Opportunities and Challenges of Organizing and Implementing Distance Pre-School Education: Teachers’ Opinions

Abstract

The Council of the European Union (2020) points out that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on education and teaching systems and has fundamentally changed the way we learn, teach, communicate and collaborate within and between our education and teaching communities. The aim of this study is to explore the opinion of pre-school teachers on the opportunities and challenges faced by them in organizing and conducting pre-school education at a distance. The strategy of qualitative research was chosen for the study, Klaipėda city pre-school education teachers were interviewed. The study revealed that teachers did not change the content of education programs, sought to maintain the continuity of education and develop all the competencies of preschool children. Various digital and technical tools for distance education were used. Participants of the educational process experienced a variety of emotions and disturbances. Teachers missed for more decisive action of the institution’s administration. The opinion of educators discovered during the research helped to highlight advantages and disadvantages of distance pre-school education.

Saudi Teachers’ Attitudes towards using Online Learning for Young Children during the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…On the other hand, the respondents in this study believed that parents and families have an important role in some tasks and activities with their children. Similar findings by Braslauskienė et al (2021) showed that preschool teachers were constantly engaged in mutual communication with learners' parents to provide them with instructional materials. Undoubtedly, the Covid-19 pandemic has created anxiety for children, families, and educators alike.…”

Preschool Educators’ Opinions and Practices During the Implementation of Emergency Remote Teaching Due to the Pandemic of Covid-19

“…In the qualitative research project of Atiles, Almodóvar, Vargas, Dias & León, which was implemented in 7 countries of South America deploying the tool of semi-structured interviews, kindergarten teachers implemented the ERT by distributing printed worksheets and other printed educational material, sending digital material and educational instructions via e-mail, telephone, or other commercial platforms such as WhatsApp (Atiles, Almodóvar, Vargas, Dias & León, 2021). Similar techniques and the use of the same or similar social platforms such as Viber or unofficial educational platforms like Google Classroom were mentioned also in other studies that focused on the implementation of ERT in kindergarten in various countries such as China (Hu, Chiu, Leung & Yelland, 2021), Lithuania (Braslauskienė, Jacynė, Norviliene, Ramanauskienė, & Strazdienė, 2021) and an island state in the Pacific (Dayal & Tiko, 2020). Some preschool teachers differentiated from asynchronous education and they deployed teleconferencing platforms such as Skype or Zoom, to do synchronous classes and promote the interaction and communication of the children.…”