ONLINE SCHOOLING IN RURAL AREAS IN ROMANIA DURING THE PANDEMIC: TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES

Because of the threat of the Coronavirus pandemic, schooling in Romania moved in distance regime in March 2020. During the next school year, each municipality chose the scenario for each school – face-to-face schooling or online learning – according to the local number of infections. However, online education encountered many difficulties in terms of material and human resources, especially in rural areas. In this study we aim to explore rural teachers’ perspectives about online schooling in Romania, during the Coronavirus pandemic. The data – obtained through a series of interviews and questionnaires – were collected from rural teachers working in various parts of the country. In this study we propose to follow two main directions. First, we explore teachers’ experiences concerning the access to material resources in the school and at home. The absence of proper digital equipment and the quality of the internet connection are two of the main concerns for policy makers. Second, the study focuses on educational practice, discussing teachers’ accounts and experiences during two periods: March-June 2020 and the next school year, until present. We intend to explore rural teachers’ experiences in depth, as rural was always disadvantaged in Romania’s education system. This study is a starting point for further research of rural teachers’ preparedness in Romania and the implications of online learning on rural teachers and students.

SPERANŢA FARCA, ABOUT THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN. Bucharest, Universitara Publishing House, 2020, 266 pages, ISBN 978-606-28-1167-9

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THE SCHOOL AND THE TEACHER: CHANGES IN STUDENT PERCEPTION DURING THE PANDEMIC

The relationship between the learning environment and the learning behaviours has long been of interest in educational literature. When addressing the socioemotional stages, Erickson raises awareness of the psycho-social influence of school by way of diligence vs inferiority (Harwood et al., 2010), while Galos and Aldridge (2020) explore how designing a learning environment focused on student self-efficacy triggers statistically significant differences in 4 (out of 9) areas of analysis: fairness, task clarity, learning responsibility and task achievement. The aim of the present study is to highlight the significance and the differences in the main student psychosocial representations of school and teachers before and during the pandemic, the latter being characterised by government-imposed restrictions as well as changes in the student-teacher interaction, both during the second school term of 2019-2020 and the two school terms of the academic year 2020-2021. The areas we intend to explore are: overall attitude to school and student emotional states, the perception on teacher and peer relations, the perception on school as an organisation but also as a learning environment, the parents as a filter on schoolrelated perceptions, and the projective dimension on school life. The resulting statistical analysis (both nonparametric tests for independent groups and correlation) reveals major changes in the student perception on school and teachers, which will require systematic future intervention, as well as an upgrade of educational strategies, considering that the approaches designed and applied during the pandemic proved unable to compensate for the changes brought about by the restrictions on learning.

CHEATING DURING ONLINE EXAMINATIONS – LITERATURE REVIEW

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of many human activities. As a result, education quickly shifted from a classroom setting to an online one, challenging educators and students alike. Multiple issues that had barely been known to educators surfaced: technophobia, lack of rules or guidelines regarding online learning, politeness in a virtual environment, limited social interaction, but some of the greatest challenges remain cheating, and academic integrity concerns during online examinations. Technological and software advances can oftentimes identify cases of academic dishonesty. However, with mass education and faculty unpreparedness it is rather problematic to combat and avoid cheating during online assessment. This mixed-methods review based on the limited empirical research on the topic of cheating during online examinations will identify the factors that lead to cheating and will discuss the best ways of combating and avoiding academic dishonesty.

ION ALBULESCU ŞI HORAŢIU CATALANO, e-DIDACTICA. THE ONLINE TEACHING PROCESS. Bucharest, Didactica Publishing House, 2021, 416 pages, ISBN 978-606-048- 366-3

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CEDEFOP, INVENTORY OF LIFELONG GUIDANCE SYSTEMS AND PRACTICES – ROMANIA. CareersNet national records, 2020

