Zooming into the Future: Implementing Theory into Practice for Educational Crisis Times

Abstract

The abrupt transition from face‐to‐face classes to online learning during March 2020 occurred as a result of the Covid‐19 pandemic. Teachers were forced to shift to online teaching with no prior training, while students had to adapt to a new learning format. The physical distance between students and teachers led to changes in interactions. The current study examines the instructional approaches used for online teaching and learning during the Covid‐19 crisis. The research focuses on using the Covid‐19 pandemic as a case study to explore crisis events and their impact on education system. The study uses a qualitative approach, with three junior and high schools participating. Thirteen teachers were interviewed, and 27 students participated in three focus groups, one from each school. The study's theoretical framework is based on the Transactional Distance Theory (TDT) and the Connectivism Learning Theory (CLT). The main finding focuses on teachers' use of autonomy to vary their teaching approaches, while students felt they did not know how to cope with the autonomy given to them and even felt neglected by their teachers. Therefore, in order to strengthen learners' autonomy, teachers need to design and monitor the scaffoldings by both structure (curriculum) and dialog (teacher‐student and student–student).