troughthewindow) space.

All educational proposals follow the same structure: next to the title, you will find the educational levels suitable for the activity, and in the coloured box there is a list of the main topics related to the proposal. These two aspects are needed so teachers can evaluate if the resources and activity objectives are suitable for their needs.

In the rest of the document, you can find links to a collection of online resources which are assembled under different topics, questions, or characteristics. They can be didactic units, reports of scientific dissemination programs, mobile applications, teachers' blogs, videos, experimental activities ...

The aim is that the teacher chooses, adapts and changes the activities and resources to make them adequate to the context in the classroom. Many of the proposals deal with issues that can be addressed by all educational levels, and the difference will prevail in the degree of depth.

Most of the #ciència_confinada activities have a common property: the solution or answer is not defined at all, and the questions are open-ended. These kinds of activities promote communication, not only between people working on the same topic but also, between students of different groups, between them and their teachers, and also within the household. The construction of scientific knowledge requires this kind of interaction to allow students to compare, and contrast ideas which build and grow scientific models. These activities are also good examples of how the scientific community works, exchanging and contrasting ideas, and showing that the advance of science is dynamic and in constant change. Finally, some of the proposals include references to citizen science projects to promote and increase collaboration and social participation.

Results and dissemination

This project started because of the COVID-19 lockdown in Catalunya, but it has allowed us to think carefully about different aspects related to the learning process of sciences.

We are increasingly seeing the need to start the learning process of the students with situations that are close to them. In this way they can carefully observe the phenomena around them, ask themselves why something happened, and look for the best possible answer with the help of experimentation if needed.

The current health situation has affected us on many levels, but it has a deep impact in education. We should use the new reality to spread between schools this way of learning science, which makes science closer to students and brings the need to find answers to understand what happens in the world.

#ciència_confinada is not a finished project. It was created with the aim to continuously include new proposals, activities and resources that help students to observe their closest surroundings with a curious look and an active attitude. CESIRE will continue including new proposals and resources, but it also encourages other teachers to share activities and experiences. Other activities that can be organised are building catapults, making balances, creating Chinese shadows, looking at the night sky, scientific curiosities… Do you dare to participate?

References

Aliberas, J., Izquierdo, M., & Guitart, F. (2015). El context per aprendre química en el projecte «Competències de pensament científic ESO 12-15». Educació Química EduQ, 20, 32– 39. doi: 10.2436/20.2003.02.149.

Gilbert, J.K., Bulte A.M.W. & Pilot, A. (2011). Concept development and transfer in context‐ based science education, International Journal of Science Education, 33(6), 817-837, doi: 10.1080/09500693.2010.493185.

Izquierdo M. (2004). Un nuevo enfoque de la enseñanza de la química: Contextualizar y modelizar. Anales de la Asociación Química Argentina, 92, 4-6.

Johnson D.W., Johnson R.T., & Holubec E.J. (1994). The new circles of learning: Cooperation in the classroom and school ASCD. Virginia. USA.

King D., & Ritchie, S.M. (2012). Learning Science through real-world contexts. In: Fraser B., Tobin K., McRobbie C. (Eds.). Second International Handbook of Science Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education, 24. Springer, Dordrecht.

Kroll, L. Cossey, R. Donahue, D., Galquera, T., la Boskey, V., Richert, A., & Tucker, P. (2005). Teaching as principled practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Marchán-Carvajal, I., & Sanmartí, N. (2015). Criterios para el diseño de unidades didácticas contextualizadas: Aplicación al aprendizaje de un modelo teórico para la estructura atómica. Educación Química, 26(4), 267-274.

Meinardo, E., Adúriz-Bravo, A., Morales. L., & Bonana, L. (2002). El modelo de ciencia escolar. Una propuesta de la didáctica de las ciencias naturales para articular la normativa educacional y la realidad del aula. Revista de enseñanza de la física. 15(1), 13-21.

PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF STEM TEACHERS: ONE HBCUs APPROACH TO THE RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND TRAINING OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHER CANDIDATES DURING COVID-19

Samantha L. Strachan, Salam Khan Alabama A&M University

ABSTRACT: The shortage of science and mathematics teachers in school districts across the United States is not a new problem. However, issues of teacher supply and demand in these academic areas may worsen as the country deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. The AAMU Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is focused on helping to alleviate critical teacher shortages in Alabama, USA by recruiting and preparing highly qualified science and mathematics teachers. This piece will provide an overview of how the AAMU Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program works to recruit, retain, and train science and mathematics teacher candidates, even in the face of a serious global pandemic.

PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF STEM TEACHERS: ONE HBCUs APPROACH TO THE RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND TRAINING OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHER CANDIDATES DURING COVID-19

Introduction Alabama A&M University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship grant to support the training of science and mathematics majors interested in becoming teachers. Alabama A&M University’s Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (AAMU Noyce) is focused on the recruitment, retention, and preparation of minority undergraduate biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics majors who, upon completion of their degrees, will teach in public secondary schools in high-need school districts in the state of Alabama in the United States. This piece will describe features of the AAMU Noyce Program, particularly how the program focuses on the development of undergraduate science and mathematics majors as Noyce scholars. Specifically, this piece will describe how AAMU Noyce seeks to transform the pipeline for recruiting, training, and placing minority science and mathematics majors in classrooms as teachers. Components of the program will be explored, and a discussion of how the program focuses on meeting the needs of scholars, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, will be expounded upon. Now, more than ever, educator preparation programs across the United States of America must “rise to the occasion” of producing qualified science and mathematics teachers. Amid calls for diversifying the teaching profession (Carver-Thomas, 2018), barriers that prevent candidates of color from fully participating in the profession have been discussed in research, specifically as it relates to the recruitment, retention, and support of promising teacher candidates (Carver- Thomas, 2018; Goe & Roth, 2019). AAMU Noyce has taken into consideration some of these barriers and has implemented strategies and approaches to transform how science and mathematics teachers are recruited, retained, and trained, even during a global pandemic. Defining the Problem According to the U.S. Department of Education (2020), school districts across the United States continue to experience teacher shortages in the areas of science and mathematics. In the state of Alabama, teacher shortages in science and mathematics remain consistent (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). While the state has developed and implemented several initiatives to address shortages across districts, a number of school districts in Alabama have reported their inability to fill positions that require qualified science and mathematics teachers (Sell, 2019). The AAMU Noyce Program seeks to help alleviate shortages by placing trained science and mathematics students in the teaching profession, specifically to work in high-need school districts. The U.S. Department of Education (2006) defines high-need local educational agencies, such as school districts, as agencies that serve elementary or secondary schools in areas with the following characteristics: 1) A high percentage of individuals from families with incomes below the

poverty line, 2) a high percentage of secondary school teachers not teaching in the content area in which the teachers were trained to teach, and 3) a high teacher turnover rate. The need for qualified science and mathematics teachers in U.S. classrooms is great. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment, revealed that students in the United States continue to underperform in relation to other countries in science and mathematics (OECD, 2019). In addition, national performance data for U.S. students in science and mathematics continue to raise alarms regarding student performances in these two areas, specifically for the state of Alabama. For example, the Nation’s Report Card, as published by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2015, indicates that students in Alabama performed statistically significantly lower than the national average score on NAEP science and mathematics assessments. The assessments measured science and mathematics performance for students in the 4th and 8th grades. With a global pandemic that has lasted more than a year, there are growing concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted education. According to García and Weiss (2020) of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the COVID-19 pandemic has impeded both teaching and learning. As noted by the researchers: The shutdown of schools, compounded by the associated public health and economic crises, poses major challenges to our students and their teachers. Our public education system was not built, nor prepared, to cope with a situation like this—we lack the structures to sustain effective teaching and learning during the shutdown and to provide the safety net supports that many children receive in school. While we do not know the exact impacts, we do know that children’s academic performance is deteriorating during the pandemic, along with their progress on other developmental skills (p. 3). The researchers went on to explain that the pandemic has also exacerbated inequities that have prevailed in the education system. If left unchecked, the effects of the pandemic could be devastating to an already overburdened system. Educator preparation programs must prepare a cadre of teachers who can meet the unique challenges of the educational system. Placing the best and brightest students in classrooms as teachers is critical to improving the performance of students in public schools, even in the midst of a global pandemic. The AAMU Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program has taken up the mantle of training undergraduate science and mathematics students who will serve in high-needs public school districts, specifically in the state of Alabama. Overview of the AAMU Noyce Program Alabama A&M University’s Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program is housed in the university’s Department of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. The program recruits and prepares undergraduate science (biology, chemistry, and physics) and mathematics students to become science and mathematics secondary education teachers. Students enrolled in the program are considered STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) majors and earn degrees in

their respective fields. To fulfill the requirements of becoming secondary teachers, students add secondary education as a concentration to their degree plans. Upon completion of all degree requirements, students graduate from their respective programs and apply for certification to teach at the secondary level in Alabama (i.e. 6th grade – 12th grade). While the program is open to students from a variety of backgrounds, AAMU Noyce has specifically concentrated its efforts on recruiting, retaining, and preparing minority STEM scholars to become science and mathematics teachers. STEM students who apply and meet initial program requirements are interviewed. If officially accepted into the program, students are provided with scholarship funds in the form of tuition and fees, room and board, books, and funding for teacher certification examinations, as appropriate. Program participants are required to teach in a high-needs school districts two years for every year that they receive financial support. The AAMU Noyce Program has four specific goals. Each of the goals will be discussed to examine programmatic approaches and procedures, and to describe the specific work that is being done to ensure each program goal is met. Goal 1: Improve STEM teacher recruitment and retention efforts through a program focused on engaging STEM students who are interested in teaching. The persistent nature of teacher shortages in the state of Alabama, particularly in the areas of science and mathematics (U.S. Department of Education, 2017), requires that AAMU takes a comprehensive approach to the recruitment of undergraduate STEM students in the teaching pipeline. Therefore, undergraduate STEM students are recruited using a variety of methods. To aid in program recruitment, AAMU Noyce has partnered with three neighboring community colleges to place STEM students in the teaching pipeline early. Faculty and staff from the community colleges help AAMU Noyce to connect with STEM students early on in their academic careers. Students are provided with an overview of the program and are provided with a direct connection to the AAMU Noyce team to ensure a smooth transition if they decide to transfer from two-year institutions. Support of interested students begins with the assistance of community college personnel who work with the program to provide students with important information about the program. During the summer, the program offers an intensive internship experience for STEM students. The purpose of the summer internship is to introduce students to AAMU Noyce and to the teaching profession. The summer internship primarily caters to first- and second-year students, and students who hail from community colleges or are new to the university are also formally introduced to the campus and specific STEM departments at the university. All interns are provided with mentors, exposure to science and mathematics pedagogy, and are given a stipend for their participation. Other recruitment strategies include working directly with faculty in STEM departments who recruit prospective candidates, advertising the program through email and public relations blasts at Alabama A&M University and at the community colleges, and attending community college and university recruitment events.

Once STEM scholars are accepted into the program and make the decision to begin their training as teachers, they are provided with financial and academic support to ensure they are successfully retained in the teaching pipeline. Approaches to retention will be discussed under Goal 3. Goal 2: Implement a challenging curriculum to ensure scholars are competent in content, pedagogy, and cultural diversity. All program participants are exposed to a rigorous comprehensive curriculum to ensure their proficiency in science and mathematics content, their development of pedagogical skills, and their abilities to demonstrate their knowledge of issues of equity and diversity in secondary learning environments. Noyce scholars take a range of courses, including courses in their teaching field, as well as methods courses that maximize proficiency in pedagogy and examining issues of equity and diversity in school systems. Furthermore, students complete over 600 field experience hours in diverse learning environments. These curricular experiences align with the National Science Teacher Association’s (2020) Standards for Science Teacher Preparation and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ (2020) Standards for the Preparation of Secondary Mathematics Teachers. Knowledge and skill development in scholars are also supported by their participation in monthly Noyce seminars during the academic year. All scholars are required to attend informative seminars that seek to expose them to additional professional development outside of the traditional curriculum. Monthly Noyce seminars include thematic topics focused on teaching and learning in urban and rural high-needs schools in Alabama. Seminar speakers include school district professionals, current secondary science and mathematics teachers, and university faculty. Seminars serve as an additional opportunity to ensure that students are equipped to handle the challenges of teaching in high-need learning environments. Goal 3: Support program participants to ensure their success during their pre-service and induction periods. As noted by Lee (2017), teaching STEM subjects “is difficult to do well, even for veteran teachers” (p. 1). Mentorship and support of science and mathematics teachers, including prospective and in-service teachers, have been discussed as important aspects of teacher development (Schneider, 2008; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2013). A key feature of the AAMU Noyce Program includes participants being provided with mentorship and support as they complete program requirements. To aid in retention of students, Noyce scholars have access to a team of faculty members, including STEM and education faculty, who provide scholars with guidance in their field, timely answering of questions, assistance with solving issues that arise, support with navigating university processes and procedures, and resources needed to be successful as a teacher in training. Scholars are also encouraged to attend national and regional conferences in their field with faculty mentors, as appropriate. Mentorship and support are also extended as Noyce scholars transition to serving as in-service science and mathematics teachers.

Goal 4: Increase the pool of highly qualified science and mathematics teachers working in high-need schools, including high-need rural schools in north Alabama. Meeting the first three goals of the AAMU Noyce Program will allow the program to add qualified minority science and mathematics teachers to the pool of highly qualified teachers in the state. The AAMU Noyce Program seeks to recruit and prepare a total of 21 undergraduate science and mathematics students to become teachers in north Alabama. Scholars receive training that will prepare them for working in urban, suburban, and rural learning environments. Currently, the program has eight (8) participants and is in the process of onboarding additional candidates. Current program participants include five (5) biology candidates, two (2) mathematics candidates, and one (1) chemistry candidate. All of the scholars identify as being members of a minority group and have each committed to working as teachers upon completion of their respective programs. The COVID-19 Pandemic: Turning Challenges to Opportunities Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, AAMU Noyce continues to rise to the challenge of meeting program goals. For example, since all in-person events were discontinued, attending in-person recruitment events was not possible. Instead, the AAMU Noyce team has made efforts to attend and participate in a variety of online recruitment events and activities that target traditional university students as well as science and mathematics students transferring from community colleges. Furthermore, as a result of the pandemic, AAMU Noyce has boosted outreach on virtual platforms, including increasing program marketing through email blasts, increasing interactions with prospective candidates using virtual platforms such as Zoom, and introducing prospective candidates to the program’s website, which includes follow up discussions regarding program requirements. These approaches have allowed the Noyce team to continue to market directly to a targeted audience of students, at both the university and community college levels. Retention and support activities have also been conducted differently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All in-person meetings for current scholars were stopped, which lessened scholars’ in- person interactions with the support team. Therefore, adjustments were made for the team to meet with scholars using virtual platforms. Noyce scholars continued to attend scheduled monthly seminars and were provided with necessary support from the AAMU Noyce team. In some instances, issues or challenges that scholars encountered were able to be dealt with immediately due to the nature of the university conducting business virtually as opposed to in person. In García and Weiss’ (2020) report, the researchers made the following sentiment: “The COVID- 19 pandemic is overwhelming the functioning and outcomes of education systems—some of which were already stressed in many respects” (p. 3). While the researchers’ report discusses lessons that have been learned thus far from educational research conducted on the impacts of the pandemic on education, the AAMU Noyce program has implemented strategies to ensure scholars are learning their own lessons about teaching, learning, and issues of equity and

diversity during a global pandemic. One major opportunity that has emerged from the pandemic has been to expose candidates to key issues of concern in science and mathematics classrooms, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, while monthly seminars are structured to expose candidates to a variety of educational contexts, important issues that have arisen due to the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed during seminars. Scholars are provided with curricular experiences that are supported by current knowledge of issues that impact teaching and learning in science and mathematics classrooms. Despite the impact that the pandemic continues to have on the field of education, and teacher education, AAMU Noyce continues its efforts in recruiting, training, and supporting science and mathematics teacher candidates. The COVID-19 pandemic presented opportunities as well as challenges for the scholarship program. As such, lessons learned during the pandemic will help the AAMU Noyce team identify the best ways to engage and prepare prospective science and mathematics teachers. Conclusion The shortage of science and mathematics teachers across the nation will continue if educator preparation programs are unable to produce highly qualified science and mathematics teachers who can keep up with the demands of school systems. More recently, the shortage of teachers across the United States has been described as “…a crisis exacerbated by the pandemic” (García & Weiss, 2020, para. 1.), even as the lasting effects of the pandemic on education, and specifically teacher education, has yet to be seen. The AAMU Noyce Scholarship Program is one program that has taken up the mantle of preparing the next generation of science and mathematics teachers in hopes of mitigating teacher shortages in science and mathematics that are bound to come. Acknowledgement This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. 1758505.

