Teacher education in times of COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal: national, institutional and pedagogical responses

Abstract

This paper focuses on the national, institutional and pedagogical responses as a result of the closure of schools and universities in March 2020 in Portugal. It includes a brief description and analysis of the initiatives and responses to the crisis as well as the difficulties, the challenges and the opportunities. The paper concludes with the discussion of the implications for teaching and teacher education in such uncertain times, particularly in regard to the role of practice as well as issues of mentoring within the context of a practicum as a 'real practice' versus 'an ideal(ised) practice'.

Online teaching placement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile: challenges and opportunities

“…In addition, the limited internet access pupils had made the lack of connection between pupils and student teachers even greater. Flores and Gago (2020) found similar constraints in terms of how internet accessibility can affect online teaching and learning. They analysed the national, institutional and pedagogical responses in the Portuguese context where pupils' lack of internet access and lack of equipment was a common problem teacher candidates had to deal with.…”

“…Prospective language teachers found themselves in varyingly different situations depending on their school's decision to carry out synchronous or asynchronous teaching. However, the aspect that was considered the most negative and challenging during the emergency online teaching placement was the lack of interaction with pupils, which might affect their professional development (Flores and Gago 2020). Student teachers argued that this was not a 'real' learning experience, and therefore they could not experience first-hand what a real-life teaching scenario would be.…”

The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on teacher education

“…The need to rapidly adapt to new contexts of teaching and learning online has revealed how teacher education institutions and teacher educators encountered and experienced the challenges and opportunities to carry on their job in such unexpected circumstances (e.g. Flores and Gago 2020;Nasri et al 2020;Quezada, Talbot, and Quezada-Parker 2020). In this context, among other issues, it is important to look at how teacher education has adapted to the restriction in interaction and moved to new ways of teaching and learning in the preparation of future teachers for a world marked by uncertainty.…”

The Covid-19 pandemic and its effects on teacher education in England: how teacher educators moved practicum learning online

“…Research by La Velle et al (2020) in England, Donitsa-Schmidt and Ramot (2020) in Israel and Van Nuland et al in Canada (all 2020) focuses on necessary changes at the national levels of ITE, providing valuable, general accounts. Flores and Gago (2020) in Portugal and Robinson and Rusznyak (2020) in South Africa debate the importance of the practicum, identifying issues around its value in conventional forms and the notion of idealising practice (Flores and Gago 2020, 8). Other research specifically looks at replacement of the practicum, whether in terms of quality issues (Moyo 2020) or alternative strategies for lost practicum learning (see Monroe et al 2020and Mollenkopf and Gaskill 2020, both in Ferdig et al 2020.…”