Student Teachers’ Experiences in an Emergency Remote Microteaching Course: Lessons Learned for the COVID-19 Era and Beyond

Abstract

This is a case study that aims to focus on academic and emotional experiences of a group of student teachers who took a microteaching course that was adapted to become fully online, due to a complete lockdown during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The qualitative data that was gathered through feedback form and via interviews revealed that overall, the student teachers thought positively about this fully online microteaching course. However, in this course process, the data indicated that the student teachers felt lost as they felt they were not heard, seen or cared and as they experienced connection and engagement problems mostly due to technological inadequacies. In this process, they were in need of receiving attention emotionally. They experienced difficulties due to the demanding nature of the course with high number of assignments, their lack of technological competences and inadequate technological infrastructure. It was evident that most student teachers felt disappointed and missed the authenticity of the face-to-face learning and teaching atmosphere. The study showed that in this online microteaching course, the student teachers were in need of reflective, collaborative and more supportive learning and teaching environment in which they could be engaged in academic and social dialogue with peers and with the course instructor for their learning, transformation and professional development.