REFERENCES Carver-Thomas, D. (2018). Diversifying the teaching profession: How to recruit and retain teachers of color. Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://edworkingpapers.com/ sites/default/files/Diversifying_Teaching_Profession_REPORT_0.pdf

García, E. & Weiss, E. (2020). Policy solutions to deal with the nation’s teacher shortage—a crisis made worse by COVID-19. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://www.epi.org/blog/policy-solutions-to-deal-with-the-nations-teacher-shortage-a- crisis-made-worse-by-covid-19/

García, E. & Weiss, E. (2020). COVID-19 and student performance, equity, and U.S. education policy: Lessons from pre-pandemic research to inform relief, recovery, and rebuilding. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://files.epi.org/pdf/205622.pdf

Goe, L., & Roth, A. (2019). Strategies for supporting educator preparation programs’ efforts to attract, admit, support, and graduate teacher candidates from underrepresented groups (Research Memorandum No. RM-19-03). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Lee, M. (2017). Pre-service teachers often lack effective coaching. 100Kin10. Retrieved from https://grandchallenges.100kin10.org/assets/downloads/pre-service-teachers-often-lack- effective-coaching/GrandChallengesWhitePapers_Lee.pdf

National Assessment of Educational Progress. (n.d.). The nation’s report card. Retrieved from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2013). Teacher mentorship: A position of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Retrieved from https://www.nctm.org/ uploadedFiles/Standards_and_Positions/Position_Statements/Teacher%20Mentorship.pdf

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2020). Standards for the preparation of Secondary mathematics teachers. Retrieved from https://www.nctm.org/uploadedFiles/ Standards_and_Positions/NCTM_Secondary_2020_Final.pdf

National Science Teachers Association. (2020). 2020 NSTA/ASTE standards for science teacher preparation. Retrieved from https://static.nsta.org/pdfs/2020NSTAStandards.pdf

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2019). Programme for International Student Assessment: Science Performance. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/pisa/science-performance-pisa.htm

Schneider, R. (2008). Mentoring New Mentors: Learning to Mentor Preservice Science Teachers. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 19, 113-116.

Sell, M. (2019, February 8). Alabama’s teacher shortages reach ‘crisis’ level. BirminghamWatch. Retrieved from https://birminghamwatch.org/alabamas-teacher-shortages-reaches-crisis- level/

U.S. Department of Education. (2006). 1998 Amendments to Higher Education Act of 1965. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea98/sec201.html U.S. Department of Education. (2017). Teacher shortage areas: Nationwide listing 1990–1991 through 2017–2018. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/pol/ ateachershortageareasreport2017-18.pdf

U.S. Department of Education. (2020). Teacher shortage areas. Retrieved from https://tsa.ed. gov/#/home/

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Dr. Samantha L. Strachan is the Interim Chairperson of the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership and Assistant Professor of Secondary Education at Alabama A&M University. 4900 Meridian Street North 212 Carver Complex North Hollins Wing Normal, AL 35762 [email protected] (email) 256-372-4087 (office) 256-372-5526 (fax)

Dr. Salam Khan is Principal Investigator of the AAMU Noyce Scholarship Program and Associate Professor of Mathematics at Alabama A&M University 4900 Meridian Street North 212 Carver Complex North Hollins Wing Normal, AL 35762 [email protected] (email) 256-372- 4838 (office) 256-372-5931 (fax)

SHARED LEADERSHIP: A ROAD MAP TO STUDENT SUCCESS FOR SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEADERS

Rodney T. Harrelson, Ed.D., RTH Strategic Planning & Consulting, LLC Gregory R. VanHorn, Ph.D., VanHorn Educational Consultants Pamela M VanHorn, Ph.D., VanHorn Educational Consultants

ABSTRACT:

Even during a global pandemic, shared leadership is a crucial component in the success of schools and districts. With all of the changes leaders are faced with, they must be more reliant on teams to learn together, while implementing new strategies that best support the needs of teachers and students. This article highlights research on shared leadership practices and provides leaders recommendations for putting them into action regardless of the type of learning model.

SHARED LEADERSHIP: A ROAD MAP TO STUDENT SUCCESS FOR SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEADERS

Leaders at all levels are continuously searching for programs and initiatives to increase the success of their students, teachers, schools and/or districts. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, there are leadership practices that can be implemented that have a significant impact on students’ and adults’ outcomes. Research and experience tell us leaders cannot do this work alone and the idea of the lone super leader is largely a myth (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996; Leithwood, & Seashore-Louis, 2012). School and district leaders need to use the collective knowledge, expertise and experience of key members of their schools and districts to make more informed decisions and drive initiatives. This is especially critical as school and district leaders implement new models of education as a result of the global pandemic, including remote, hybrid and traditional face-to-face learning. This article draws from the educational research on shared leadership to outline several key practices that school and district leaders should consider implementing as they navigate the ever-changing educational landscape.

Practice 1: Create Conditions that Build Trust and Psychological Safety

Trust and psychological safety serve as foundational elements in school and district success and the currency of a leader’s influence. Shared leadership requires leaders to build trust and create the conditions where it becomes safe to take risks without fear of being punished for making mistakes. In an environment where everyone is a learner, particularly during the pandemic, it is important for leaders to be more self-aware of the need for high levels of trust and spaces to implement new strategies. To increase team effectiveness, leaders need to engage in trust- building behaviors including establishing clear and consistent expectations, extending care to others and demonstrating authenticity regardless of a specific educational model (Goddard, Tschannen-Moran, & Hoy, 2001; Tschannen-Moran, 2014).

Why is building trust and creating psychological safety important for leaders? When there are high levels of trust between the leader and teacher, there is an increased willingness for collaboration and learning from one another. Higher levels of trust and psychological safety within teams allow for a team’s willingness to take risks, share personal experiences and be more creative (Edmondson, 2019; Tschannen-Moran, 2014). Teachers begin holding both their colleagues and themselves accountable in a way that gets work done and challenges all to work harder toward shared goals. Without trust, teachers are unlikely to take the risks required to go beyond what is safe or make themselves vulnerable enough to aspire to ambitious goals.

What does this look like in practice? Leaders build trust through actions including listening, developing clarity through common language, holding one-on-one conversations and forming collaborative inquiry teams (Eppinga, et. al., 2018). Leaders also develop trust when they regularly participate as learners with their teachers as they work toward common goals. Leaders and their teams should provide virtual and face-to face check-ins that ask teachers the types of support they need to best meet the needs of all students.

Practice 2: Lead with Empathy

Shared leadership requires each team member to work with people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Leaders must move beyond simply knowing how others feel; they must also understand the perspectives of their staff. Extra effort and care is needed by leaders in spaces that are not face-to face to ensure that all perspectives are truly heard. Being empathic to develop an understanding where others are coming from is critical in the development of shared leadership in all learning environments (Brown, 2018).

Why is the use of empathy important for leaders? The awareness and acknowledgement of others’ emotions is an important and powerful competency for a leader (Kellet et al., 2002). Putting ourselves in others' shoes as you are listening to support them is critical in developing shared leadership and coaching your team to improve performance. When leaders place listening as a priority, they increase the likelihood of not missing opportunities for team learning and growth. By not prejudging or interrupting contributions from colleagues and teams, they develop the conditions for shared leadership.

What does leading with empathy look like in practice? Leading with empathy includes being socially-aware, recognizing and validating others’ emotions, and responding to individual needs. Practicing active listening and asking clarifying questions increases understanding and strengthens the leader's ability to provide supports that produce better outcomes.

Practice 3: Promote Diverse Perspectives

Leaders play a critical role in the communication that takes place within and among their teams, allowing for the effective exchange of ideas and messages in a non-judgmental environment. All team members need to feel a part of the team and know their voices are heard and honored.

Why is promoting diverse perspectives important? Diverse perspectives serve to leverage the skills, experience and expertise of team members that will likely result in more effective decisions or outcomes. Leaders need to hear and embrace various cultural, experiential and generational perspectives found in their teams. The need to make decisions inclusive of all voices will support in meeting the wide spectrum of student needs across different learning models. Given the unique circumstances in which there is a lack of experiences leading in time of significant uncertainty and where there is not a clearly defined or known effective solution, diverse perspectives can serve to address these adaptive challenges.

What does promoting diverse perspectives look like in practice? To promote diverse perspectives, leaders need the ability to embrace their own vulnerability, create feedback loops and allow for individuals to effectively exchange ideas where all voices are heard and honored in a safe, transparent environment. As the expressed needs of students, families and staff continuously change, intentionally created opportunities for collaborative dialogue promote solutions that are inclusive of all team member voices. In addition, asking for feedback to ensure clarity and understanding that can be effective in promoting diverse perspectives.

Practice 4: Foster Professional Growth and Teacher Leadership

Rather than operating in isolation, leaders need to leverage the influence of teachers to extend beyond classrooms and to others within their own school, district and community: “Teacher leadership refers to that set of skills demonstrated by teachers who continue to teach students but also have an influence that extends beyond their own classrooms to others within their own school and elsewhere” (Danielson, 2006). These opportunities for professional growth and shared leadership include participating in teams at the teacher, school and district levels.

Why is fostering professional growth and teacher leadership important? Collaborative team settings create the space, process and structures where teacher voices can be elevated and influence school and district decision-making. Leaders at all levels of the system must continue learning and growing in the face of changing/unplanned disruption. Providing these professional growth opportunities serves to build the capacity of others to lead regardless if they are a teacher or an administrator. Teachers are in the best position to track and evaluate student learning in the environment. As a result, focusing on developing teacher leaders is paramount in responding to school and district challenges effectively. Leaders become motivated to be competent in their practice, they engage colleagues to encourage further collaboration and they lead parents and community members to greater roles in educating students. The actions of teachers working in collaborative teams, adding their feedback and leveraging their influence results in well-informed and effective decisions for students, teachers and the school community.

What does fostering professional growth and teacher leadership look like in practice? The primary purpose of implementing these structures is to provide feedback, propose solutions and assist leaders in making decisions (i.e., shared decision making). Where there are teams of teachers working together in the organizational structure of schools, there are changes in work routines and relationships, and increased involvement in decision-making (Leithwood et al., 1997). Rather than operating in isolation or feeling as if one must have all the answers or be an expert, leaders should work to develop collaborative structures that support learning and instruction, through sharing successful practices with their colleagues. Leaders and teachers, themselves, need to be learning every day.

Practice 5: Support of Team Collaboration

Leaders (both teachers and administrators) play a crucial role in supporting the conditions for successful cultures of district, school and collaborative teams. Collective teams are more effective when leaders fully engage as participants and provide needed support. When teams of educators meet consistently and with purpose, collective efficacy can develop when common teaching strategies produce greater student learning.

Why is supporting team collaboration important? Previous research has shown that collaboration can enhance collegiality, increase team efficacy and contribute to teacher professional development (Nelson et al., 2008). When confronted with changed scenarios and altered environments, such as the global pandemic, supporting team

collaboration is vitally needed, required and expected on the part of those educators entrusted with leadership responsibilities. As a result, leaders play a significant role in modeling and prioritizing the importance of collaboration among colleagues during uncertain times.

What does supporting team collaboration look like in practice? A shared leadership model can only be as effective and successful as the collective inquiry and efficacy of the team. Supporting this collective inquiry means that the building or district leader has trust in the process and is able to relinquish control of the work to the teams. Once a leader is able to do this, they can spend their time and energy to further develop their own self-awareness and reflection as they grow professionally.

Practice 6: Engage in Reflective Practice

Collective inquiry and reflection are keys to organizational success (Fullan, 2005). Leaders can provide time and space to their team for reflective practice. Reflection can work to help build consensus that keeps the team moving forward and provides an opportunity to voice their reflections as a key outcome. Reflective practice helps to integrate the other shared leadership practices together and ensure that focus is maintained on goals with desired outcomes for students and staff.

Why is engaging in reflective practice important? Reflective practices support leaders in decision making which keeps the team moving forward in a positive direction. Taking a moment to pause and reflect (creating time and space) allows teams to be more thoughtful and strategic in their decision-making, rather than simply relying on the first suggestion or loudest voice. A rapidly changing environment requires teachers and leaders to engage in ongoing and continuous reflection in order to best leverage the collective knowledge, experience, and creativity of all team members. A structured reflective dialogue becomes even more critical for teachers to learn what is effective and apply their own learning to meet the needs of an ever-changing educational environment.

What does engaging in reflective practice look like? Considerate and careful listening is the key ingredient in the reflective process. Reflection requires intentional planning that establishes the time and space dedicated to this practice. Leaders can enhance efficacy through the preparation of deeper reflective questioning and facilitating dialogue that moves beyond surface level considerations that impact decision- making. Additionally, reflecting on collaborative processes such as what went as expected, what was surprising and what could be different the next time the protocol, process or strategy is employed will result in continuous improvement of professional practice for leaders and teachers.

Practice 7: Celebrate Successes

Leaders spend a significant amount of their time focused on “fixing problems.” The pandemic has placed a significant amount of stress on schools and districts around the world. The result for leaders is intense pressure and an overwhelming feeling that enough is not being done. Leaders need to make sure that celebrating success becomes embedded in their school and district

cultures. The explicit acknowledgement of success by the leader sets the tone and allows teams the opportunity to both understand and celebrate their impact.

Why is celebrating successes important? Celebrating successes in a genuine and authentic way can foster continued team success. By celebrating success, leaders reinforce motivation and acknowledge progress toward the overall goal especially in times of uncertainty. Leaders can guide their celebratory process that can carry teams over to their next challenge and increase both self and collective efficacy.

What does celebrating success look like in practice? Leaders can support celebrations through strategic use of staff meeting time, creating opportunities for teams to share successes, posting successes on school and district websites, directly communicating successes with staff and students, thanking people personally, using social media to acknowledge success and creating “spotlights” for high achieving teams.

