How Three Educators Transitioned to Emergency Remote Teaching: Hermeneutic Phenomenological Analysis

This presentation will share what challenged three educators when transitioning to virtual teaching, provide examples of how teachers who had to transition to the COVID virtual teaching tackled arising problems during emergency teaching, and offer what remained as unsolved realms of ERT. In the beginning of the transition phase, two of the participants felt overwhelmed and unprepared to use online or remote teaching strategies and tools; consequently, they struggled to adapt their pedagogy to fluctuating situations, such as unfamiliar technology, students’ unreliable Internet access, low attendance due to the relaxed attendance policy, changing personal needs, rising ethical issues in test-taking, and unclear or shifting institutional or governmental directives. We found that the educators who lacked an online teaching pedagogy and use of technology skills mainly tried to replicate their in-person teaching strategies with digital tools (e.g., Zoom, Google Meet). However, the instructor who was experienced and equipped with a wealth of knowledge and skills on remote learning of technology integration into curriculum tried to design authentic, technology-rich learning activities with new digital tools and apps. In this presentation, we will explain the preliminary results categorized by four dimensions of the PEAT model based on phenomenological analysis.