Loss of brick-and-mortar schooling: how elementary educators respond
Information and Learning Sciences
ISSN: 2398-5348
Article publication date: 25 June 2020
Issue publication date: 27 July 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand how elementary school educators who teach subjects that traditionally require hands-on work in schools are rising to the challenge of losing brick-and-mortar facilities in the wake of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed six elementary school educators and developed iterative grounded codes from the interviews to understand how the teachers are rising to the challenge of teaching online, what supports they need, and how they are viewing their roles and student learning in the present landscape.
Findings
In response to losing brick-and-mortar schools, teachers are rising to the challenge by creating creative assignments and communicating with students and parents via multiple platforms. They are learning to use technology to create meaningful, socially distant learning experiences and, in the process, blurring their own boundaries between work and life. They exercise compassion for their students while providing the best education they can in these circumstances.
Practical implications
This work provides administrators, educators, policymakers and technology developers insight into the challenges teachers are facing.
Originality/value
In addition to the timeliness of this study in light of the COVID 19 crisis, the focus on elementary school students, who often need support from parents or guardians to use Web technologies, and subjects traditionally requiring face-to-face interactions and hands-on work contribute to the originality of the study.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This article is part of the special issue, “A Response to Emergency Transitions to Remote Online Education in K-12 and Higher Education” which contains shorter, rapid-turnaround invited works, not subject to double blind peer review. The issue was called, managed and produced on short timeline in Summer 2020 towards pragmatic instructional application in the Fall 2020 semester.
The authors would like to thank Mr Alex Hargroder from MIT for his help with language editing and proofreading and Dr James Holly, Jr. from Wayne State University for help with recruiting participants. This work was made possible in part by a gift from the Emerson Collective and XQ Institute.
Citation
Anderson, E. and Hira, A. (2020), "Loss of brick-and-mortar schooling: how elementary educators respond", Information and Learning Sciences, Vol. 121 No. 5/6, pp. 411-418. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-04-2020-0085
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited