Policy documents from OECD and UNESCO have been stressing the need to prepare students for what has been termed a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world. They emphasise socialemotional competencies as necessary for coping with such conditions. This qualitative research frames the COVID-19 outbreak as an extreme case of VUCA that grants the opportunity to examine whether our teacher preparation curriculum provides teacher students with these social-emotional competencies that they are expected to model and are necessary for coping with such circumstances. Fifty-four student teachers and 24 teacher educators responded to open-ended questionnaires, and 16 semi-structured interviews with teacher educators were analysed based on grounded theory. Results demonstrate that our student teachers struggle substantially with VUCA circumstances and do not seem to receive sufficient preparation in the domain of social-emotional competencies. These troubling findings serve as a wake-up call to increase a social-emotional orientation in teacher education curriculum.
This case study explores how teacher education curriculum in a college in Israel responded to the Covid-19 outbreak. The article focuses on the clinical component of the preservice curriculum (practice teaching and methods courses). It reveals that curriculum became malleable in two major ways: there was (1) a shift to learner-centered wellbeing and social emotional learning (SEL); and (2) an adaptation of teaching methods. The Covid-19 shutdown imposed a restructuring of the content, sequence, and scope of the curriculum. While certain topics were omitted or reduced in scope, others-especially those related to digital instruction-were introduced or expanded. Pedagogy instructors also began to attend to their students' well-being by introducing SEL contents and activities. This response during challenging times revealed teacher educators' adaptability, resilience, and agency. The Covid-19 breakout transformed the curriculum from a traditional preplanned and structured syllabus to one that is more responsive, dynamic, and malleable.
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