Upgrading Classroom Environments for Tomorrow's Learners

Educational structure in the P-12 environment has not changed in a century. However, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, school districts were forced to become innovative in their lesson delivery models. That necessary shift has provided innovative thinking for administrators and teacher leaders about what classrooms of tomorrow might look like, supported by a hybrid model or completely online courses. This chapter will outline how to design and implement courses for a potential hybrid or online class from a teacher perspective. Further, suggestions for administrators to support the ever-evolving role of the teacher will be shared.

The role of School Principals in Enhancing Participatory Relationship with the Local Community in Public School in Ajloun Directorate from Teacher Perspective: دور مديري المدارس الحكومية في محافظة عجلون في تعزيز الشراكة المجتمعية بين المدرسة والمجتمع من وجهة نظر المعلمين

This Study aimed to identify the role of school principals in enhancing participatory relationship with the local community in public school in Ajloun directorate from teacher perspective, and to determine the effect of variables (sex, and years of experience), the researcher used the Descriptive approaches, study sample consisted of (850) Female and male teacher in Ajloun directorate, to collect data Questioner used it consisted from (25) Paragraph divided to two sector, the result shown that the level of the school principals role in enhancing participatory relationship with the local community in public school in Ajloun directorate from teacher perspective was moderated with average (3.16) , The finding also showed there is statistically significant differences at (α≤0.05) refers to principal sex (male and female) in favor of female in addition there were statistically significant differences between the teacher years of experience in favor of (10 years and more). The study recommended the necessity of holding training courses for school principals concerned with community partnership and communication mechanisms between the school and the local community.

Exploring Students’ Affective on Using Asynchronous Learning During the Pandemic Period

The distance learning can greatly improve student’s cognitive development, but its success in increasing students' affective competence have not been conclusively reported. This study aims to investigate students’ affective aspects, parents, and teacher perspective on islamic religious education using asynchronous learning. Data were collected using questionnaires, interview, and observation. The data were analysed using descriptive analysis. The results show that there was a change on students’ competence in terms of affective religious aspects. Initially 60% students have negative attitudes and decreased to 30% after they had experienced asynchronous distance learning with commitment of learning establishment. The parents in their interview expressed that they were greatly assisted by the commitment of learning their children formed. The asynchronous learning with learning commitment can be considered successful to help students improve their attitudes. This study shows that e-learning accompanied by a learning commitment between student and teachers turns out to be able to give positive results on the part of students' affective on islamic religious education.

Informal Workplace Learning in Swedish Police Education– A Teacher Perspective

In the literature, informal learning is considered to be of great importance to employees’ development of workplace learning. The aim of this study, which involves respondents from a Swedish police education unit, was to contribute knowledge about Swedish police education teachers’ informal learning as regards conditions for learning, learning activities and learning experiences resulting from their engagement in these activities. The results of the study are based on daily digital logbook notes made by 25 police and university teachers during one month and subsequent interviews with these teachers. The main conclusions can be summarised as follows: 1) The culture, structure and materials of the workplace are important parts of teachers’ conditions for informal learning. 2) The teachers’ informal learning activities are characterised by intentional learning, where supporting interactions with colleagues in their own teams and other, more knowledgeable, colleagues are highly valued. Furthermore, the most common triggers for teachers’ informal learning are issues relating to pedagogy and digital technology, and face-to-face contacts with colleagues are preferred. 3) The police teachers describe their learning experiences made in the course of informal learning activities as a transition from an instructor-based to a teaching-oriented approach, while the learning of the university teachers is focused on contextualisation of their teaching by integrating academic knowledge into the police practice. The article concludes with a brief discussion about the possibilities and limitations of informal learning.

Teachers’ Confidence in Teaching English Using You*Tube Channel in Early Pandemic Covid-19

This study aims to identify teachers' confidence in teaching English using a You*Tube channel in early pandemic. This study used a qualitative quantitative approach with a survey method. The data sources in this study were 50 teachers from both public and private primary schools in Denpasar who used You*Tube channel as the media in teaching English. The data were collected through questionnaires consisting of 30 closed and open statements which were grouped into four categories. Closed statements consisted of yes/no statements as well as agreement and frequency statements based on a Likert’s five-point scaling. Open statements were intended to provide additional information on the answers to the closed statements that had been given. The data were analyzed qualitatively and presented descriptively using narration supported by diagrams and tables. The result of analysis data showed that teachers' confidence in teaching English using a YouTube channel in the early pandemic was supported by many factors, such as educational background, teaching experience and teacher perspective in online English learning using the You*Tube channel. However, teaching English through the You*Tube channel needs to be used frequently to improve teachers' skills and techniques in using this media for better teaching.

Mentoring Teams as a Model of Supporting Distance Teaching

In this chapter, the author describes how the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education organized support for the education system during the COVID-19 pandemic building upon education reform and using the mentoring teams as the main resource for learning content creation and teachers' support network. One of the most significant activities during educational reform was the establishment of virtual classrooms whose main characteristics were continuous professional development support in the online environment for learning, communication and collaboration, quick access to the new and relevant information, and establishment of the learning community of practice. The hybrid model of continuous professional development combined with mentoring teams who were already experts in remote work and online collaboration and communication contributed to the swift and effective establishment of distance learning. This chapter provides information from the teacher perspective giving ideas and examples that can be used in future professional development and collaborative teamwork.

Barriers to implementation of distance learning during the COVID-19 outbreak: Teacher perspective

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, distance learning has become one of the main educational issues globally. With the transition of all instruction to the online environment, teachers in Serbia have faced a number of challenges and barriers that have affected the quality of their work. In this paper, we wanted to analyse the barriers that teachers faced during the first months of distance learning. The research was conducted combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of data collected on a sample of 122 high school teachers from the Southeast Serbia (Nis, Leskovac). The results show that teachers recognise evaluation barriers as the predominant ones, followed by organisational-administrative ones, while the least represented were material-technical barriers to distance learning. The findings also confirm that material and technical barriers are most common among teachers with the longest work experience, as well as that organisational-administrative and socio-emotional barriers are the least common among teachers of vocational subjects. Although the focus of the paper was on the barriers in the implementation of distance learning, it can be concluded that teachers recognise certain benefits of this type of instruction and indicate that it can be used as a supplement to regular instruction. The main pedagogical implications of the paper refer to the empowerment of teachers through professional development in the field of distance learning, but also to the need to create new professional development programmes in this field which will enable the development of functional knowledge and relevant competencies for the immediate situational context of modern instruction.

VIRTUAL TOURISM EXHIBITION ACTIVITY IN ENGLISH FOR TOURISM CLASS: STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES

As the need of the contextual learning for English for Tourism class increases, the new teaching methods with integration of technology need to be further explored. Recently, the common method used in the class usually focuses on monologue, lecture, video exploration and presentation, meanwhile, contextual simulation is rarely used and addressed. This study aims at observing the implementation of virtual tourism exhibition activity in English for Tourism class from the students’ perspectives. Qualitative descriptive study was employed by selecting 56 students of English Literature major in T university as research subject. A questionnaire focusing on the area of learning objective, technology literacy and interaction was used to collect the necessary data. The result shows that virtual tourism exhibition has given them a learning alternative during COVID-19 quarantine, some improvement in speaking has been made, and the degree of technology literacy to conduct virtual learning was found to be satisfying. However, students still prefer having face-to-face activity to virtual meeting. Further, the interaction between students and lecturer is still covered despite of limited time and unstable internet connection. This study suggests that the analysis from the teacher perspective and quantitative calculation on students’ performance in exhibition simulation should be further explored.