Adapting instruction using disruptive technology during the COVID-19 pandemic: How STEM teacher educators, pre-service teachers, K-12 educators, and 6th -12th grade students rapidly adapt to online learning

ABSTRACT

With the sudden transition to emergency remote instruction during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the examination of how online platforms and multimedia tools supported STEM educators and students is relevant and even urgent. This study documents how educators, despite limited prior training, rapidly developed, designed, and orchestrated their online course and captures their and their students' perceptions as they adapted to the virtual setting. The dissertation adds to the nascent body of literature on continuing education disrupted by disasters and civil crises.After developing a valid and reliable instrument measuring the extent to which educators and students were supported and satisfied with the emergency remote STEM environment, a pilot and national survey study of two groups followed. STEM educators (n= 109) - university teacher educators, pre-service teachers (PSTs), K-12 teachers, and 6th to 12th grade students (n=41) responded to the national survey. Additionally, twelve educators and four students were interviewed.Guided by the theoretical frameworks of boundary crossing and self-regulation learning, the data revealed tensions students faced as they struggled to complete assignments and adjusted to the reduced social presence of peers and teachers. Eight percent of the national study students remained "bored" and "uninterested" (11%). Additionally, 25% of the students did not want to take an online course in the future. The following themes emerged from the student interviews (1) the desire for more regular, required, live, interactive sessions (2) the inclusion of motivating activities and collaborative experiences, and (3) personalized feedback rather than completion grades. Interviews with pre-service teachers (PST) demonstrated how a strong university teacher preparation program acts as a boundary spanner for transforming the identity of a teacher candidate to a recent graduate, certified and experienced with a virtual teaching internship. Support for PSTs came in the form of (1) teacher education emphasizing TPACK, (2) well-being check-ups from teacher educators, (3) frequent communication with the mentor teacher, and (4) opportunities for planning units, lessons, and preparing online materials, including the creation of instructional videos.The data also reflected emotional challenges teachers faced with creating boundaries between work and home. Interviews identified three categories of teachers, demonstrating either a low, medium, or high commitment level towards teaching in the new online setting. Achieving the high commitment level required a sense of responsibility, determination, and the ability to leverage boundary spanners such as PD trainings, social media, online repositories, and technological knowledgeable colleagues.Educator interviews reported disparities among students, underscoring the critical need for all education stakeholders to address the lack of access millions of students have to broadband service and technological devices. The study details teachers' empathy and heightened awareness of the psychological and economic pressures on their students, as well as how teachers supported ELLs and students with disabilities. Implications for practice include strategies respecting and valuing languages other than English in the STEM classroom, as well as being flexible with curriculum choices, software, and tools to best accommodate students with disabilities. Three models for motivating student participation emerged from the interviews (1) Offering live optional office hours with incentives, (2) instituting themed meetings, and (3) envisioning live sessions as social spaces. Implementing variations of these models may help reduce the transactional distance between teachers-students and students-students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)