Conclusion

Shared leadership consists of a set of intricately and intertwined practices that come together to move learning forward for students, teachers and staff. The implementation of these practices creates opportunities for school and districts to co-construct more equitable conditions that transcend the model of education being implemented by school and district leaders. Trust, empathy, diverse perspectives, teacher leadership, professional growth, collaboration, reflection and celebration serve as a roadmap for ensuring a pathway toward increased student achievement. Engaging in these practices will result in school cultures of high engagement and progress for each member of the community.

REFERENCES

Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead: Brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts. London: Vermilion.

Danielson, C. (2006). Teacher leadership that strengthens professional practice. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Edmondson, A. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son.

Eppinga et al., (2018). What’s (relational) trust have to do with it. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar18/vol75/num06/What's- (Relational)-Trust-Have-to-Do-with-It%C2%A2.aspx

Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and sustainability: Systems thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Fullan, M., & A. Hargreaves. (1996). What’s worth fighting for in your school? New York, NY: Teachers College.

Goddard, R. D., Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, W. K. (2001). A multilevel examination of the distribution and effects of teacher trust in students and parents in urban elementary schools. The Elementary School Journal, 102(1), 3-17.

Kellet, J.B, Humphrey, R.H, Sleeth, R.G (2002). Empathy and complex task performance: Two routes to leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 13(5), pp 523-544.

Leithwood, K., & Seashore-Louis, K. (2012). Linking leadership to student learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Son.

Leithwood, K., Steinbach, R., & Ryan, S. (1997). Leadership and team learning in secondary schools. School Leadership and Management, 17(3), 303-325.

Nelson, T. H., Slavit, D., Perkins, M., & Hathorn, T. (2008). A culture of collaborative inquiry: Learning to develop and support professional learning communities. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org/library/abstract.

Tschannen-Moran, M. (2014). Trust matters: Leadership for successful schools. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Son.

Authors’ Biographies

Rodney Harrelson, Ed.D. serves as an educational strategist and consultant for RTH Strategic Planning and Consulting, LLC. Dr. Harrelson previously served in a variety of roles at Columbus (Ohio) City Schools, including as a district administrator supporting school improvement efforts in the district's lowest performing schools. His work brings expertise in school improvement and inclusive instructional leadership practices research to districts and schools.

Greg VanHorn, Ph.D. has been working with Columbus City Schools for the past three years in the role of coaching elementary principals. His experience includes administrative duties as an elementary/middle school principal, director of special education, high school assistant principal and athletic director. Co-Founder of VanHorn Educational Consultants, he also recently earned his Ph.D. in Education with study focus in the areas of collaborative inquiry teams and school improvement initiatives.

Pam VanHorn, Ph.D., Co-Founder of VanHorn Educational Consultants, has served in leadership, consulting, and educator roles for the University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, Ohio Department of Education, Ashland University, and a number of urban and suburban school districts. Her experience includes leading systemic-wide and state-wide school improvement efforts in Ohio.

PEDAGOGY AND 21st CENTURY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: TEACHING DURING A PANDEMIC AND IMPROVING AN OUTDATED MODEL

Martí Teixidó School Inspector and Associate Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Catalunya- España)

ABSTRACT:

During the COVID-19 pandemic a confinement in Barcelona, Spain forced the closure of schools and institutes. To partially compensate for the lack of face-to-face schooling, teachers did their best to activate personal telematics communications and provide students with digital resources and applications. We, teachers, had the instruments and devices but we had still decided to use them regularly. Soon we discovered teaching usefulness that we could not do it the same way we had been doing it in class. And at the same time, we saw how we could streamline digital teaching. Digital devices and connections needed to be increased, but digital technology itself will not change our schools. However, today we cannot do school without digital technologies. It is part of learning, an instructional skill that all students must learn. Stopping to teach by tradition – how we, the teachers, were taught – we must explore the systems and methods of twentieth-century scientific pedagogy to find the most appropriate uses for education and not just copy those of mass communication.

PEDAGOGY AND 21st CENTURY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: TEACHING DURING A PANDEMIC AND IMPROVING AN OUTDATED MODEL School education at the beginning of the 21st century

From the year 2000 onwards, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports on school education were disseminated and generalized, articulated with the reports Education at a Glance – (OECD Indicators des 2000); the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA tests since 2000); and the Teaching and Learning International Survey reports since 2008 (TALIS). It should be noted that these are programs and reports of the OECD that took the initiative at a time when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was focused on the literacy of developing countries: "Therefore, the main objective of this project is the competition, assessment and interpretation of this information to improve educational methods and respond to current situations. At least the main gear of society is focused on education, so the assessment of education systems and the commitment to improvement are of real relevance, thus perpetrating an improvement of a social nature."

Over the past twenty years, in Catalunya, Spain, the focus on performance indicators, and concern for improved outcomes has been escalated by governments, in certain families of students, and in school management. The emphasis has been on finding strategies to achieve the best results for student learning. The tests available to prepare children for the PISA tests have increased in number, along with the families wanting to know the results to assist them in making the choice of a school for their child.

In the last fifteen years in Catalunya there has been a significant number of schools that have introduced important changes in their organization. It has been a progressive, inductive process varying the grouping system by age and level, working on specific projects that integrate subjects and introduce cultural activities that used to be outside the conventional activity. However, except for these exceptions that have been grouped under denominations such as: Alive and Active School, Innovative Schools, Escola Nova 21 and schools of institutions that have made their own projects such as Summem, Horitzó 2020, or project called with the company. The current school maintains a conventional model inherited from the school of the enlightened: homogeneous group of students by age and level, teaching organized by subjects, fragmented timing, school activity and homework, summative assessment and level promotion at the end of the school year.

Thus, we can say that three modalities can be observed by supervision. 1. Conventional schools, we cannot say traditional, since with groups, official subjects and traditional schedules they have introduced active school procedures, participatory activities and initiatives arising from current cultural uses. 2. Innovative schools that want to break radically with the traditional school and make flexible groupings, dedicate a good number of hours to integrated projects of various subjects and promote the maximum participation of the student, also in the self-evaluation. 3. Schools that prioritize the improvement of school results and introduce intensive practices to

improve certain results or skills such as reading, arithmetic, and foreign language and are very focused on what is called ‘instrumental learning.’

In all three modalities there is an absence of foundation in the models, systems, methods and techniques of twentieth-century scientific pedagogy. The history of education, or more precisely of pedagogy, leaves reliable evidence of those that have a scientific basis and consistency. On the other hand, the latest positivist research in neuroscience confirms the contributions of evolutionary psychology and marries the contributions of the sociology of education. Neuroscience also explains and confirms pedagogical renewal practices that were initially intuitive for some teachers, evidence of effectiveness when incorporated by other teachers, and yet leaves some practices in the personal art of singular teachers for whom but which cannot be transferred to other teachers.

In these experiences of innovation there is a clear attention to transform the school and change the organization: “A protocol of change has been developed (combination of coaching, training and resources) that allows a systematic update of the educational schools.” (Escola Nova 21The method has been to collect practices of the schools considered advanced to extend it to others with the good orientation of cooperative networking. "A humanizing project, our organizational culture, support, sustainability, evaluation and educational model.” (Jesuïtes educació, 2020). The point is to update the ideology of the company. They are innovation projects to get out of a certain sluggishness at school and limited effectiveness and at the same time be present in society as an alternative. That is why they are underpinned by global goals and show new organizational forms of the classroom and resources. We can say that they are a philosophy of education, built on intentions. They correspond, to a greater or lesser degree, to the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations (2015).

Other projects are more focused on how to learn by adopting various teaching modalities. "An interdisciplinary and cooperative learning, which helps children and young people to learn and solve real problems, and which helps them to achieve attitudes and skills, in the face of a constantly changing society like ours." (Escola Pia de Catalunya).

The key purpose focuses on students and guides teaching (technical pedagogy) articulating basic instrumental learning in a systematic way with interdisciplinary work to ensure meaningful and competent learning.

There is research-innovation that moves a hundred schools focused on the purpose of language learning with plurilingual intercomprehension. “The uniform treatment of the language cannot respond to a society as diverse as ours. We cannot transplant other people's models without adjusting them to our social, cultural and linguistic reality.” (MELvives, 2015). Marc d’Ensenyament de Llengües Vives [Living Language Teaching Framework] is structured on the basis of scientific principles of neuropsychology, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. It points out the aims, describes the tensions that need to be balanced and the landmarks of each school to make decisions. With this framework we have developed adjusted eight pedagogical instruments with the participation of territorial working groups of schools that describe practices and guide a progressive consolidation.

It should be noted that we are achieving improvements in schools by the will and enthusiastic dedication of teachers but perhaps in some cases we cannot ensure that they have continuity by scientific professional consensus of the whole professional community of education. And in this profession, we are too used to everyone posturing by personal opinion and judgment, that we lack a collective progress that is only possible with shared scientific and technical pedagogy. Surprisingly, no reference is made to any of the pedagogical methods or systems tested in the twentieth century. The pedagogue Martí Teixidó presented a review of the pedagogical systems of the 20th century in relation to basic competences, showing the validity of systems that have a scientific basis and provide rules for action and organization. "Pedagogical system and basic skills." (Teixidó, 2009, pp. 213-248). Observing the practices of various schools, we see that its own terminology is introduced without knowing that is delimited: educational project, pedagogical project, interest centers, pedagogical renewal, educational innovations. We keep this in mind in the development of this contribution.

The school institution and the needs of children and young people in the digital information society

The school institution provides children and adolescents with a teaching-learning environment in which teachers are a model of culture – a culture that shares the emotional dimension of the family and continues with the rational dimension. This is much more than the accompaniment often invoked.

We must synthesize the above models without contradiction. The teacher organizes learning situations (rather than showing knowledge), the student participates with his interests developing activity (physical and mental), the common reference is knowledge and culture (prestigious, popular and technological).

Today, culture has expanded into a new dimension, information technology with multiple digital accessibility. The teacher is a user and a learner at the same time, given the evolution of resources and accompanies the student in this digital learning that gives a new formality to knowledge and culture without prejudice to direct experience. The joint learning within a group, more or less cooperative, of equals and also of adults in coexistence, creates a complex of relations and stimuli essential for a personal, social and humanistic education that develops the consciousness of the responsibility for the world and for life.

Adjustment of the school organization to ensure health protection against COVID-19

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our country as well as every country on the planet. Researchers, doctors and health professionals have been deriving protective measures to prevent the spread of the disease (Canal Salut Generalitat de Catalunya, 2020). They fully affect the school, an environment of maximum proximity like the family, but at the same time of the full diversity in a multicultural society. Initially, it was necessary to completely confine the children and the population to their homes. Subsequently, health professionals have synthesized the specific rules to be able to return to school, obviously in limited conditions. Teachers have tried to keep the school model with minimal changes, and this has been impossible to resolve in a

pandemic situation. However, it was imperative to explore models of twentieth-century pedagogy that provide consistency and at the same time offer diversity for the same purposes.

Exploring the models of twentieth-century pedagogy means knowing how to analyze them in the context in which they were projected and transfer them to our context today, making the necessary adaptations. This context is characterized by mass-communication and digital technologies. Great adaptations as they offer us information, transmission and storage technology and we can incorporate the learning content we know we need. In education, McLuhan's thesis on communication The medium is the message (1964) is partially fulfilled. It is not met if the learning objectives and contents are well systematized with pedagogical consistency. Yes, it is fulfilled because by incorporating digital technologies we are making it easier for students to learn as before they learned from books, and before books they only learned from oral communication. So, it’s time to take a big step in pedagogical renewal by integrating pedagogical systems with the possibilities of digital technologies that we’ve had to implement, whether we like it or not, out of necessity due to the long confinement of students in their homes. We must turn the problem around and transform it into a general opportunity in a time of receptivity.

Forms of pedagogical intervention and proposals for education policy

• Set up groupings in a semi-group (12 or 15 students) with a teacher or professor each. A possible variation is students of two consecutive levels, particularly to bring together siblings or from the same cohabitation unit. • Single continuous session of three or four hours. Displacements are reduced, yard times difficult to manage. It involves organizing time in six or eight modules of different activity such as a long radio program. The other two hours of personal work are done at home. Some students with less work autonomy may be cared for by teachers at school or high school. • The problem of duplicating spaces is avoided. Morning and afternoon shifts can be offered at the beginning, and families can make this compatible with their working hours. Also, each teacher can arrange an alternative space in museum, athenaeum, house, civic centre, library and some squares and parks with conditions to sit. From September to December the weather is good in our country (Catalunya).

School time (3 or 4 hours)

Motivation and opportunity to share knowledge, communicating and listening, Conversational mode (30 minutes).

Presentation of knowledge tasks carried out personally or in a team to illustrate to classmates (30 minutes). The teacher will give access to students in successive sessions or teams ensuring content and recognition to all.

Common book reading club. (30 minutes) The student reads at home, is encouraged to share their reading and dialogue about their book with relatives. The teacher has selected a suggestive

book, comprehensible but demanding, and difficult, so the student can lead it himself. Topics or themes of interest that students or teams can develop should be extracted from the reading. From the reading the teacher will make grammatical, orthographic or contrast applications with languages (Catalan / Galician / English / French / Portuguese) already known, but not well learned systematically yet.

Master class or, better, communicative class (approximately 30 minutes). A key topic in the school curriculum is well prepared by the teacher in content structure and didactic presentation. The teacher models of communication and organization of thought. The lesson must be accurate and, include challenges and questions. The aim is let students think at home and engage in a dialogue with relatives.

Creation module: music, art, museums, plastic arts, video creation, graffiti-art (30 minutes) A participatory module based on what art hunting students contribute. The teacher should always have something interesting in reserve. A specialist may intervene, but the regular teacher must present himself as a person of integral basic culture.

Synthesis. Orientation of study, research and creation options (30 minutes). Arouse personal commitments of realization or of cooperation teams that will be able to present in later sessions.

There is no leisure time. It’s three hours and an articulated and dynamic face-to-face class like a radio show (there may be singing and musical tunes in the change of activity). Going out in the yard is an added complication of vigilance and time that doesn’t compensate.

As in a a large and flexible office, students can bring a bottle of water or juice (one day you can accept coke) and dry crumbs (breadcrumbs, cookies, almonds, hazelnuts, cashews without shell) which they can take at any time while not intervening and without leaving residue. Of course, students will be able to go out to the toilet at any time. What is needed is to ensure hygiene and disinfection. It’s better not to go all at once but there must be an adult attending.

A rewarding meeting personally and culturally collectively. Activities are not homework. Anticipate music and song in any transition. We take the opportunity to improve a school where little is sung and worse is breathed. Song is very complete activity: ortophonic (speech therapist), voice modulation and vocabulary memory. It should be sung more often, without recorded music.

Home time (lock down) (2 hours)

Instrumental learning. These exercises are individual and involve repetition for fixation (30 minutes'). The programmed instruction (Skinner, 1954; Crowder, 1959) is suitable for these learnings (operative, spelling, vocabulary, languages; in secondary typing, few polynomials, equations, triangulation and trigonometry) is not yet well utilized. The teacher will do the supervision to confirm or reorient.

Individual reading of the assignment of the common book (30 minutes). Suggest conversation with parents, older siblings, or grandparents. Having has a conversation about the book at home family members will want to intervene in face-to-face class.

