TEACHERS’ REFLECTION ON ONLINE CLASSES DURING AND AFTER THE COVID-19 CRISIS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an overall influence on educational systems in countries throughout the world, and Bangladesh is no exception, in which all of the academic institutions in that country have been closed since March 18, 2020. The pandemic compelled the secondary schools in Bangladesh to shift from face-to-face learning to online modes of education. This abrupt change created huge challenges (e.g., class participation or use of online tools) in relation to teaching students online who were previously taught face to face. The aim of this study was to provide some expert insights into online teaching with the goal of helping secondary school teachers in Bangladesh navigate through their online teaching challenges during this pandemic and in the post-pandemic era. In-depth interviews with six expert secondary school teachers were qualitatively analyzed to gain reflections on the variety of individual teaching paths taken during this educational change and to identify potential relations between teachers' learning paths, motivation, teaching experience, and conceptions of online teaching through educational technology. Online teaching requires certain technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) along with technological literacy. The combination of these three primary forms of knowledge requires context-specific and goal-oriented adaptation. Therefore, it needs to be demonstrated according to the need of the context. The article ends with a reflection on how the TPACK framework can help secondary school teachers deal with online teaching practices in the context of Bangladesh during this COVID-19 pandemic as well as in the post-pandemic era. The findings and discussion in the article about online teaching practices can be helpful for teachers within other similar contexts.