Distance education in the Covid-19 pandemic period: opinions of primary pre-service teachers about teaching practice course

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has come to the fore all over the world, has had serious effects in the education process as in every field. Countries have urgently tried to make the necessary arrangements regarding their education systems. Similarly, in Turkey, the Ministry of National Education tried to transfer the courses in formal education to the distance education system in all schools and Higher Education Institutions. However, until this time, only theoretical courses and courses regarding the technology-based practices were included in distance education. In this sense, serious difficulties have experienced especially in practical courses such as laboratories and internships. One of the biggest debates in education faculties, which had to take a break from face-to-face education as of March 2020, has been about how to conduct internship courses such as teaching practice in the distance education process. For this reason, this study aimed to examine the opinions of primary school pre-service teachers about the teaching practice course during the pandemic process. Both pre-service teachers and primary school students, whom they taught and observed within the scope of the teaching practice course, experienced the distance education process for the first time. It is very important to investigate the positive and negative experiences of the primary school pre-service teachers who will start to work as the teachers of the future and to take the necessary precautions. In this context, this study, which was carried out as a a phenomological study, was conducted with 8 pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a teaching practice course at a state university in the fall semester of 2020-2021. While the data were obtained from open-ended questions, the reports and lesson plans kept during the semester were examined by the researchers. The data were analyzed by qualitative analysis methods.