Personal work on topics of knowledge, experiments, documentation, and study. Teamwork (2-4 students) with good script, assignment of tasks and consultations or telematics exchanges (shared unit, chat, video, mail) (90 minutes).

Research, invention and personal or collaborative creation activities (30 minutes). The story of a song or a monument, discovery of a unique building, making an automaton with reusable material (TV ideas), writing and designing a graphic (or manifesto) narrative…

The teacher and classmates will give clues to sources of information to develop work. The teacher will organize presentation time in person or by video conference. A three-hour daily dedication is forecast.

If personal motivation is achieved, students will tend to spend more time on the activity without realizing it. Diversified cultural tasks and activities are proposed to match students’ interests.

It is necessary to promote the communication of knowledge in the family. No standardization or correction is required. It is necessary to provoke activity on the initiative of the student. Public communication to peers is a stimulus and is already a first assessment, self-assessment.

We will try to offer discretionary face-to-face sessions with a personal tutor to those students that we know have unfavourable learning conditions.

Resistance to incorporating changes to keep the model consolidated (Nothing will be the same.)

It is time to change mentality regarding school education. The pandemic has paralyzed us for some months, but it is time to reorient education and not reproduce the banking model (Freire, 1969), where tables are arranged facing the blackboard or the PDI (interactive digital screen. With 25 children or 30 teenagers, we could personalize more and go beyond group education, which was the same as when there were class sizes of 40 or 70 students. Twentieth-century pedagogy has made great scientific and technical contributions that have only been explored in a small number of schools. And even in some of these, the pedagogical renewal has been done with emotion, with intuition, but with very little scientific direction. Scientific-technical pedagogy is that developed in Catalunya by Alexandre Galí, Eladi Homs, and Artur Martorell. They followed the initiative of Ovide Decroly, Maria Montessori, and John Dewey. Years later, Célestin and Élise Freinet (1945) developed the pedagogy of cooperative work, Ivan Illich changed the school for cultural circles and Paulo Freire did the pedagogy of awareness. This pedagogy can apply intuitions and introduce innovations but with a systemic vision. See what other factors need to be adjusted and the learning outcomes evaluated in relation to the educational process, that is, continuous assessment.

Not resolved by law. What is needed are good (competent) teachers with knowledge, culture and good communication. The writer and pedagogue Joan Triadú (1989) very clearly characterized the school teacher or secondary school teacher: 1. Language training, 2. Psycho-pedagogical training, 3. Philosophical training, 4. Training in ICT and media and 5. Cultural training.

Open classrooms show effective ways to teach, and other teachers can learn by modelling. In recent years, it has become usual for two teachers to work together with the same students, and if they had different profiles, both have opportunities to grow professionally.

New teaching procedures need to be rethought using the simplest resources to reach the same learning or increasing the difficulty of learning. If contents are too easy, learning is lessened.

There are still computer classrooms, with individual children facing the screen. Poor use of digital technology can be customized. Kindergarten-aged children with tablets are motivated and they are instructed, but not learned. With good personal ability children can learn and practice ‘instructional learning,’ but in general the intervention of the teacher is needed to access comprehensive knowledge, and group learning is needed to progress.

For technology, digitized memory does not replace personal memory recorded in permanent active brain synapses. For oral language, words are the expressive support of thought and later, written language will be the objective support that allows complex thinking. Continuously expanding your vocabulary is the basis for learning and broad thinking. An undesirable model is demonstrated by the teacher who continually uses the word ‘work’ just as the smurfs say ‘smurfing’ many times.

If we do not improve the linguistic competence and cultural breadth of teachers, they will not be teachers, and they will not be able to show knowledge, neither with expression, nor with content. After high school, teachers must be selected, not by grade and level or cut-off score, but by personal competence, through an interview and performance where they demonstrate their quality.

No exams or homework for students. (It had already been done in Barcelona in 1904 at the Modern School of Ferrer i Guàrdia). Finishing at home what could not be done at school is really absurd. Assessment is not an exam at the end. It is an observation and continuous assessment to adjust the learning to the process of each student.

Traditional or modern cannot be a typification of the school. Knowledge is the result of wisdom of tradition and certainty of science. Pedagogy must be articulated between tradition (cultural, pedagogical) and innovation (scientific and technological). There is pre-scientific pedagogical knowledge in Socrates, and in Paideia, the study best explained by Werner Jäger (1947), in Doctrina pueril i Blaquerna by Ramon Llull (1276) and in Introductio ad sapientam by Joan- Lluís Vives (1514). The scientific contributions are those of Jan-Amos Komensky, Baldiri Reixac, Johann-Heinrich Pestalozzi, Johann-Friedrich Herbart, Friedrich Fröbel that underlie the pedagogical renewal of the twentieth century that in Catalunya was promoted (1909-1939), unlike other countries, by the official institutions.

Tradition and innovation example (Teixidó, 2011). To learn multiplication tables with a traditional procedure you do not need the graphics tablet. Nor it is not appropriate to teach a digital application for six students from the board. Competitions are not conducive to comprehensive teaching and do not require digital devices. Principle: Use the simplest procedure for greatest learning; If you use powerful means, you must suggest more complex learnings. It is simpler and more effective for learning for each child to build their own Cartesian multiplication table, first on paper. But for children with difficulties the traditional and old procedure of singing the tables is still valid.

The atmosphere of order and beauty of the school is very important. It is not common to talk about it, but it is obvious from school images and recordings. They are aesthetic patterns that the child internalizes regardless of the words. Nowadays, as a result of the mass media, there is a graphic with an excess of childishness copied from the audio-visual animations that the school should not reproduce. We need to present aesthetic models that are incorporated into the education of children and adolescents.

Unfortunately, it is true that education is only of interest to the parents directly affected, by the education of the children or only by custody when they cannot take care of them. It is a matter for the whole tribe as José-Antonio Marina always says, for the whole city as pointed out in Plato's The Republic. The “Pacte per la Infància a Catalunya” (2013) [The Pact for Children in Catalonia] projects this but has not yet taken root.

Conclusions and discussion

The subject of the teaching specialty in compulsory secondary or primary is derived. Every teacher is trained in the rigor of a discipline or scientific field but has a broad basic knowledge of the whole culture. Epistemological connections strengthen knowledge, and the teacher must always present them, even if they act as a specialist. Obviously, a teacher may be lacking in one area and will have the specialist colleague to help him, perhaps in some cases act (language, music, physical education practice) in some of its contents. Optional subjects can be tried and tested as optional activities. In limited periods we can compensate.

The continuous four-hour session at school increases colloquial activity with very limited teaching exhibition and cooperative learning among students and an opportunity to greatly improve oral expression, communication, exposition, oratory and rhetoric. The teacher is the first to self-orient and become a model and regulator of students. We are reviving Socratic dialogue teaching, we have the schoolbook designed by Comenius for technical education, and we live in the Global Communication Village announced by McLuhan (1967). Telematics integrates everything and makes it available with a device and an access line that must be universal today. But in the educational stage, everything returns to the face-to-face communication of teachers (who show up) and students (fed by knowledge) who learn together.

Two hours of learning at home enhances personal exercise, activity planning, and time regulation. We will accustom the students to write down the times dedicated to each activity because we will have anticipated to them the forecast of time that we have established.

Focus on the basics of the resume is not good idea. This is a return to traditional pedagogy: learning by reception and memory. Rather, it is necessary to present well-developed cases with observation, induction, association, and structuring that serve as a methodological model. Students will develop other cases, several of which can be presented in class or explained to classmates. The most basic learning is the discipline of thinking today exponentially enhanced with access to information on the Internet. Personal competence is knowing how to search (tree of knowledge), knowing how to contrast (certainty) and knowing how to integrate various sources (interdisciplinarity) in a coherent way.

Needless to say, attendance is mandatory. Families already know that it is necessary, but it is necessary to understand the initial insecurity that usually corresponds to those who have their own resources. It must be remembered that when the universality of education for all was proclaimed, it became the obligation of the public authorities, not of the citizens. For children under the age of six, in a situation of pandemic, it would be better to strengthen the self- organization of families by taking care of groups of four or five children in a home. Being in school without sensory contact and proximity becomes an excessive constraint and is often poorly managed by teachers.

Today, the school or high school has an otherwise inevitable opportunity to contribute to the health education that every citizen needs. With adolescents in particular, a good treatment of health issues must have an impact in conversations, in family communication. The family-school alliance benefits learning conditions, especially if they find coincidence and reinforcement in the media. ◼

REFERENCES

Canal Salut Generalitat de Catalunya. (2020). Protection rules and all the information on the Health and School channel has raised in Catalunya. Accessed September 12, 2020 from: https://canalsalut.gencat.cat/ca/salut-a-z/c/coronavirus-2019-ncov/ciutadania/salut-escola/

Escola Nova 21, project. Accessed September 12, 2020 from: https://www.escolanova21.cat/

Escola Pia de Catalunya, project “Summem”. Accessed September 12, 2020 from: https://www.escolapia.cat/summem/ .

Jesuïtes educació, project “Horitzó. (2020). Accessed September 12, 2020 from http://h2020.fje.edu/

MELvives (2015). Marc d’Ensenyament de Llengües Vives, [Living Language Teaching Framework] prepared by Societat Catalana de Pedagogia a subsidiary of l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Departament d’Educació Infantil i Primària of the Grup Promotor / Santillana, 2015, p. 15. http://blogs.iec.cat/scp/

Pacte per la Infància a Catalunya. (2013). [The Pact for Children in Catalonia, was approved by the Parliament of Catalonia in 1913]. Accessed September 12, 2020 from: https://www.parlament.cat/document/intrade/44656

Teixidó, M.. (2011). “Pedagogical system and basic competences” Revista Catalana de Pedagogia, 7, 2009-2010. Barcelona 2011, 213-248. http://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/RCP/issue/view/4460/showToc

Teixidó, M. (2011). Example explained in Martí Teixidó: “Pedagogical system and basic competences” Revista Catalana de Pedagogia, Vol. 7, 2009-2010. Barcelona 2011, pp: 244-245. http://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/RCP/issue/view/4460/showToc

Triadú, J. (1989). “Teacher training”, presentation at the 1989 School Council of Catalonia Conference.

United Nations (2015), Agenda_2030/nacions-unides/ Accessed September 12, 2020 from: http://cads.gencat.cat/ca/

“WHEN WE THOUGHT WE HAD ALL THE ANSWERS...”: The Binomi.online 3.0 Technopedagogical Project, online and remote teaching

Maria de Montserrat Oliveras Ballús Official College of Doctors and Graduates in Philosophy and Arts and Sciences of Catalonia (CDL) Catalan Society of Pedagogy (SCP-IEC) Official College of Pedagogy of Catalonia (COPEC) BINOMI Technopedagogical Centre

ABSTRACT

Did the COVID-19 pandemic transform the convictions we had as educators and as persons before 2020? Did the educational parameters and paradigms become more complex and uncertain?

The COVID-19 pandemic is a reality that has probably been described by Mario Benedetti: “When we thought we had all the answers, suddenly, all the questions changed” (Benedetto, 1993).

This article aims to be the calm transcript of some reflections and experiential evidence that help me in this writing, inspired by this quote of Mario Benedetti (Uruguayan journalist, novelist and poet); a quote that probably acquires in these moments, more than ever, a special relevance.

The writing that you have in your hands, is the result of my commitment to collaborate in the ongoing training of teachers and offer them support, and the need to share this psychopedagogical experience and technopedagogical experiences in times of pandemic through the Technopedagogical Project Binomi.online 3.0.

A vital transcription that starts from an academic purpose with the pedagogical objective that, altogether, it can become useful and accessible knowledge, particularly for the benefit of the children of the world. For this reason, and with great pleasure, I present in this WFATE Journal the methodology and techniques of Binomi.online 3.0, a resource, essentially simple and economical, and with good results during the pandemic lockdown.

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“WHEN WE THOUGHT WE HAD ALL THE ANSWERS...”: The Binomi.online 3.0 Technopedagogical Project, online and remote teaching

INTRODUCTION

This academic article was born from the commitment to collaborate in the ongoing teaching of educators and to support them, with the need to share psychopedagogical and technopedagogical experiences in times of pandemic. Disciplines that deal with psychological, pedagogical or technological aspects with aim to improve training, welfare and development processes necessary to enable people to make complex decisions and meet the needs of the 21st century.

These lines are the historical moment that places us in an unexpected reality, that is probably described by Mario Benedetti: “When we thought we had all the answers, suddenly, all the questions changed.” (Beneditti, 1993). A quote that doubtless in these moments acquires, more than ever, a very special relevance as the certainties we had before 2020, have turned out to be more complex and uncertain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is important to highlight that the intention of this paper is to talk about a reality lived in the forefront as an essential service in the face of the educational emergency that is being experienced at a global level. An educational reality experienced virtually, has allowed us to react and value new psycho-educational opportunities and possibilities, very likely as our predecessors faced in other historical moments of humanity in times of pandemic and crisis, facing the needs of the people and safeguarding fundamental rights.

The focus of this paper is the personalization of the online psychoeducational process, in “Blended learning ‘through’ clips BINOMI” or the post-lockdown combined learning modality (activities that combine the work in the virtual environment with face-to-face sessions).

I will talk about a psychoeducational accompaniment that for decades I have been lucky to carry out in person in unique educational ecosystems. Now it has become even more necessary than before to be able to entrust this work and knowledge to place, in the online teaching, the student as a motor of its own learning in a virtual educational environment. In other words, the pandemic and the necessary lockdown that were imposed in different areas of the planet, have highlighted a praxis, that now more than ever, has made it possible to adjust, so that learning to learn would have a real context for the educator.

The reality of the COVID-19 lockdown has provided the opportunity to highlight educational methodologies and techniques that respond to the specific needs of personalized online teaching to develop academic content guided and oriented towards the capacities of each teacher. This situation has led teachers and the educational system itself to keep in mind the person that each student is, altogether considering their own natural tendencies, their interests, their learning needs, etc. (Freinet, 1974; Bray & McClaskey, 2015) towards a development that allowed us to take general elements to adapt them to the transmission, the management, organization, and the accompaniment of the students.

The experience that I will share below is a living testimony to how the conviction that every student is unique (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1980) can be deeply embraced. A deep conviction moves me to share this

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experience to encourage teachers to take the undeniable commitment to provide students the capacity to ‘think outside the box’, combining in an original way knowledge already acquired.

This article, will be the story of the educational experiences lived virtually in times of pandemic (from March to November 2020) offering students in a personalized way the possibility to learn how to think, learn to know, and learn how to use the knowledge. However, I will also include aspects and references from a decade full of educational compromise, offering the possibility to move robotic devices created by students remotely. From this intensely lived reality I can confirm that all the protagonists of this online learning and teaching process have had an authentic opportunity to develop their own skills to find real solutions and drive their own learning in the framework of personalized methodology and didactics.

In short, the lines of this writing, as aforementioned, aim to be the story of a personalized online accompaniment, not individualized, which has been allowed to escape from an intention to delay and push students from a standardized and/or normative perspective.

PEDAGOGICAL COMPROMISE

My vocation and compromise have always encouraged me to do research, to know and understand those techniques, methodologies and didactics that could offer the students the possibility to develop cognitive processes, skills, abilities, creativity, reasoned thinking, etc. From this angle, the technopedagogical experience started through educational robotics in 1991 and the learnings shared remotely that started in 2012, have inspired the design, in these times of global pandemic in 2020, the innovative initiative of Binomi.online 3.0, online learning sessions that highlight the importance of the student as a driver of its own learning, from a quality proposal, consistent, solid, clearly credible, consolidated and aligned with the pedagogical values of 21st century Europe.

