Opinions of Students of the Teaching of Vocational Subject and Practical Training Study Programme on the Teaching Practice in the First Wave of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to present opinions of students of Teaching of Vocational Subjects and Practical Training on the teaching practice in the new circumstances during the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020. The first part describes the conditions valid before the start of quarantine as well as the changes that have taken place to enable students to successfully complete teaching practice in the standard period of study. The second part of this work presents the results of qualitative research conducted by performing interviews with 36 students of Teaching of Vocational Subjects and Practical Training and analyzing their diaries from the teaching practice. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed four categories: “situation perceived as a welcomed change”, “change of the opinion on virtual teaching observation”, “sort of different preparation for a lesson”, “virtual teacher- autodidact”. We have confirmed that a video recording to fully replace face-to-face teacher training at school and that digital competencies of students of the programme (teachers-in-training) are not satisfactory and we also found out that short videos may be used for the post-Covid period for regular training of students of the programme.