COVID-19 Distance Education Process from Different Perspectives: Being a School Stakeholder during the Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a butterfly effect all over the world, giving rise to storms in many areas such as education, health and economy. Considering the partners of the educational organizations, it was seen that many students, parents, teachers and administrators were deeply affected by the epidemic process. Many countries had to close their schools to prevent the spread of the epidemic. In the study it was aimed to understand what happened and to put forward some practical solutions based on the opinions of administrators, teachers, students and parents regarding distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the study, a multiple case study design was used to examine the distance education process comprehensively according to the qualitative research method. The opinions of the administrators, teachers, students and parents in distance education process in different regions and socio-economic schools of Izmir were consulted according to the maximum diversity sampling method. Their opinions were collected via a semi-structured interview form using Zoom application and the data were subjected to content analysis. As a result of the analyzes, when the distance education process was evaluated from the point of view of managers, it was seen that they experienced problems in crisis management, teacher motivation and planning. Teachers, on the other hand, were found to have problems in classroom management and digital literacy. The students had difficulties in motivating in the lesson and gave up attending live lessons due to systemic problems. It was determined that parents had difficulties in supporting their children. Policy makers work on possible scenarios in order to be prepared for possible crisis moments such as COVID-19 pandemics, managers are trained for crisis and change management, assigning individuals with sustainable leadership qualities as managers, ensuring teachers to receive the necessary training to become literate of information and communication technologies, developing students' skills such as self-control and problem solving, implementing a family education system that includes pedagogical support for parents, etc. are among the suggestions brought in the context of the study.