The pedagogical commitment that has allowed this remote learning is the result of a firm conviction to value each student as the unique person they are since birth; and to respect them unconditionally and always place them in the centre of the teaching and learning process (Zabala & Arnau, 2007).

The technological evolution without precedent, a reality with new needs (Latorre, 2019), the vertiginous changes from these last months, an academic world that is very likely not the only reference about the knowledge and abilities of a person (as it was during the 20th century) has made it necessary to generate educational experiences such as those we have faced due to the pandemic: a reality placed inside a democratic pedagogical framework, that allows students to develop the reasoned and critical thinking; together with one’s own creativity and all those unique combinations of abilities and skills that give the person the necessary potential to make complex decisions and achieve the challenges with responsibility while assuming its consequences (Alimisis, Moro & Menegatti, 2017).

The pandemic has spurred us to say from the psychopedagogy that self-learning is very important to empower the person and make them aware of their own talent, abilities and skills and thus become the author of one’s own existence. Therefore, in the 21st century, where Artificial Intelligence is already a reality, we have dedicated our compromise from Binomi.online 3.0 to make available to people, online tools and strategies to develop and manage talent, skills and personal abilities, contributing to the teaching, well-being and development in all the evolutive and educational stages of people (childhood, youth and adulthood).

My constant educational research with the pedagogical reflection that it entails, in accordance with my professional commitment, has allowed me to learn about studies and psychopedagogical references (Trilla, 2001; Bueno, 2017) and thus arrive at a more appropriate formulation of didactic and pedagogical methods in this situation of planetary pandemic.

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Below, I will share a brief reference foundation that has been part of this pedagogical path: Freinet and their idea of workshops and creative freedom as a categorical bulwark (Freinet, 1996; Teixidó, 2003); Montessori and their solid arguments that emphasise student-led activities and teacher observation (Montessori, 1937, 1939); Piaget and the concern for the learning in a broad sense, through which cognitive and qualitative changes occur and lead to a new way of organizing mental schemes (Piaget, 1975, 1980; Bringuier,1977; Papert, 1984), Vygotsky and the importance of the verbalization and the language with the desirability to value the bidirectional relation between learning and development (Vygotsky, 1979, 2010); Dewey and the defence of the importance to show students the instrumental value of the thought through trial and error to solve real problematic situations from practical situations and technical means (Dewey, 1985); Decroly and the pedagogical assets of the interest centres and the globalization of the learning (Decroly, 1987; Decroly & Boon, 1965, Bosch & Muset, 1980); Ausubel and the student´s metaknowledge regarding its own cognitive and learning processes (Ausubel, 1980, Ausubel, Novak & Hanesian, 2009); Bruner and learning as an active process of association and construction (Bruner, 1980; Bruner, Goodnaw, & Austin, 1978); Freire and the role of the context and empowerment in learning (Freire, 1994); Gardner and the theory of Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 1983, 1999). And also, other neuroscientific referents such as Damasio and the comprehension about mental processes that can exist in the human brain (Damasio, 1994); and finally Goleman and the need of people to recognize their own feelings and those of others with the convenience to develop the ability to manage them (Goleman, 2018).

The inspiration in these authors, and in many others that I am not mentioning, have provided the support and the necessary theories and premises to develop diverse online creative processes that benefit the personalization of the teaching and learning processes, with the objective of promoting critical thinking, competence development, the concretization of creative processes and skills management (Cornella, 2018).

A pedagogical agreement that has required stimulative technological techniques and materials that allowed valuing the student body in the framework of a personalized online teaching and learning process (Miller, Nourbakhsh & Siegwart, 2019). The acquisition of robotics’ materials (controllers, sensors…) have been integral to the development of innovative and creative learning activities insignificant contents in a transdisciplinary mechanism, that is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.

The objective of the educational reality of this pedagogical model is to stimulate students’ critical thinking because there shouldn´t be barriers between disciplines. These types of experiences can also be identified in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) activities. The methodological framework offers opportunities and possibilities to the students with the objective to develop the capacity to think beyond accepted ideas, while learning to combine in an original way knowledge acquired in an online environment specific to their learning needs. We have been fortunate to be able to give students personalized opportunities, resources and strategies to create and maximize their own abilities through educational itineraries that provide them with engaging and meaningful learning. Online teaching sessions have been developed using resources such as remote control of robots, real-time shared whiteboards, videoconferences, and other technological online resources as elaborated in our own technopedagogical laboratory.

EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT

The psychopedagogical context of the technopedagogical project Binomi.online 3.0, deep into a coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 reality, is the result of an educational reality and unconditional delivery with a theoretical frame of reference (Teixidó, 2017); a unique context with a pedagogical agreement that has

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strived to faithfully offer students the tangible opportunity of identifying real problems, to find real solutions, and to drive their own learning.

This context has unexpectedly promoted online training opportunities with few financial and technological resources, which have allowed accompanying students to learn how to adapt to the unexpected pandemic situation and reach the challenges imposed from the uncertainty of a changing society. An online environment is required for a pedagogical model stimulating creativity, fostering curiosity, personalized analysis, idea exchange, teamwork, finding solutions through trial-and-error, co- elaboration and co-creation, co-evaluation, etc. to continue encouraging students to take risks without fear of failure.

A reality of online experiences that has helped students to discover and develop their own vital project from uncertainty and unexpected moments; while accompanied by the real possibility of well-being and forced adaptation. In a situation where students are experiencing the loss of physical contact with the others, face-to-face interactions between schoolmates and teachers, of the warmth of a spontaneous and unexpected smile in the middle of a school classroom, of the shared silence walking through a long and sunny hallway, of disorganised conversations, etc.

From the first moment, my team and I were fully convinced that it was necessary to give an unprecedented and immediate answer to remain engaged in an educational context that allowed our students to continue discovering the pleasure of combining ideas that maybe no one before had put together. In this sense, it was essential to build an educational space named Binomi.online 3.0 to continue to remotely offer the best conditions to live together and learn with effective learning tools that allowed students to face new and unknown situations, where problem parameters were not well defined and were presented ambiguous in the real world.

THE BINOMI.ONLINE 3.0 TECHNOPEDAGOGICAL PROJECT: ONLINE AND REMOTE TEACHING

Binomi.online 3.0 is a technopedagogical project born during a pandemic, conceived and designed to give students all types of online materials and techno-pedagogic resources. This project that has allowed a reduced group of students to freely develop and create solutions and answers to their own identified challenges to achieve and expand their competencies, abilities and skills (Sarramona, 2004).

This online educative environment that we have named Binomi.online 3.0, unexpectedly became on March 13, 2020 a regular and unique virtual space, guided and directed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals who unprecedently managed and accompanied the students and their families in the framework of Projecte Binomi.

In this time of pandemic, the genesis of a psychoeducational and technopedagogical project was more relevant than ever and created to facilitate and promote the universality of education, the accompaniment and the well-being of people in an equitable and inclusive manner.

The Binomi.online 3.0 sessions, from the first moment, were carried out in reduced groups or individually, with or without the accompaniment of a parent or guardian, according to diverse needs and realities; within the framework of its own virtual space that facilitated and still facilitates psychoeducational and training opportunities.

This psychoeducational and training space during online learning provided students with possibilities to create habits, support their emotional well-being, while being accompanied and helped to create a climate

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of self-improvement with educative opportunities that allowed creativity and the development of cognitive processes.

The singularity of this telematic environment or new digital windows at the service of training, well- being, and people development (Images 1, 2 & 3) allowed the construction of knowledge to individuals and students from educational institutions. From this space, a collaboration and cooperation between students from different realities was possible from the very beginning; regardless of geographical location; with the shared objective of learning and to know more thanks to the sum of efforts, initiatives and technology that allowed students to seek knowledge and develop their own reasoned thinking.

Images 1, 2 & 3: Binomi.online 3.0: Telematic construction of knowledge. Infant (from 3 to 6 years old); Primary (from 6 to 12 years old); Compulsory Secondary (from 12 to 16 years old) and Post-Compulsory Education students – Vocational Training, Baccalaureate and University.

Source: Technopedagogic Centre Binomi; 2020

The online teaching that has been carried out at Binomi.online 3.0 has been possible thanks to a digital world that has only represented a change in the channel and the structure; a digital world that has likely amplified the pedagogical work providing more opportunities to develop cognitive and adaptive skills during this unexpected situation of a global pandemic.

During these telematic experiences, students have assimilated and built knowledge, developed competences, skills and thought processes; proof of this are the positive evaluation indicators that have been collected in each session. Situations where students have exteriorized their own thinking to face better situations in life and be able to give the same importance to the emotional and cognitive sides of an experience.

Binomi.online 3.0 has been and is a long-term telematic reality, which should support the ability to reason through personal reflection, dialogue and discussion; where it facilitates (as it is in a face-to-face situation) the development of creativity, ethical knowledge, the ability to find meaning to an experience, develop alternatives, impartiality and comprehension.

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Binomi.online 3.0 includes activities that have strengthened thinking skills and that have promoted a personal teaching methodology, so that the students could achieve an authentic dialogue that meta series of conditions: freedom, recognition of others, inter-comprehension, participation and interaction; at the same time that an active, reflective and participative dynamic is established in the group through dialogue, discussion and the intervention. Online moments such as these have promoted progress towards consensual truth and, consequently, towards the solution of one´s own challenges

One of the key elements of this telematic reality Binomi.online 3.0 has been to be able to facilitate the management of one´s own time. It is known that the genesis of creativity is to avoid one´s own limits, and time is one of them. In this sense, we have always found as a sine qua non condition to provide each student with the opportunity to responsibly choose the best moment to do their project and achieve the challenge, born from the need to know, experiment, create to satisfy one´s own curiosity while learning to manage time with freedom in an inclusive and personalised educational environment, and according to the current historical context.

It is from this perspective and tangible reality, now more than ever from Binomi.online 3.0, that we have avoided to focus the technopedagogical activities in the same line, product, tool, or resource. The main psychopedagogical objective of Binomi.online 3.0 is to respect the singularity of each student and to give them a different methodology and / or resource that are adapted to their needs and to the challenge that each one intended to achieve, while being in line with the relevant curricular.

The technopedagogical commitment constantly forces and encourages us to be alert to advances and new possibilities; however, in the middle of a pandemic it has been necessary to unexpectedly guarantee tools and technopedagogical resources online, to make available to students and their families, everything they require to achieve the proposed objectives by putting in place strategies that use thought processes such as the computational thinking (Papert,1984; Wing, 2006): identify, delimit, consider different options, break down, simplify, test, validate, refine, etc. It is important to mention that computational thinking (Wing, 2006) goes beyond computer science and needs to be understood as an educational strategy for the development of skills of the 21st century (Gardner, 1999; Mallart, 2009) outlined and summarized below (Figure 1) according to cited criteria, and also the Four C proposal, essential in the 21st century education (Trilling &Fadel, 2009).

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Figure 1: Summary of the essential skills in the 21st century education •Solutions through trial and Learn to communicate error knowledge and exchange •Failure-success analysiS ideas through different •Understand complex channels. systems •Apply strategies •Solve challenges Critical Communication thinking

Creativity Collaboration

•Identify real problems. •Teamwork •Find real solutions. •Take risks •Generate original ideas •Learn how to share and improve them. •Empathize to reach agreements

Source: Technopedagogical team BINOMI, 2020

The essence of the methodology and didactics of Binomi.online 3.0 has been immersed in an online space sheltered by consolidated experiential and academical experiences, where learning is the result of growing up with freedom and responsibility, a life experienced shaped from courage and adaptation to the new times, being necessary that from one´s own acts could speak of values, capacities and skills of each one.

Our pedagogical model has continued to be satisfactory, using online: creativity, curiosity, personalized analysis, ideas exchange, teamwork, trial-and-error solutions, etc. and has facilitated the possibility of encouraging to take risks without fear, while we all have learned from unexpected situations subject to failure, such as, the lack of connectivity, outdated technological tools, the difficulty in the usage of tools, etc.

Imagine, create, experiment, share, reflect and reimagine has been a vital need in our online context. For all this, since the beginning it was considered important that the competences that would be worked online from different technopedagogical activities, such as robotics, would allow to give meaning to own challenges and take advantage of one´s own possibilities: • Communicative and linguistic competences. From these online opportunities, students learn to interact orally (converse, listen and express themselves) and must be able to explain what they do, how and why. They develop a cooperative work and are aware of their own learnings. • Methodological competences. Students must turn information into knowledge, to be able to guide their own decisions. They need to develop reasoning and critical spirit, with the capacity of organizing themselves and in certain attitudes, such as the sense of responsibility and discipline, perseverance and rigor in carrying out their work. They intensify interest and pleasure in a well-done job.

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• Mathematical competence. Students challenge the ability to understand, use and relate numbers together with their own basic operations, the symbols and forms of expression and mathematical reasoning. They code and decode, etc. with the objective of developing the ability to reason and the faculty of abstraction contributing a set of models and procedures of analysis, calculation and estimation that, applied in different authentic situations, allow the comprehension of concepts and their competence command to solve situations and problems. • Digital competences. From a transversal development of competences, the students have to interact to deal with problems and situations that affect any curricular area; putting into play a set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that students have been achieving during the different online teaching sessions. • Learning to learn competence. During these types of activities, the abilities to conduct one´s own learning and to continue learning in an efficient and autonomous manner are developed. • Autonomy and personal initiative competence. The challenges allow to transform ideas into actions, to undertake and evaluate individual and collective projects.

In this process of online teaching and learning, the didactics and methodology of this singular psychopedagogical proposal have been placed in a unique context that has provided students with the criteria to choose what to do (or not do!) in different situations where it has been necessary to assume and put in place different adaptive mechanisms. That is why we can talk about learning to decide and reflect from a critical thinking point of view, because we are talking about facilitating the opportunity to act and exercise values such as responsibility, empathy, comprehension, tolerance, etc. and to challenge one´s mental capacity, emotions, and the genesis of one´s own acts (Zabala & Arnau, 1995).

The didactic that we have embraced in this online learning and teaching reality has allowed us to offer experiences to learn how to decide and manage in uncertainty, facilitating the possibility of developing the whole of the person, including self-confidence; for this, one of the most important reasons for encouraging the prominence of each student is that they can assume the consequences of their own actions, taking into account the success or failure that this entails.

The online educative reality during the pandemic has allowed us to accompany the competence development and facilitate creativity through the needs of each student. Students (those in pre-school, accompanied by their parents or legal guardians in the majority of cases; and from primary school in a more autonomous way, arriving with a control of the tool; to secondary school and post-mandatory school) have been able to create the things they imagine and / or have developed the competence according to their academic level. We, as professionals, have guided and accompanied them through the process.

This methodological framework has also needed the scientific method, which has made it easier for us to respect that the genesis of the activities were the intentions, the illusions, the hypotheses, the needs of knowledge of the students. Once this beginning was defined, we were able to provide a theoretical framework of reference to facilitate the understanding and knowledge of the students in the face of the educational challenge, the analysis, the practice, and the conclusions.

