Teaching Experiences of Early Childhood Educators in the New Normal: The Multi-Faceted Endeavor Theory

Early childhood is considered to be the fastest developmental stage in human life and is essential for the formation of the physical, intellectual, social and emotional domains. Early childhood educators are expected to provide quality education to all young learners because of their high impact. However, before the COVID-19 pandemic, moderate to high levels of psychological burnout already existed among early childhood educators (Al-Adwan, Zaid, Al-Khayat, Mohammad, 2017). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread concern globally, posing unprecedented challenges to various parts of society and education, considered one of the most vulnerable sectors (Lansangan & Gonzales, 2020). All the demands, expectations, and other concerns in this new normal have made teaching and learning an important and popular research topic (Sut & So, 2021). However, little is known about the teaching experiences of the early childhood educators. In this study, it sought to generate a theory in the teaching experiences of early childhood educators in the new normal. With this purpose, this paper utilized the deductive axiomatic approach in theory generation following the steps provided by Padua (2012). There are five axioms construed: (1) the teaching experiences of early childhood educators in the new normal echo the educators' process of development in adjusting to environmental changes;(2) the teaching experiences of the early childhood educators in the new normal involve a learning cycle on how to teach during a pandemic;(3) the teaching experiences of the early childhood educators in the new normal cultivate survival behaviors for overcoming personal and occupational challenges;(4) the teaching experiences of the early childhood educators in the new normal emphasize the fundamental roles of educators in supporting the cognitive, social and emotional needs of children and their families;and (5) the teaching experiences of the early childhood educators in the new normal point out the motivation to achieve a goal. From these five axioms, five propositions were formulated: (1) government agencies and academic institutions should provide substantial supports to early childhood educators to adjust with the environmental changes in teaching during this new normal;(2) professional learning communities of early childhood educators should be encouraged to reflect and share on the teaching experiences during the new normal;(3) trainings cultivating survival behaviors for overcoming personal and occupational challenges should be implemented as part of the early childhood education capability enhancement program;(4 teacher-led guidance and counseling activities for parents and children's wellness should be enhanced to support their cognitive, social and emotional needs;and(5) early childhood educators should continue to stay focus and motivated in achieving their goal by giving them opportunities for reflective narratives. With these papers, a multi-faceted Endeavor theory emerged from the classroom experiences of early childhood educators in the new normal. This theory highlights the multiple challenges and struggles early childhood educators experience in teaching in the new normal.

Supporting elementary gifted learners during the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey of teaching practices

The present mixed methods study aimed to understand the challenges faced by teachers of the gifted and how elementary gifted learners were supported and taught during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey was administered to 310 elementary school teachers of the gifted across the United States between March and June 2021, one year after initial school closings. Focus groups were utilized to further explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the work of teachers of the gifted in their schools. Educators shared lessons learned from this experience related to (a) a better understanding of how to utilize remote instruction, (b) reimagining the gifted education classroom, and (c) use of a variety of strategies to provide more student choice, differentiation, and individualized pace. Results from this study provide insights that can guide educators, curriculum specialists, and school administrators to improve online instruction for gifted learners in the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

TEACHING INFORMATION SYSTEMS STUDENTS TO WRITE A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW BEFORE AND DURING COVID-19

Fourth year Information Systems (IS) students are expected to write a research paper on a selected IS topic. At the University of Pretoria in South Africa, a number of challenges were faced towards reaching this goal: many students have poor research and academic writing skills;the supervision load grows significantly as student numbers increase annually;and students' final research papers are rarely publishable. Some of these problems were solved by changing the module's objective to writing a systematic literature review (SLR). This paper describes how the curriculum of the module was adjusted to reach the objective and how the transition to fully remote teaching during the pandemic was managed. Blackboard Collaborate was used for synchronous online teaching and student engagement was facilitated by online learning tools, which include Jamboard. Both students and lecturers generally experienced the changes as positive. Recorded lectures are considered valuable as it enables flexible learning, and online learning tools were successfully utilised to make lectures more interactive. © Proceedings of the 2021 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research.

How we turned fully digital due to covid-19: Two control engineering teaching experiences

While living in a digital era, both teachers and students of Engineering Courses were not ready for the drastic change associated with the Covid-19 first confinement (March 2020). This forced change from a presential mode to a fully online mode provided teaching/leaning difficulties as well as new opportunities. Moreover, as most engineering courses require laboratory practice, on-line teaching raised additional challenges. This paper reports two different experiences in two different Control Engineering university courses in the North of Portugal. The goal is to share some learning tools that are particularly relevant in the pandemic time we are living: pocket-sized laboratory kits that students can easily take home and experience real-world control contents;an open Mural that can serve as an exchange of knowledge. Perceptions received both from students and lecturers regarding these two experiments are presented. © 2021 IEEE.