Pedagogical challenges in Distance Learning during COVID-19 conditions – Experience of Latvia

Abstract

Due to the global pandemic caused by the spread of coronavirus disease, the educational process has experienced very significant transformations – in the pedagogical process both pupils and parents, teachers and education policy makers have encountered essential challenges and an unprecedent experience The aim of the research, based on the theoretical study of the distance learning concept and empirical research, and finding out the teachers’ attitude towards distance learning, is to describe the Latvia experience in distance learning during COVID-19 conditions. The research's methodology is based on teacher survey, regulatory analysis, and concessional analysis. The study highlights problems in the context of distance learning and makes a significant contribution to further research. Analysing the results of the empirical study and outcomes of the survey, it has been concluded that teachers feel psycho-emotional and physiological overload due to distance education.
 
 Keywords: distance learning; education; pedagogical process; pupil; teacher

Untitled

“…The official State as well as the school administration were officially in their assistance. However, the State contribution was deficient, which resulted in some teachers' being dissatisfied (Jurs and Kulberga, 2021). Besides the very basichowever extremely importantaction that the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs took, by promptly providing the platforms for the implementation of synchronous and asynchronous remote education, the essential instructions for remote education, the activation of already-existing digital resources such as e.g.…”

“…The school administration appeared to have been closer to the teachers, together with the remote learning support team (Jurs and Kulberga, 2021;Meinck et al, 2022;Nikiforos et al, 2020;Papazoglou and Koutouzis, 2020 ;Truzoli et al, 2020). The school administration managed to support them through good organization, through providing every piece of important information, but also through resolving potential problems they faced, while the support teamwhich consisted of teachers of the school, either ICT teachers or simple teachers that possessed certain specialized knowledgeresponded to a satisfactory degree to its task by eagerly supporting the school staff.…”

“…The school administration managed to support them through good organization, through providing every piece of important information, but also through resolving potential problems they faced, while the support teamwhich consisted of teachers of the school, either ICT teachers or simple teachers that possessed certain specialized knowledgeresponded to a satisfactory degree to its task by eagerly supporting the school staff. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that there was support among the teachers (Giasiranis and Sofos, 2021;Jurs and Kulberga, 2021;Temelli et al, 2021) through formal as well as informal communication channels, which gave them the potential to exchange information, knowledge and experiences, all precious for the effectuation of their work (Nikiforos et al, 2020;Papazoglou and Koutouzis, 2020 ).…”

“…Most teachers had neither the knowledge nor any previous experience (Wu, 2021) especially in Greece (Albiser et al, 2020), however their response to this new and unprecedented emergency situation was impressive, as it can be discerned from the number of teachers that created their own virtual class as well as from the students that attended synchronous remote education (Papazoglou and Koutouzis, 2020 ). This turn to online education motivated teachers by offering them the possibility to activate alternative and more versatile forms of teaching, however forcing them to implement this at a very fast pace (Donham et al, 2022;Hodges et al, 2020;Phillips et al, 2021), which caused them to face an enormous amount of additional work and to stress (Jurs and Kulberga, 2021;Oliveira et al, 2021;Raikou et al, 2021) and generally to experience negative emotions (Mikošková and Verešová, 2020).…”