From this online didactic approach, the learner has the opportunity to ask himself what do I want to do, how do I want to do it, why do I want to do it, what do I need to achieve it? (Freinet, 1974); once the whole learning process has been developed, the student communicates his experience and must justify what he has done, how he has done it, why he has done it, the difficulties he has encountered and the challenges he has achieved; a process that must end with the student's self-evaluation, which will be recorded in an evaluation chart (Freinet, 1996; Santmartí, 2010).That the students can successfully present their work implies meeting the learning outcomes. The synthesis of the work developed can also be noted

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in their personal chart (Initiative for action; Freinet, 1974). These graphs help students to make a self- evaluation of their effort, evolution, and personal progress; and it has facilitated the systematization of each step of the process of personalized learning from a continuous evaluation and training strategy. From the student´s personal chart and the dialogue established, trends can also be conducted, managed, and evaluated, possibilities, capabilities, natural talents, etc. It is a good way for students to also value themselves based on the results. This resource favours education in the values and the building of knowledge of each of our students, and in learning to manage their own limits and possibilities.

In this vital framework of co-evaluation and self-evaluation, students have been able to manage the learning process and finish it by self-evaluating and self-assessing the assimilation and acquisition of new content and has been able to build knowledge knowing how to communicate orally, while it allowed us to assess and evaluate whether students are internalizing the knowledge worked by him / her or other colleagues who participate in the co-evaluation. All this evaluative act at the end of the online teaching and learning process has ended under the shelter of democratic criteria when students have expressed orally and / or in writing brief reflections and agreements for the future before starting another technopedagogical activity.

In this educational reality online, the student has been able to develop, with the accompaniment of the teacher, the personal work project that has been proposed or needed; and finally, has known how to synthesize the aspects that were assimilated regarding the content; when it was necessary, a summary card has been made designed according to the age, the capacities and the abilities of the student through the chat, or the shared blackboard, etc. among other technological resources.

Each online session led by a small group of students ended when each one explained the balance of the learning process by demonstrating their knowledge in a collaborative and collective way within the framework of a content assimilation and development of competences and skills process (Working Assembly; Freinet, 1974). The different aspects dealt with online allowed the students to carry out a continuous self-evaluation exercise, – what have I done? – how have I done it? – what have I learned? – what must I improve next time?, while, at the same time, the teacher made a compilation of indicators to be able to carry out in a systematic way the continuous and formative evaluation that allowed them to make an assessment of the online teaching and learning process.

From these online educational and training opportunities, the role of the teacher has been that of a guide who favours an assessment of the viability of the proposal, who gives guidance, advises with possibilities, intervenes in the acquisition of knowledge, etc. without imposing proposals that eclipse the talents and natural tendencies of each of the students. This professional has also assumed the commitment to evaluate and assess the evolutionary process of each student, ensuring a learning process that will develop the opportunity to learn how to specify a problem, to structure information and knowledge, to put into play thinking processes such as creativity, to promote collaborative work and to facilitate the achievement of basic skills such as those of mathematics, language, digital, cultural, and artistic field.

The online sessions have been an opportunity and an unavoidable possibility in the commitment to help students to develop their natural talents, their own capacities, competences and skills to explain, to answer from the reflection of their own knowledge, to understand and express the how and the why, and not only to answer the what, which can be only the fruit of a solely memory act.

Evaluation, self-evaluation, and co-evaluation of online and remote teaching

The evaluation process of the students that we have followed during the on-line sessions has been continued and integrated into the teaching and learning process itself. In this evaluation process we have considered the creative capacity, the ability to find solutions and the strategies used by each student.

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As a result of decades of educational research, we designed self-evaluation and co-evaluation tools to enable students to: • Anticipate and plan how to carry out their own challenge with execution criteria. • Recognize their assimilation by putting into play attribution criteria. • Reflect to self-regulate and develop criteria of responsibility.

Some instruments have also been useful to professionals. They have served to identify key aspects to help students and design the personalized process educative; especially for the learning of those students who found obstacles to successfully achieve their own challenges and desired pedagogical objectives.Indicators and evidence of the process have been very closely assessed to encourage families to accompany their children in this evolutionary and educational process.

The evaluation of the online sessions has been inclusive, featuring ethical and democratic criteria because it has helped to understand and value the whole process. It has been defined from the importance of the students through self-evaluation; co-evaluation; participatory observation of the teacher and his assessment; also from determined rubrics by the methodology and didactics that facilitate the self- regulation of students: I know nothing (rookie indicator, objectives completely not reached), I think I know... (learner indicator, objectives somewhat reached), I know... (advanced indicator, objectives practically reached), and I know and can explain it (expert indicator, objectives totally reached). Answering these questions has helped the students to value the specific aspects that the teacher has also valued and evaluated: development of curricular content (know-how); assimilation (knowledge) and responsibility (knowing how to be).

Through the self-correction and self-evaluation of their work projects, it has been possible for students to evaluate the evolution of the cognitive processes and the educational needs in each moment of their learning process. Observing, assessing, and evaluating continuously the trends, skills, abilities, possibilities of each student has allowed us, the professionals, to promote their development to the maximum and guide them in the framework of this personal evolution. Throughout this process, as we have already mentioned, we have also taken into consideration the rubrics designed so that the students learned how to learn, knew their own possibilities and abilities, and reflected and grew in self-knowledge; rubrics and indicators that have also allowed us to reflect and innovate in front of the real needs and the natural talents of each student.

This evaluation of the teaching and learning process of Binomi.online 3.0 has allowed us to reflect (Coll, 1983), search and give guidelines for the improvement of the reality of the Binomi technopedagogical project. In the framework of our reality, the evaluation has always been key since we understand it as an educational act that has also a fundamental function in the construction of the coexistence of people.

Analysis and evidence of online and remote teaching through Binomi.online 3.0

Promoting this online reality, with haste due to the sudden onset of the pandemic, has allowed us to offer a pedagogical model that personalizes the teaching and learning process. The aim is to facilitate the development of competences and of thinking processes, the establishment of intrinsic creative processes accompanying the development of emotional and social skills such as collaboration and entrepreneurship while ensuring the welfare of students and their families in times of pandemic, and that despite all certain routines and comfort environments are not overshadowed by the situation and an unexpected and unprecedented transformation.

During the process of teaching and learning online, as professionals and from the participant observation, we have collected both qualitative and quantitative evidence. We have noted some quite remarkable

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quantitative indicators that have helped us to summarize the relevant aspects of the educational process in times of pandemic (Palacios, Marchesi & Coll, 1990, 1999). Quantitative and qualitative indices that validate a psychoeducational project where students, in a telematic space such as the one described, have developed “learning by doing" (Dewey, 1989) based on their own questions; students have always been allowed to start from their own interests (Kilpatrick, 1929), thus achieving "research-based learning" (Freinet,1979) together with "project-based learning" (Dewey, 1989) and "experiential-based learning" (Decroly, 2009) through shared and collaborative experiences; students have undoubtedly developed their own creativity with "peer-to-peer learning" (Duran & Monereo, 2012) acquiring skills and competences that have allowed them to think beyond established ideas. In other words, the indicators collected throughout these months of learning and online teaching have indicated what has been achieved through this educational process. This includes a set of skills and competencies to solve complex situations, while developing a reflective attitude towards life showing a real development in terms of ability to think for themselves; also favouring (especially in younger children) emotional ties with their parents or legal guardians.

The following ten bullets summarize the educational objectives achieved so far through online teaching and of these types of transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary experience of Binomi.online 3.0: • It has facilitated the freedom and curiosity of each student to learn how to learn in a very personalized way and with a creative spirit. • The necessary conditions and situations have been created to accompany families and help students develop those processes that have allowed them to adapt to the changes they have had to face and assume because of the pandemic. • A learning environment has been built to allow students to make decisions and learn to assume their own failure and / or success; the student has been able to grow in the broadest sense. • The students have been allowed to prepare themselves for those realities that may never be mastered while assuming responsibilities. • Students have been encouraged to make complex decisions and assume the consequences to improve and advance in complex projects, since finding aspects to improve reasoned and critical thinking. • Students have been encouraged to learn and unlearn from their own responsibility and respect in an environment of freedom that has facilitated their creativity, reflection, and evolution; they have been allowed to understand that making informed decisions is a reflexive act (—not mechanical or impulsive!). • We have promoted the awakening and growth of the capacity to think and reflect in each student. They have been encouraged to dare to think for themselves and have the courage to do so. • Each one's capacities and abilities to know how to be, to be, to do and to know have been developed to the maximum. • Possibilities and opportunities for learning have become a reality, so that each student could come to answer the what, the how and the why of their own challenge in a reflective way and from a reasoned thought. • And, finally, as professionals we have reached points of reflection from the participating practice in the benefit of the improvement of the processes of teaching and learning towards our commitment to the service of people.

The Binomi.online 3.0 experience has achieved a unique educational ecosystem, providing added value to learning and accrediting students with skills and competencies for life (Coll, 1983). A quality educational reality that is synthesized in the following five pedagogical criteria: ▪ Educational space, inclusive and with equity for all. ▪ Personalization of the teaching and learning process.

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▪ Accreditation of competencies. ▪ Development of computational, creative, and critical thinking. ▪ Connected and deep learning.

As it has been highlighted throughout the writing, this process of online teaching and learning was able to give immediate response to an unexpected planetary pandemic situation as a result of an ethical commitment that has always allowed to place the students in the centre, providing them with an active preparation and exercise based on values. Decades of making this commitment a reality in a classroom were decisive in carrying out online teaching and overcoming the unprecedented pandemic situation from the outset. A pedagogical model that allowed us to immediately facilitate personalized opportunities such as robotics or other activities of cognitive and competence development through connected and deep learning.

From our psychoeducational and technopedagogical vision, we have verified that the key to success is to respect and foster the curiosity of all students, the capacity to admire themselves, the illusion, the will to break mental barriers, the trust in their own capacities, etc.; in spite of the pandemic, the online educational framework can facilitate these decisive factors and personalized experiences, the students learn significantly and develop a reflected and computational (Estebanell, López, Peracaula, Simarro, Cornellà, Couso, González, et al, 2018) thought that allows them to experiment with their own competences and from their own reality (Figure 2).

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Figure 2: Experimenting with own competencies and from the own reality.

Students learn...... IMAGINING ...BUILDING SOLUTIONS... RESULTS...

... EXPERIMENTING TO OBSERVING, COMPREHEND AND CAPTURING ...FORMULATING IMPROVE THE UNKOWNS.. ANSWERS... PROPSED SOLUTION.

Source: Technopedagogical team BINOMI, 2020

The present and future of Binomi.online 3.0 is stimulating and exciting; the selected indicators (Figure 3) identify that the online teaching sessions through cognitive stimulation activities that can be performed in the described context, open windows that expand possibilities without limits and ensure that professionals can educate and accompany the person that every student already is.

Figure 3: Attitudes, skills, competencies, abilities that have been harmoniously achieved through online teaching in the context of a pandemic reality by COVID-19.

ENTHUSIASM AND MOTIVATION CURIOSITY AND ADMIRATION IIt is good to promote the inspiration of the It is advisable to encourage the research spirit of student body, which can certainly appear in the the student that allows them to rethink again and moments when they are captivated and again the different knowledges. fascinated by reality.

ONLINE AND REMOTE TEACHING Activities desgined to develop cognition, creative and reflective, thinking, critical spirit...

REASONED THOUGTH AND CRITICAL SPIRIT SERENITY AND RELAXATION The creativity of the students must be It is important to let students daydream, so that encouraged, which allows and demands psychic tension can curb their creativity. nonconformity, promotes reflection and the development of their own critical thinking.

Source: Technopedagogical team BINOMI, 2020

Our vocation, training and experience have helped us to build this Binomi.online 3.0 space in an unexpected way as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; through online teaching to continue loyal to a deep commitment towards an educational context that has always had the aim of facilitating and enhancing cognitive stimulation activities; where students, despite the health crisis, have been able to continue to come up with their own challenges and develop their own competences and skills in a transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary way. A fascinating online reality has allowed students, despite everything, to create and govern their own existence.

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Therefore, it is convenient to entrust the need to generate online, in a standardized way, inclusive learning environments based on the activity of the students, where their initiative and curiosity to understand and learn is respected. A reality that respects diversity from equity and that allows students to develop their cognitive abilities and critical thinking from educational experiences such as the ones shared and lived within a psycho-pedagogical framework.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The persistence of the pandemic, and the uncertainty it still generates, means that the original quote by Benedetti (1993): "when we thought we had all the answers, suddenly all the questions changed" also inspires some conclusions in the form of pedagogical hope, whose objectives allow us to face the problems that arise and solve them with psychoeducational responses.

It is true that I have shared a unique experience with humble technological resources, in the context of an unexpected situation full of limitations due to the economic and health crisis that we still face today; but I have done so with the necessary conviction to appreciatethe students unconditionally (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1980) offering them a personalized learning process and vocationally accompany their families without forgetting references that in situations of maximum complexity as the one we are living, were also able to carry it out successfully; for example the Agazzi sisters (1892); Dr. Maria Montessori (1909); or the teacher Freinet (1974).

For all this, and with the purpose of drawing the living testimony of a reflected thought, the ideas that I have exposed can be synthesized in a brief decalogue of pedagogical hope for new steps of humanity.

First, I would like to highlight the unexpected opportunity that the confinement measures in a large part of Europe during the month of March 2020 represented, which, if we look closely, allowed the psychoeducational world to put to good use its know-how to respect, more than ever, the uniqueness of all students, avoiding labels that could probably force us to clip the students' natural wings.

In this sense, from psycho-pedagogy – immersed in the situation of pandemic, lockdown, post-pandemic, mourning, loss, online learning, etc – we fortunately promoted existing attributes and positive expectations towards each unique and unrepeatable person – teachers, father, mother, son, daughter ... -.

I invite you, if you have not already done so, to embrace with hope the psycho-pedagogy and teaching that always, and at this time more than ever, aims to infect and promote human values such as courage, hope, compassion, understanding, and love to weave paths of life that can embrace and accompany diverse sociograms; all with the legitimate right to achieve the desired objectives.

These final lines, which the reader can read from his/her own intellectual inquisitiveness, have been written from the teaching and psycho-pedagogical vocation of helping and loving to develop the person; this fact has allowed me to make an effort together with my team, with the condition of the moment, to spread and to put in value the professional asset of the educational world that without renouncing to the features that characterize us in each field of action, I understand that the situation of pandemic and post- pandemic has made evident and shows that our visibility is a key in moments of socio-educational emergency and that our human profile is decisive in multidisciplinary teams of essential services. Unfortunately, the lockdown has shown that we have probably been late to prevent the educational system in our territory parodied in the classic tale The Emperor's New Clothes (Andersen, 1837); fortunately, the pedagogical asset (teachers, psychopedagogues, pedagogues ...) of the world have known - obviously with many cases of renunciations and sacrifices! –to rethink and promote the what, how, when, why ... in the accompaniment of families and unconditional esteem for the students. However, reality has shown more than ever how a series of methods aimed at modifying educational processes have become evident from

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the educational world we have been, are and will always be with body and soul and - without a doubt!– embracing an unwavering commitment to the service of people.

