Teaching in emergency remote classrooms: reflections for professional learning

ABSTRACT Background Reflective teaching has long been regarded as playing an important, and potentially empowering, role in teachers’ professional learning. The study reported in this paper considered the longer-term significance of teachers’ self-reflective learning in the course of their daily emergency remote teaching during COVID-19, and how this supported teacher agency. Purpose This small-scale case study sought to explore, in depth, teachers’ perceptions of how their professional learning was realised through reflective practice during emergency remote teaching. Method Three teachers from primary, junior high, and high schools in mainland China participated in the case study during the spring and fall semesters in 2020. They considered the accommodations they made for emergency remote teaching and the corresponding implications for their professional learning and sense of agency. Data were collected via four-monthly, semi-structured interviews, resulting in a total of five interviews per teacher. These charted the progress of their emergency remote courses in the spring, and allowed for final reflections via a follow-up interview in the fall. Data were analysed thematically. Findings The resultant four themes and eight categories related to aspects including pedagogical strategies, home-school communication, classroom management, and teachers’ technological literacy. Within these, approaches to blending online and offline coursework, valuing sociocultural concerns in classroom interaction, and developing adaptive mindsets were among areas identified as relevant to teachers’ professional learning beyond the emergency remote teaching situation. Conclusions The findings highlight the multiple ways in which professional learning took place through reflective teaching in the remote teaching environment. They draw attention to the importance of situating some professional learning in everyday practice. Understandings gained during remote teaching have broader implications for educators’ professional learning and growth in pre-tertiary education.