Pedagogical Approaches of Intermediate Schoolteachers for Teaching Students by Building Online Classroom Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ebrahim Ghazi Alenezi ,John Woollard ,Yousif Hadi Alenezi ,Dalal Alenezi

doi:10.7176/jep/11-30-02

Abstract

This study explores teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical approaches for teaching students by connecting and building online classroom communities in distance education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in this study are teachers from 12 intermediate schools in Kuwait. The study generates survey data from 153 teachers (93 females and 60 males) to determine teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical beliefs, mode of delivery and communication, patterns of interaction and guided inquiry. The findings of the study suggest that teachers are willing to use technology and different modes of communication to connect with students and deliver remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although teachers did combine some aspects of both traditional and constructivist approaches and were willing to use technology to bridge the distance created by remote education, they were averse to teaching online and considered face-to-face interaction with students essential. While it is evident that there will be a continuum of technology-based instruction when the teachers transition from face-to-face teaching to fully online remote teaching, the teachers were not aware of interaction patterns which are critical in online distance education. ANOVA results indicate there is no significant difference in the participants’ opinions on interaction patterns based on teachers’ experience and courses they taught (p=>.05). The descriptive data and the results of ANOVA and Tukey indicate that most teachers, irrespective of their subject specializations or experience, did not consider guided inquiry to be important for distance education. This study has implications for supporting effective technology integration for the delivery of instruction during a pandemic. Keywords: Pandemic, COVID-19, Remote Teaching, Distance Learning, Pedagogical Beliefs, Pedagogical Approaches, Interaction Patterns, Guided Inquiry, Communities of Inquiry, TPACK, Practical subject (Electrical) DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-30-02 Publication date: October 31 st 2020

Highlights

Introduction and backgroundCOVID-19, a contagious and acute respiratory disease with a high fatality rate, has become a major public health challenge resulting in the global disruption of education (Abiad et al 2020)
While it is evident that there will be a continuum of technology-based instruction when the teachers transition from face-to-face teaching to fully online remote teaching, the teachers were not aware of interaction patterns which are critical in online distance education
Survey The questionnaire comprises of the Technological Knowledge (TK), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), and Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) domains of the TPACK framework (Schmidt et al 2009), the key elements of the Community of Inquiry Framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000), and variables from The Survey Of Technology Use In Literacy And Language Arts a validated survey developed by Hutchison and Reinking (2011), and used by Pang (2016) and Pang et al (2015)

Summary

Introduction

COVID-19, a contagious and acute respiratory disease with a high fatality rate, has become a major public health challenge resulting in the global disruption of education (Abiad et al 2020). It originated in Wuhan, China, the virus and the lockdowns that ensued have caused educational institutions world-wide to move teaching online on an untested and staggering scale (Burgess & Sievertsen, 2020). The pandemic has already revitalized the need to study and analyze the affordances of distance teaching and learning approaches as www.iiste.org alternatives to traditional face-to-face classroom instruction (EPALE, 2020; World Bank, 2020). The current situation could be used to test the effectiveness of technology interventions for distance learning, and to plan for sustainable, quality, flexible learning options and most importantly the development of communities of learning (Bates, 2020; Naidu, 2017)

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