And evaluate what, how and when? As is often the case, many of the exclamations during these pandemic times deafened the best of intentions. Surely the evaluation processes should be a fascinating path and a unique opportunity, which many of us have never let go before, with the conviction of leading leaderships that offer personalized realities, such as the one described and shared, where self-evaluation and co-evaluation have allowed students to learn to analyse, assess and value what they know, what and how they have learned, what and how they should improve, what and with whom and how, etc.” It is in this scenario, that I invite tutti quanti to share the pedagogical commitment (-from now on, please!), to find resources and establish strategies to accompany the students from that guide, help and professional intervention that also allows a formative evaluation and accreditation of skills, abilities and learning to their students. A reality that, I wish, could be spread like a layer of oil of this new educational path that life invites. An evaluation that is given to learning so that the students become the protagonists of a life experience that allows them to value what they do well and rectify what they can improve.

At the same time, let me also share that the experience of online teaching has been a reality of communicating vessels; a multidisciplinary look that has understood the benefit of adding pedagogical assets for the continuity of an accompaniment to families, teachers, technicians, etc. It has been possible to prioritize the essential role that corresponds to professionals in the fields of psychopedagogy, because they have been able to join efforts, harmony and connect learning, training, accompaniment, guidance, intervention, and advice. In this direction, an online reality has been assured that has been able to continue promoting individual and collective well-being, from reflection and professional praxis at the service of people; developing didactics, elaborating psychopedagogical diagnoses, promoting methodologies, etc. to attend the uniqueness of people and intervene, advise, orient in the framework of a diversity of realities full of particularities and idiosyncrasies.

At this point in the writing, surely one of the risky aims of these conclusions has already been grasped in the form of a brief decalogue, which can only be to entrust the need to focus on the psychoeducational and technopedagogical role of professionals who must be, and in fact are, an essential service in the framework of a new ‘Age of Humanity’; to which we can agree that we have the unexpected privilege of living in first person as teachers and this can legitimize us to rethink a new treatise on pedagogy and, why not, write the first pages from the WFATE Journal.

We will admit then, that everything that has been shared, can become a reality if we take on board the urgent need to continue with the scientific constancy of mending human knowledge, while firmly assuming the convenience of writing new psychoeducational and pedagogical paradigms committed to the collective good of humanity, with the need to rewrite new pages, all from the analysis, organization and management of processes that can surely favour the development of people, their well-being and the formation of the society of the 21st century, now in a situation of pandemic by COVID-19; with the condition of a psychopedagogical and teaching look that has not pretended anything else than to spread hope and illusion from the acquired knowledge and experience.

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AUTHOR NOTE

I want to thank all those who have supported, participated and accompanied these sessions of Binomi.online 3.0: children, families and institutions such as the School Arrels-Verne of Perpignan (https://sites.google.com/view/binomi-arrels/inici) through the Project Cités Éducatives (https://www.citeseducatives.fr/le-projet).

To the good friends and colleagues for their recognition of a new-born project and to their unconditional encouragement to make a unique system of online learning a reality.

I would also like to make an emotional and very meaningful recognition to the CDL (https://www.cdl.cat/) and the SCP (http://blogs.iec.cat/scp/), who with their encouragement, consideration and support have made possible the transcription of a psycho-pedagogical and technopedagogical reality, which they have accompanied and loved since its birth. On the other hand, I would also like to make a special mention to COPEC (https://www.pedagogs.cat/) for their trust and accompaniment, which has stimulated and pushed me with esteem to define in writing, from the heart and with the head, some pedagogical decalogues in times of pandemic.

To my daughter Anna, who with their wisdom, esteem and recognition have given the possibility that these lines above could see the light and be shared.

And finally, I would like to end with a special thanks to Jaume Basseda for his courage, dedication, compassion, and leadership as the main architect of the technopedagogical project Binomio (http://www.binomi.cat/; https://sites.google.com/view/binomitecnopedagogia/inici) and the sessions lived from Binomi.online 3.0 (https://sites.google.com/view/binomi11/), providing guidance, knowledge, and unconditional support.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Maria de Montserrat Oliveras Ballús Teacher and psycho-pedagogue, educational innovation advisor, counsellor, and psychoeducational consultant. Member of the Official College of Doctors and Graduates in Philosophy and Letters and in Sciences of Catalonia (CDL) where she is part as educational innovation advisor of the KBIP / COMconèixer Project; Member of the Catalan Society of Pedagogy (SCP-IEC)

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Member of the College of Pedagogy of Catalonia (COPEC) where she is part of its Network of Experts, of the High-Capacity Research Group and of the Pedagogy and School Research Group. Co-founder of the BINOMI Technopedagogical Centre E-mail: [email protected]

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CONNECTING TEACHER EDUCATORS ACROSS THE WORLD IN THE WAKE OF A PANDEMIC

Jenene Burke, Federation University Australia WFATE President Elect

As we move into the second year of the COVID-19 global pandemic there is no doubt that, in a short period of time, the world as we know it has been significantly and irrevocably changed. This paper examines the implications of the pandemic in terms of the engagement activities for global teacher education professional organisations, such as the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (WFATE), as we move toward a post-COVID future.

In this paper, the concept of global competence as a vital attribute for teacher educators and their students in contemporary times, and the role of an international teacher education association, in supporting professional learning will be considered. An overview of the professional activities that WFATE has offered in the past will be provided. The WFATE mission and aims will be examined along with the role that technology will play in bringing the WFATE ‘team’ together to meet its aims in the immediate future, then a discussion about how WFATE could utilise technology to support its membership and activities during the pandemic.

A case study methodology will be adopted to examine the potential for WFATE to operate as a ‘virtual team’, by identifying challenges and opportunities faced by members in maintaining interactions.

Background

Since holding its inaugural biennial conference in 2010, WFATE has relied on regular gatherings to bring together teacher educators from across the globe, meeting in countries that have included the USA, China, Kenya, Spain and Australia. The sixth biennial meeting planned for November 2020 in Houston, Texas, USA, was postponed until 2021 and has now been modified as an online event. It is currently implausible to hold international conferences where delegates meet face-to-face. This is because, regardless of whether the virus has continued to spread or has been curtailed, many countries have effectively shut down international travel, placed restrictions on conditions for entry or various periods of quarantine for incoming travellers. Some countries have implemented curfews, physical distancing measures, restrictions on the number of people permitted in various indoor spaces and at outdoor gatherings, the mandatory wearing of masks or other types of protective apparel, and the closures of borders between territories, even within countries.

Aside from the WFATE biennial event, the regular conferences of organisations such as the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) in the USA and the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE) have provided valuable opportunities for the WFATE Board to meet in

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person. In addition, WFATE has a website, a Facebook page and group, and produces a regular academic journal and newsletter. Research development groups (RDGs) connecting researchers across the world through research theme interests are another way that WFATE has provided opportunities for teacher educators to reach out beyond their own countries, connect, and collaborate with each other.

Building global competence in the 21st century

Global competence is considered vital to enable teacher educators to thrive in the twenty-first century (Devlin-Foltz, 2010) and, in turn, to promote this disposition in their students as preservice teachers (PSTs). This is particularly important given that the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) recently introduced global competence assessment (OECD, 2018) thus placing value on students’ active participation in their communities and the wider world (Tichnor-Wagner, Parkhouse, Glazier & Cain, 2019).

In today’s interconnected world, global competence enables PSTs to be aware of and gain value from cultural differences (OECD, 2018) to help their students to “learn about the world, from the world and with the world” (Devlin-Foltz, 2010, p. 113). The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines global competence as “the capacity to examine local, global, and intercultural issues; to understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others; to engage in open, appropriate, and effective interactions with people from different cultures; and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development.” (OECD, 2018). Devlin-Foltz (2010) argues that teacher educators play an important role in forming ‘forward-looking’ connections with colleagues in other countries and in finding ways to respond to the challenges of developing global competence. As an international teacher education association WFATE can play a central role as a conduit in assisting teacher educators, and by extension their students as future teachers, to build global competence.

The acquisition of global perspectives by teachers can be achieved in two ways according to Ochoa (2010). One way is in exposing teachers to international experiences and the other is in integrating global education into teacher education. Devlin-Foltz (2010) agrees, suggesting that global knowledge for pre-service and in-service teachers can be deepened through access to internationally focused professional development and research in teacher education, international experiences at home, overseas and online, through world-language opportunities and through a globally oriented teacher education culture. Development of global citizens is aided by the “continual enhancement of digital technologies that facilitate collaboration and partnerships across borders and time zones” (Burke, Redford, Coker & McDonough, 2017).

In the years before COVID, teacher educators had various opportunities to engage in international experiences to develop global competence and international perspectives. Examples of such opportunities are international exchanges or fellowships, employment, or volunteering in-country or offshore, engaging in specific research or other collaborative projects—sometimes

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involving academics from various countries—and sharing and exchanging learning at events such as seminars and conferences. As opportunities to engage across borders with others diminish, the need for teacher educators and their students to develop global competence becomes increasingly important. This means, as a global organisation, WFATE must take stock of what is not currently possible and find ways to use the tools at our disposal to continue to support building global competence, despite reduced possibilities for teacher educators to take part in activities abroad.

Teacher professional learning

The purpose of teacher professional learning is to “extend the scope of teacher educators and their learning” (Husu & Clandinin, 2019). Husu and Clandinin identify two kinds of scholarship for teacher educators as a ‘scholarship of integration’ where ideas are drawn together, and a ‘scholarship of disruption’ that utilises an inquiry stance and acknowledges uncertainties:

“By stretching the boundaries of teacher education outside of schools of education and classrooms, we … offer insights that can help develop new ways of engaging in teacher education. We conclude that research on teacher education is not about clear answers, solutions, or theories but about understanding the complexities of how we are thinking about, and engaging in, the practices and policies of teacher education.” (Husu & Clandinin, 2019, p. 3)

To consider the activities that WFATE should offer, WFATE’s stated vision and aims for the international teacher education community (Figure 1) and how these might be achieved, given constraints on international gatherings, is a good place to start:

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Figure 1. WFATE mission and goals. Source: World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (2021).

Broadly interpreted, these lofty goals support international collegiality and cooperation, research, and development in teacher education. Three important concepts that underpin the mission and aims of WFATE as an international teacher education association are the development of global competence for teacher educators and their students, providing opportunities for teacher professional learning and research collaboration. These concepts underscore the role that WFATE can play in enriching the professional lives of teacher educators. Traditional approaches that connect educators, adopted by global groups and organisations such as WFATE, tend to embrace opportunities that examine and critique teacher education practices and the thinking that lies behind them. These opportunities can provide valuable professional learning for teacher educators.

Case study

Case study methodology, which will be adopted in this paper, allows the researcher to examine “a phenomenon of some sort occurring in a bounded context” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 25). A case study can be used to explore single, holistic or multiple cases of communities, relationships, decisions, or projects (Yin, 2009, p. 33), and this particular study will explore the single case of WFATE. Case study methodology is underpinned by constructivist epistemology (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003), and the assertion that “truth is relative and that it is dependent on one’s perspective” (Baxter & Jack, 2008, p. 544).

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There are four features of research that should be present in case study design: 1) the focus of the study is on answering “how” and “why” questions; 2) the researcher cannot manipulate the behaviour of those involved in the study; 3) the researcher seeks to cover contextual conditions because they are considered relevant to the phenomenon being studied; 4) the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are unclear (Yin, 2003). Cases can be bounded by various combinations of factors such as time, place, context or activity (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Stake, 1995; Yin 2003) to control the scope of the research. In this paper, the factors – context and activity – bind the case and will be considered in unison. For WFATE, as an international federation, there are two important ‘how’ questions that will be considered in this paper:

How can core WFATE business be transacted under pandemic conditions?

How can WFATE stay relevant to its membership and continue to support members’ needs (particularly in developing research, professional learning and global competence) during the pandemic?

Virtual teams

In the face of current restrictions and uncertainty around being able to physically gather in person as a global organisation as has been possible in the past, it has become necessary to turn our attention to alternative ways of interacting. The obvious solution lies in using digital technologies to mediate interaction between WFATE members and with other teacher education associations.

Digital technologies have made many things possible, that were previously unthought of, and in some cases inconceivable. While many people have had access to personal computers and smart devices for several years, the need to use them to connect with others, while maintaining a physical distance, has become important and urgent. Technology has enabled creative solutions for people do a variety of things such as communicate, transact business, receive medical advice, learn and socialise, when many people across the world have been required to confine themselves to their homes, and stay clear of their workplaces and schools. Digital platforms, virtual conferences, remote learning, social media, and video instruction are just some of the digital modalities that have been adopted and have become commonplace during this time.

Virtual teams are described as “geographically distributed collaborations that rely on technology to communicate and cooperate” (Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020). A wide variety of teams are covered in this definition and the teams can be involved in a variety of tasks. A teacher education association like WFATE can be a virtual team. Morrison-Smith and Ruiz (2020) recommend examining the challenges faced by virtual teams and how they use technology to mitigate issues that may arise.

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While digital interaction in virtual teams can offer some similar outcomes to meeting in person, it also works differently from face-to-face collaboration. Kozlowski, Chao, and Van Fossen (2021) argue that virtual teams come with advantages and disadvantages (refer Figure 2). Some of the advantages that are likely to be relevant to this case study are that travel can be minimized while accessing a global talent pool, and that greater flexibility and autonomy for participants can be offered. Disadvantages include the need for technologies that support collaboration, and the added difficulty it takes to lead a team online compared with in-person. The ability to coordinate spontaneous meetings and to build trust, team cohesion and relationships is hampered, as well as an anticipated reduction in the richness of non-verbal and social communications in a virtual team compared with face-to-face team interaction.

Figure 2. Advantages and disadvantages of virtual teams (Kozlowski, Chao, & Van Fossen, 2021)

Zigurs (2002) attributes the differences between virtual teams and face-to-face teams as virtual teams being ‘dispersed’ on a variety of dimensions. Four common dimensions which influence and mediate interaction in digital teams are cultural, organizational, geographic, and temporal, (Zigurs, 2003, in Burke, et al., 2017) (see Figure 3). Each of the four common dimensions will be discussed in this paper with respect to possibilities they present for the WFATE community as a virtual team. Zigurs explains that “the more virtual a team becomes, the more complex are the issues it must address to function effectively” (p. 339). As the team moves from the centre of the diagram in Figure 3, from traditional to virtual interaction, the issues it addresses become more complex. It can be said that WFATE already functions as a virtual team through its website platform, Facebook page and groups, and online journal. As these activities are already well established, the discussion below will focus on dispersions affecting the activities that have not been virtual in the past and cannot currently take place, such as the WFATE biennial meeting, WFATE face-to-face board meetings and RDG networking, and on examining possibilities for how these activities might be mediated.

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Drawing on evidence from research, Zigurs explains that “virtual teams cannot rely on simply transferring their behaviour in traditional teams and expect to be successful in virtual environments” (2002, p. 341). Shared cultures are underpinned by assumptions about communication practices that need to be brought to the surface and discussed. Rules and procedures for new virtual interactions need to be explicitly considered and established before any activities commence.

Figure 3: Dimensions of Virtual teams. (Burke et al., 2017, adapted from Zigurs, 2003, p. 340).

WFATE as a virtual team

Using these four dimensions (cultural dispersion, organisational dispersion, geographic dispersion, and temporal dispersion), examination of the possibilities for a global organisation like WFATE can assist in identifying difficulties and illuminating potential for mediating interaction.

