Online teaching during Covid-19 Pandemic – challenges and solutions around the world

Abstract

When “school in the classroom” became “school at home”, both teachers and learners found themselves on an unexplored territory. We hypothesized that the change came along with a set of challenges that were partly similar, partly different around the world. Challenges were met with either timid or firm immediate efforts of applying approaches, strategies and techniques that could make teaching an effective process, even under the new circumstances. The aims of the paper are to provide insights into the challenges online teaching faced during the Covid-19 pandemic in countries around the world, to identify the (applied or suggested) solutions for diverse challenges and similarities or differences between challenges/solutions. In our research, we used a qualitative method based on a purposeful sampling technique and collected data from the research work of scholars in countries from the six inhabited continents. Results confirmed our hypotheses. Although we had glimpses of the world online teaching process situation under unprecedented conditions, we could draw some general conclusions. The most important one was that countries tried their best to make teaching as effective as possible and offer students the opportunity to learn, although the approach was a difficult one, for both teachers and students, with repercussions (that were not necessarily positive) on the learning process. These repercussions could be noticed in each individual country, when returning to face-to-face teaching, and they now represent the hot topic of research all around the world.