Online teaching practice experience: An evaluation from the perspectives of newly graduated preschool teachers

Abstract

Courses in teaching practice, crucial in the teaching profession, were taught through distance learning when face-to-face education was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This case study analyzed newly graduated preschool teachers’ thoughts on teaching practice courses through distance education due to Covid-19. Thus, the study group comprised 24 preschool teachers who had taken the teaching practice course online and had just graduated from university. The research data were collected with the “Distance Education Interview Form,” which contained open-ended questions and was developed by the researchers. The data were put to content analysis. The findings obtained in this study showed that the participants considered distance-learning applications rather negatively despite their several positive aspects, that they had challenges in many respects in the teaching practice course that they had been taught online during the pandemic, that they had various problems, and that the course had made limited contributions to their academic development.