Due to the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, distance learning had to be implemented in Slovenian
primary schools for the first time. The process of teaching had to be adjusted for everyone involved
in the learning process, including teachers, students and other school employees, with the
information and communication technologies playing a crucial role. In Natural science and
technology classes, it is important that teaching does not involve a mere presentation of concepts
and facts; rather it should encourage students to engage actively in the learning process by
researching, observing, making conclusions, experimenting and posing questions. Since students
come from different social backgrounds, the activities were limited to simple home-based
experiments with kitchen utensils and in the nature. Teachers used diverse tools to deliver courses
online, such as video and audio recordings, text documents, photos, animations, interactive tasks
etc. The teachers’ role was to provide all students with same opportunity to acquire knowledge, to
motivate them, and to constantly check for their understanding and acquired knowledge. As learning
facilitators, teachers were faced with several challenges. The purpose of this master's thesis is to
determine how qualified teachers feel for distance Natural science and technology teaching, and
what challenges and advantages they were faced with during the course of distance teaching. We
would like to establish ways to prepare future teachers for such situations and determine what current
teachers need for future emergencies.
In order to do so, we conducted a quantitative survey research which was completed by 92 Slovenian
4th and 5th grade teachers of Natural Science and Technology. The research was conducted in
March and April 2021, right after the second temporary closure of primary schools. The teachers
filled out the questionnaire on the World Wide Web, and the obtained results show that teachers feel
qualified for distance teaching. During the epidemic, audio recordings, screen recorders and video
recordings were most often used to teach new learning content in the subject of Natural science and
technology, while text documents or other (quizzes, active pdf, graphic tablet etc.) were used for
content repetition and consolidation. When asked about the advantages of distance learning,
teachers pointed out the fact that students got used to independent work, the training material was
easily accessible to a large number of students, students acquired additional digital skills etc. On the
other hand, teachers faced several challenges during the course of distance learning, mostly in
conducting experimental work, finding a suitable way to deliver content, checking for students’
understanding, using materials; a few pointed out problems with assessment, technical difficulties,
lack of motivation and cooperation, and unequal conditions of students.
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