Online Teaching Practices of Science and Mathematics Preservice Teachers in middle schools

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a remote teaching experience from March to June 2020 in Portugal. During that period, the Portuguese government provided a national distance learning option through TV-based learning (#Estudoemcasa). All educational institutions had the choice to adopt a distance learning model complementing or in alternative to the TV-based learning. The distance learning entailed many challenges for schools, teachers, students, parents, but also for teacher education (Flores & Gago, 2020). The Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education recommended that higher education institutions organized remote training methods. Consequently, higher education institutions implemented many initiatives aimed at stimulating the digital interaction between students and teacher educators. One of the main challenges was how to foster teaching practice for preservice teachers (PSTs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors of this study, who are teacher educators in a mathematics and science preservice teacher program of a Portuguese teacher training institution, faced this challenge. During 2020, the authors taught mathematics or science education, having also supervised PSTs’ internship teaching practice. In the authors’ opinion, the situation could benefit the pedagogical development of PSTs as they could both experience remote teaching and pursue their academic progress. Therefore, this chapter presents an experience of internship and supervision in a distance learning context and the dynamics used by PSTs in their practice of remote teaching of mathematics and science to the 6^th grade, during COVID-19 pandemic. The research questions that guided this study are:

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  Research question 1: How was the PSTs’ science and mathematics internship process organized during the COVID-19 pandemic?

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  Research question 2: Which distance learning model and digital educational resources were used by PSTs in their internship during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Preservice Teacher Education And Covid-19

Research studies on the COVID-19 pandemic and teacher education “can support innovation and improvements of traditional and online teaching and teacher education” (Flores & Swennen, 2020, p. 4). This section presents experiences and ideas that teacher educators implemented to pursue and adapt PSTs training.