ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN THE PROCESS OF ADAPTING TO DISTANCE EDUCATION: A MULTIPLE-CASE STUDY

ABSTRACT

In this study, we address the issue of adaptation to distance teaching at the elementary school level during the first school lockdown in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The data was collected from five elementary schools. According to the data analysis, the key point of the whole adaptation process was the school leader's decision of whether there would be unity in the conception of educational processes for the whole school or if the teachers could design their own educational processes. We refer to these approaches as decisions about centralism vs. autonomy. We observed that if a school leader decided that the school would favor centralism and simultaneously arranged the necessary support for the teachers, the responsibility was distributed. School leaders were responsible for conceptual, organizational, and technical levels of education;teachers were responsible for their professional development in terms of digital competence and changes in curricula. On the school level, teachers in these schools gradually reached stability in their distance teaching. © 2022 Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts. All rights reserved.