Cultural dispersion

Morrison-Smith and Ruiz (2020) insist that “geographically distributed collaborations are more socio-culturally diverse than co-located ones because distance typically increases demographic heterogeneity (especially racial or ethnic heterogeneity)”. While this dimension does include national differences between team members such as language and customs, it also includes motivations, associated values and practices which are likely to impact on team members’ interactions.

In considering cultural dispersion it can be useful to consider diversity in three levels: surface- level, deep-level, and functional-level. Surface-level diversity includes differences that are

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observable, such as race, age, and sex, while deep-level diversity encompasses attitudes, beliefs, and values, that are often communicated through team interactions. Functional-level diversity, involves knowledge, information, expertise, and skills of team members (Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020). Morrison-Smith and Ruiz (2020) stress the importance of developing explicit, shared, working cultures and setting clear parameters for interacting within digital teams.

WFATE is an organisation that so far has successfully partnered with large, well-organised teacher education associations and supporting organisations from predominantly English- speaking, developed countries. The desire to build a diverse global community that focuses on principles of equity are clearly articulated in WFATE’s mission and aims. The pandemic may provide a unique opportunity to build existing partnerships with organisations that have a strong social justice agenda such as Kappa Delta Pi and the UNESCO Center for Global Education, rebuild some partnerships that have lapsed, and to seek new partnerships from parts of the globe where less connected and small-scale teacher education organisations predominate.

While WFATE has conducted its activities in English, English language translation technologies, could assist some members to join online conversations, communicate and interpret text. This could offer a way of casting the net wider to include a more linguistically diverse community. Explicit agreements and virtual exchanges, multi-cultural teams and professional learning activities activities, will be important to establish virtual collaborations going forward. The WFATE RDGs could play a strong role in advancing this agenda through re-envisioned types of virtual activities.

Organizational dispersion

Organizational dispersion refers to individuals who work together from different organisations; in relation to WFATE this would apply to those from the various teacher education associations around the world or from different institutions and from supporting organisations.

While there are issues with available technology and compatibility between established systems, options are becoming more universal and reliable which assists digital connection and interaction across borders. In many parts of the world, particularly in developing countries or geographically vast or sparsely populated areas, internet access or access to equipment can be unreliable or non- existent. When people are unable to access devices or internet connections, due to, for example, poverty or isolation, collaboration in virtual teams may not be possible.

Geographic dispersion

Geographic dispersion relates to physical separation of team members across distant locations and areas. Morrison-Smith and Ruiz (2020) define geographic dispersion as “a measurement of the amount of work needed for a worker to visit a collaborator at that collaborator’s place of work, rather than the physical distance between the two collaborators.”

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Under pandemic conditions, visiting overseas locations has become difficult, and in some countries, impossible, given the scarcity of international flights, border closures, and the need to obtain permits for travel or undertake a period of quarantine on arrival. The amount of ‘work’ needed for geographic dispersion caused by lockdowns and travel bans is prohibitive for most teacher educators seeking to undertake travel outside their own countries, and in many cases within their own countries. Some countries, such as Australia, have used various temporary measures like closing state borders and preventing people moving more than five kilometres from their homes. Teacher education associations like WFATE often rely on conferences as their major activity for member collaboration and as their major source of funding.

Geographic dispersions can be mediated by technology by allowing people located almost anywhere on the globe, to connect synchronously. Putting the pandemic to one side, this means, for those in remote locations or for whom travel was personally or financially prohibitive (and provided internet access is sufficient) connecting virtually with international colleagues may be possible, when it was not possible to do so in person. Groups can be easily established and linked using video-conferencing technology. Videotaping and sharing recordings may not mediate professional social interaction as richly and effectively as face-to-face meetings, as Kozlowski et al (2021) pointed out, but it does offer a partial solution.

Temporal dispersion

The literature reveals that temporal distance is more impactful than geographic distance (Ågerfalk, et al., in Morrison-Smith and Ruiz, 2020) and this seems to be accurate in the case of WFATE. Temporal dispersion relates to shifts in work patterns and differences in time zones, both of which can be manipulated to “either decrease or increase temporal distance” Morrison- Smith & Ruiz, 2020). A face-to-face event such as a conference lacks temporal dispersion because participants are all located in the same time zone. (That is except for when differences in work patterns emerge.)

The full diversity of global locations for teacher education takes place across the entire 24 hours of a day. Any event held synchronously on an international scale where participants are located across the entirety of geographic locations must advantage participants in some countries and create difficulty for others. For example, a recent synchronous event held by videoconference in the USA during office hours took place at 3.00 am to 4.00 am in the author’s time zone.

Consider as another example a video-conferenced meeting for the current WFATE Board. If a meeting was held at 10.00 am in WFATE President Paul Paese’s home location of Texas, USA, it would also have members attending at different times from their home countries of Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the USA (Table 1, Scenario 1). The time differences between board members stretch out over 14 hours, including at 1.00 am or 2.00 am on the east coast of Australia. It is therefore impossible to schedule a video conferenced meeting for all members within ‘reasonable’ daylight hours. By switching the meeting to 5.00 pm in Texas (Table 1,

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Scenario 2), board members in Australia and Canada can attend at the reasonable time slot of 8.00 am or 9.00 am, or 3.00pm respectively, but members in Spain, Italy and Sweden would need to attend at 2.00 am. There is no way to hold a synchronous meeting without some members having to attend a meeting late at night or in the early hours of the morning. The full diversity of time zones is illustrated in Table 2, acknowledging that board or RDG members could potentially come from any location across the globe.

Country State, Territory or Scenario Scenario Time zone Province (WFATE 1 2 board members locations) WFATE Texas 10.00 am 5.00 pm Central Standard Time President, USA (CST)

USA Virginia; Kansas; 9.00 am 4.00 pm Central Standard Time Indiana; Ohio; Nevada or 10.00 or 5.00 (CST) or Eastern am pm Standard Time (EST) Italy; Sweden; 4.00 pm 2.00 am Central European Time Spain (Europe) (CET) Australia Queensland 1.00 am 8.00 am Australian Eastern Time (AET) Australia Victoria 2.00 am 9.00 am Australian Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) Canada Alberta 08.00 am 03.00 pm Mountain Standard Time (MST) Canada Manitoba 09.00 am 04.00 pm Central Standard Time (CST)

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Table 1: Locations of WFATE Board members and meeting times, using two scenarios

Country At 12 midday … west to east United Kingdom; Iceland; Portugal 12.00 pm Europe (excluding Russia) range of time zones 1.00 pm–3.00 pm Africa 12.00 pm-3.00 pm Saudi Arabia 3.00 pm China 8.00 pm Iran 3.30 pm Pakistan, India, Afghanistan Burma. range of time zones 4.30 pm–6.30 pm Nepal, Bhutan Russia range of time zones 3.00 pm-12.00 am Indonesia 7.00 pm-9.00 pm Philippines, Malaysia 8.00 pm Australia, Papua New Guinea, range of time zones 8.00 pm-10.00 pm Micronesia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia 7.00 pm Japan, North Korea, South Korea 9.00 pm Solomon Islands, Vanuatu 11.00 pm New Zealand, Islands of West range of time zones 12.00 am Pacific Canada range of time zones 4.00 am–8.00 am United States of America range of time zones 3.00 am–8.00 am Central America 7.00 am South America range of time zones 7.00 am–9.00 am Greenland 9.00am

Table 2: Possible locations of WFATE Board Members across time zones The same concept applies to virtual conferences; it is inevitable that no matter when sessions are scheduled the time will be extremely inconvenient and prohibitive for some participants. It is probable that conference sessions would need to be held around the clock to enable all members to participate at least some of the time. Videotapes of sessions go some way towards making sessions accessible.

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Managing temporal dispersion by meeting in real time through video conferencing is possible if locations are in time zones that are close together. In November 2020, WFATE participated in an event “Teacher education around the world” organised by the President of ATEE, Professor Davide Parmigiani in collaboration with the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA), the Canadian Association of Teacher Educators (CATE), American Teacher Educators (ATE) and the Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand–Te Rauika Titohu Kaiako o Aotearoa (TEFANZ). Speakers from each organisation covered topics that were collectively decided on. Presenters were drawn from each organisation. The seminar was divided into two separate but related events, Atlantic involving ATE / CATE / ATEE / WFATE, and a week later, Pacific (ATEA / TEFANZ / ATEE / WFATE), each one held during the day. Both seminars were recorded and made available to those who could not attend. The intent was to arrange the webinars as round tables with international scholars. The event focused on teacher education issues such as the development of teacher educators, preservice teachers and teacher education programs, but specifically, how the core business of the various associations might continue, given the constraints of the pandemic, as follows:

• How to implement research and cooperation activities among the associations and their members • How to share perspectives/aims of Teacher Education programmes through different cultures and educational systems • How to support Teacher Education prof development around the world • How to ‘connect’ with each other when international travel is not possible • How to develop global competence within our Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs

The structure offered compromise and was largely successful, the greatest difficulty being that all participants were unable to share in the forum and the ensuing discussions together. There is no easy solution.

It may be that three time zones with activities in three- or four-hour blocks might offer more manageable session schedule for participants, or (and as a less satisfactory solution) that some participants change their work hours, effectively working a conference “night shift”. Three separate time zones for activities would ensure reasonable timeslots, but the diversity of participants in each ‘live’ timeslot is severely reduced.

Temporal dispersion can also play out to advantage when collaborating with texts, in tasks such as editing, transcribing, moderating or evaluating using a “‘follow-the-sun’ approach (i.e., where teams hand off work at the end of the day in one time-zone to workers beginning their day in another)” (Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020). Participants can meet briefly on handover. This does offer some advantages that might be taken up by WFATE RDGs or researchers and writers who are planning to collaborate on research grants or publications.

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Burke et al., (2017) provide an interesting contrast between the two sites affected by temporal dispersion in their collaboration from locations in Scotland and Australia.

In the most extreme example Australia can be in the grip of summer heatwave and bushfire conditions when Scotland is enveloped in winter snow and ice…

In Australia the academic year begins in late February, whereas in the Northern Hemisphere the academic year starts in August. Semester breaks don’t always match up and so any collaborations need to take place within respective semesters and around lecture breaks…

Supporting student learning at particular and timely points in their program of study becomes a complex and important consideration. While the use of digital technologies can mediate climate differences (people can work at their computers and devices regardless of the weather), organizing learning experiences and meetings in real time, given seasonal differences, is more difficult and forces us to rethink traditional notions of working hours. (Burke et al., 2017)

Temporal dispersion is evident in the variation in the academic calendar as well as seasons and climate between the north and south global hemispheres and while none prohibit virtual teams, they do present important considerations for planning and management for WFATE.

Barriers and opportunities in global interactions

Learning from the experience of the pandemic requires teacher educators to make a post- pandemic shift to reshape, rethink and re-imagine the approach into the future using our collective resources and thereby “extend the scope of teacher educators and their learning” (Husu & Clandinin, 2019). This thinking utilises a scholarship of integration to “bring ideas together” and a scholarship of disruption “to both to contemplate the idea of uncertainty and to take an inquiry stance” (Husu & Clandinin, 2019).

As stated earlier, virtual teams do offer opportunities, yet also present barriers, for interactions for an international organisation like WFATE, that can be identified by through various dispersions. From the analysis of dispersions, the most impactful dispersions during the pandemic in this case study seem to be geographic and temporal. Collaboration in virtual teams is hampered by insufficient access to technology, (e.g., devices, tools, internet). The pandemic has prevented in- person collaborations in traditional events such as conferences. Temporal dispersions, requiring synchronous meetings across the full diversity of international time zones are, by their nature, inconvenient and prohibitive for some participants.

As we ponder what we have we learnt from the experiences that a pandemic has created it is useful to consider how we can reshape our approach to global collaboration and professional

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learning through WFATE following the two central questions raised in this paper. How can core WFATE business be transacted under pandemic conditions? And how can WFATE stay relevant to its membership and continue to support members’ needs (particularly in developing research, professional learning and global competence) during the pandemic?

Opportunities

The exploration of alternative ways of interacting through virtual teams becomes important in using digital technologies to mediate interaction between WFATE members and with other teacher education associations and partner organisations. Procedures for new virtual interactions need to be established.

Opportunities through cultural dispersions include building partnerships with organisations that have a strong social justice agenda, and to seek new partnerships from parts of the globe that have not previously been successfully explored. Translation technologies could be of use in fostering linguistic diversity. A range of new virtual activities could be explored and developed, such as explicit agreements, virtual exchanges, multi-cultural teams and select professional learning activities, particularly towards building global competence. The need to develop global competence in both teacher educators and their students becomes more vital as opportunities to travel diminish. The role of WFATE in brokering these competencies becomes important.

Geographic dispersions can be mediated by connecting virtually with international colleagues who have previously been unable to travel to meetings in person using video-conferencing technology. Three time zones with activities in three- or four-hour blocks might offer a more manageable virtual session schedule for participants. Videotaping virtual conferences and sharing recordings offer a partial solution. Forward planning to match up suitable times for activities in the various academic calendars present important considerations for planning and management for WFATE.

Temporal dispersion can provide advantages collaborating with texts using a “‘follow-the-sun’ approach. WFATE RDGs are already established and researchers and writers who are planning to collaborate on research grants or publications could make good use of this concept. The WFATE journal could be developed by RDG contributions around themed issues.

A caution and a call to action

On paper these virtual activities have much to offer teacher educators and their students, but there are limitations on the resources of WFATE to deliver them. Keeping members engaged requires that they can gain ‘value’ from their membership, in terms of worthwhile and attractive professional activities and opportunities to contribute and build successful or satisfying careers in teacher education. This means that a broad, energetic and active membership base should be galvanised into action. The challenge, as always, in any organisation is to ensure small, active

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contributions by many participants, rather than relying on large contributions by a few members. Relationships with in-country associations like ATE, ATEE, ATEA, CATE, TEFANZ and existing and new partner organisations as integral resources can be drawn on and developed. And a bright and flourishing future for WFATE during and beyond the pandemic can be assured.

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WFATE Board Members 2020-2021 Last Name First Country Location Role Email Name Parmigiani Davide Europe Italy President ATEE [email protected] Morberg Asa Europe Sweden ATE-E Past President [email protected] Montane Mireia Europe Spain, WFATE Past [email protected] Barcelona President Lefever Shirley USA Kansas ATE-US Past [email protected] President Embry- Karen USA Texas ATE-US Past [email protected] Jenlink President Stachowski Laura USA Indiana Board Member [email protected] Jones Melita Australia ACU Board Member [email protected] Burke Jenene Australia Federation Board Member [email protected] WFATE President- Elect Cooper Maxine Australia Federation WFATE President [email protected] 2011-2014 Jacobsen Michele Canada Calgary CATE Past President [email protected] Smith Cathryn Canada Brandon, CATE President [email protected] Manitoba Schnellert Leyton Canada UBC CATE Vice President [email protected] WFATE Officers Cooper Maxine Australia Federation WFATE President [email protected] 2011-2014 McCarthy Jane USA Nevada WFATE President [email protected] 2014-2016 Montane Mireia Europe Spain, WFATE President [email protected] Barcelona 2016-2018 Paese Paul USA Texas WFATE President [email protected] 2018-2020 WFATE Ex-Officio Officers Alouf Jim USA Virginia WFATE Business [email protected] Officer Shelly Ann USA Ohio WFATE Executive [email protected] Secretary van Tassell Frances USA Texas WFATE Recording [email protected] Secretary

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