STEM Distance Teaching: Investigating STEM Teachers' Attitudes, Barriers, and Training Needs

The aim of this study was to investigate STEM teachers' attitude towards STEM Distance Teaching (DT), as well as their perceived barriers and training needs. A mixed survey was conducted on 158 STEM teachers in secondary education who taught their courses fully online due to COVID-19. The results revealed that STEM teachers perceive STEM DT quite positively, but their attitude can be affected by several factors, such as the efficiency of the schools' digital infrastructure, as well as their gender, age, and STEM teaching subject. The qualitative thematic analysis identified several barriers to efficiently applying STEM DT, including the (i) lack of students' interaction and engagement, (ii) inefficiency of digital infrastructure, (iii) lack of students' and teachers' digital skills, iv) lack of space/equipment, and (v) increased teaching workload. The generated themes of training needs highlighted the need for targeted and adjusted training to every STEM discipline, as well as training on DT tools and pedagogies. Finally, the results indicated the STEM teachers' need for psychological support and consulting.

Teachers’ Digital Skills Readiness During COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 crisis revealed the necessity for teachers to have digital skills in order to effectively teach online. Teachers should be able to exploit, use, and apply digital technologies in all educational activities. This paper investigates teachers' perceptions regarding their digital skills for performing their teaching and professional responsibilities during the pandemic. More than eight hundred teachers participated in a survey regarding the use of digital technologies in their teaching and their professional responsibilities. Indicative digital tools that can be used by digital competent teachers are also presented to cover all areas of the teachers' professional activities. Their answers revealed that they mostly used digital tools for finding, evaluating, and developing educational resources as well for teaching. They also used digital tools for self-study, students' assessment, as well as interacting and communicating with students. However, they hardly used digital tools for other teaching activities such as feedback and final evaluation of the students, or revising the educational resources. Finally, they could not deal with long-term planning, management, and development of either their school or education in general. Although it is important for teachers to effectively respond to their daily emergent teaching responsibilities, consideration should also be given to the long-term planning and development of the digital school and digital education in general.

Greek teachers’ difficulties & opportunities in emergency distance teaching

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools worldwide were closed and online teaching replaced face-to-face teaching. This study reports the results of a survey among 845 teachers of primary and secondary education in Greece who taught their students fully remotely during the pandemic lockdown. These Greek teachers expressed the difficulties that they faced as well as the opportunities that they gained during this emergency distance teaching (EDT). Through qualitative content analysis this study found that everyone (students, teachers, and state) involved in EDT faced various difficulties due to digital infrastructure?s inadequacy, limited support by the state, limited digital educational material, as well as low digital literacy of students, parents, and even some teachers. On the other hand, there were many opportunities for teachers to experiment and apply their prior training knowledge on distance education to EDT. More concretely, teachers managed not only to improve their teaching and digital skills, to enrich and organise their educational material with more interesting online educational resources, but also to collaborate with colleagues, and to maintain effective communication with students. Similarly, students had opportunities to improve their digital and soft skills and receive personalized teaching. However, some teachers believed that their workload and their available free time increased while other teachers believed the opposite. Also, some teachers believed that students? participation and engagement increased while other teachers believed the opposite. Finally, the study suggests actions to be taken to support the teachers in EDT such as improvements in digital infrastructure, digital educational material, teachers? training, as well as support and clear guidelines by the educational authorities.