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TEACHERS’ SELF-EFFICACY AND BURNOUT DURING ONLINE SCHOOL

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition to the online education substantially changed the characteristics of the teachers’ activities, especially due to the intensive use of telecommunications. A number of recent studies are already exploring the effects of these framework changes on individual behavior and drawing attention to the risks of mental health for those involved. Previous data indicate that the level of burnout experienced between the teachers is much stronger compared to the symptoms felt by other professionals (Shoji et al., 2016), but studies exploring the stress and burnout associated with working online are incipient. The present study analyzes the relationship between burnout and self-efficacy for a group of 50 teachers from a secondary school during online teaching. The need to research this correlation starts from the premise that self-perceived effectiveness is important in mobilizing the teachers for the expected changes during online teaching. Previous data indicate an inverse correlation between self-efficacy and burnout (Friedman, 2003), respectively between teachers self-efficacy and two facets of the burnout: emotional exhaustion and depersonalization (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2010). Our aim is to explore the momentary correlation between the dependent variables and to estimate the factors that had a negative impact on the perceived self-efficacy of teachers during online work. Even if the captured data cannot be generalized and we cannot talk about a cause-effect relation, the present study captures a real moment that can substantiate an improvement/optimization of the intervention, at least at the level of the reference/referential school.

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING IN CLASSROOMS. COUNSELLING IN SCHOOL TO AVOID CONFLICTS

Heyse & Erpenbeck (2009) define counselling competence very broadly as the ability to counsel people and organisations. This requires for teachers an extensive knowledge of content, social-emotional competence and solution-oriented thinking. In this context, the article focuses on the one hand on the location of the legal basis for teacher training in higher education in the context of counselling competence and how counselling skills can be improved to avoid conflicts in the classroom. On the other hand it describes the handling and use of counselling skills in everyday school life based on the results of focus group discussions within the Erasmus+ project SEEVAL.

THE PRESCHOOL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE CHILDREN’S WELL-BEING IN THE PANDEMIC CONTEX

Well-being, a concept so often discussed, has increasingly come to the attention of specialists and practitioners, especially during the pandemic period whose magnitude has significantly influenced the well-being of all of us. The purpose of the comparative-correlational study was to investigate the perceptions and practices of teachers in Romanian preschool education regarding their role in ensuring the well-being of preschoolers in kindergarten, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, starting from the theoretical framework that delimits the factors that influence the well-being at this age (Aulia et al., 2020; Kwi-Ok et al., 2020; Sönmez & Ceylan, 2016), we used The Scale of Self-assessment of Wellbeing - IASB (Rodawell, 2019), developed by the University of Bucharest within the Rodawell project, and The Scale of Happiness Strategies for Children Used by Preschool Teachers - HSCPT (Sapsağlam et al., 2019). The online questionnaire was answered by 149 teachers for preschool education, especially from Timiş county. The results of the study (analyzed by The Independent-Samples T-Test, ANOVA One-Way, Spearman Correlation) highlight the existence of a positive association between perceptions and practices of educators in ensuring wellbeing, but also the existence of statistically significant differences between teachers’ practices in urban vs. rural environment, in the sense that, although they perceive children’s well-being similarly, rural teachers tend to use happiness strategies more often. At the same time, teachers’ perceptions differ depending on how the teaching activity is carried out in a pandemic context: the self-perceived role and the practices dedicated to ensuring well-being are more intense in hybrid and online format than the traditional one.

STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON ONLINE LEARNING – ARE THEIR EXPECTATIONS MET BY CURRENT TEACHING PRACTICES?

The challenges of online learning, created by the COVID-19 pandemic, have prompted a significant demand in researching this particular field of education. The adaptation to online learning, unfortunately, was applied in a context of unprepared teachers and students. This situation was caused by the new format of education, which differs significantly from massive open online courses, traditional learning or distance learning. The new hybrid model of education, prompted by the pandemic, has certainly become a trend that could incite future transformations in terms of teaching and learning. To better understand the specifics of this type of online learning, we asked the students (N = 705) from the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest to express their opinion on their learning experience during the pandemic. The survey included the problems and expectations of the interviewees, and the research results were analyzed in the article. Our goal was to improve educational practices in the virtual educational environment. In this regard, we analyzed the important components of online learning, focusing on the following ones: the quality of the educational resources used to support the content, the improvement of the quality of the teacher- student relationships, time management, online assessment. The article also provides solutions for effective online learning, from the students’ perspective.