GATEways to Teacher Education

A journal of the Georgia Association of Teacher Educators struggling to attend the virtual sessions on time), I did not find codes that negated my analysis Additionally, the data was triangulated by looking for consistencies and inconsistencies among multiple participants and data sources (various coursework and interviews) as described above.

Findings

Block 2 pre-service teachers faced hybrid college courses–courses that were held both online and face-to-face. Masks were a requirement both on college campuses and in their field experiences. Field experiences ranged from socially distanced classrooms to completely online Zoom sessions to a combination of both. To say that the pre-service teachers needed to be flexible and determined under these circumstances is an understatement. As reflected in coursework, pre-service teachers were pulling double duties submitting both faceto-face lesson plans and lesson plans students could complete online. Pre-service teachers needed to think of creative ways to engage both online and face-to-face students–sometimes simultaneously. This is no small feat for a second-semester college of education student. While course instructors and professors attempted to provide them with resources and pedagogical knowledge, we were all learning on the fly and Microsoft Teams, Zoom, virtual classrooms, Go React, and the numerous other online platforms were new and often initially clumsy to administer.

Challenges in the Field

The seven pre-service teachers who were placed in classrooms that had both face-to-face students and online students found it difficult to manage both. One pre-service teacher wrote in her lesson reflection, “Trying to come up with hands-on activities that both in-person and Zoom kids could do simultaneously took a lot of time and work.” Multiple activities meant more work and preparation on the pre-service teachers’parts; however, more troubling to them seemed to be the fear that they were not successfully teaching either group well.Apreservice teacher wrote in her lesson reflection, “It was incredibly difficult to teach both groups at the same time and make sure each kid had everything they needed without gluing myself to my computer and without neglecting either group of students.”

Restrictions Due to Covid-19 Protocols Covid-19 protocols, while necessary, were difficult for the pre-service teachers to navigate. Many of them noted they felt like mask monitors, and it added another layer of classroom management to tell students to raise their masks constantly. The pre-service teachers who were in classrooms that had face-to-face instruction noted that the masks and social distance requirements led them to feel disconnected from their students and vice versa. One pre-service teacher noted, “It became harder to learn names, to gauge moods and attentiveness, and just to see them smile and connect.” They shared this sentiment among the pre-service teachers who were in face-to-face classrooms. In semesters past, I often read of how they grew to really care about their students and how much they were going to miss them when the semester finished and though this group of pre-service teachers cared about their students, the connection did not seem as strong as previous semesters.

While the pre-service teachers who delivered instruction online did not wear masks, they felt that the Zoom classroom with the students in tiny boxes all over the screen made it hard to truly connect and form relationships. They also felt like students’parents/guardians were listening to all their lessons and this added a level of anxiety for the pre-service teachers as one noted, “I’m still learning what I am doing, and it is nerve-wracking to have a parent listening to every word I am saying and judging me.”

Finally, the seven pre-service teachers who were placed in hybrid classrooms (some students attended face-to-face while others were online) often complained of doing double the work. “I must prepare a face-to-face lesson for my students in the classroom, but I also must make sure that it can be done by my students who remain at home. Their parents come and pick the packets up the week before so I cannot make any changes–even if it would make sense to make changes–it’s very frustrating!” Part of the Covid19 protocols included students and their parents being able to choose face-to-face or online instruction and for those who chose online the