Teacher-student interactions in emergency remote teaching contexts: Navigating uncharted waters?

Abstract

Although employed in various emergency contexts globally (e.g., wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, snow days, epidemics, military conflict), emergency remote teaching (ERT) continues to be an under-researched mode, or type, of instruction. Through a mixed-methods design, involving a teacher questionnaire and follow-up interviews, this study sought to develop a more in-depth understanding of ERT by examining how it manifested itself during the COVID-19 school closures. The investigation focused specifically on the aspect of the pedagogical process that was probably most saliently affected by the sudden shift from in-person to remote teaching, namely, teacher-student communication. It identified some of the emergency communication practices observed during ERT and, using Grice's Cooperative Principle, explored their effectiveness and possible implications for student learning. More importantly, it illuminated the distinctive nature of communication in ERT settings, exposing the “communication norm vacuum” in which teachers and students had to operate when teaching moved online. As argued in the paper, the novelty of the communication context and teachers' and students' inability to draw upon well-established communication routines to navigate it, compromised communication and may be responsible for some of the learning loss observed during school closures.