EXPLORING TEACHERS‟ SELF-LEARNING EFFORTS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DURING COVID-19: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY

Abstract

Self-learning effort refers to an individual‟s endeavour to learn with or without assistance of others. Such efforts in the case of teachers are associated with their learning process that takes place perpetually during normal times and determinedly in crisis times. This study aimed to inquire about the self-learning efforts of teachers teaching from grade five to twelve for their professional development during the COVID19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, face-to-face teaching was the practice; consequently, teachers had a different mindset, and had specific approaches and practice of teaching. When the pandemic crisis abruptly hit the world, schools were shut down indefinitely and almost all the teachers and institution leaders were in a dilemma. Yet, many of the institutions started running online classes. How did the teachers acquire the required knowledge and skills, and adapted to a completely new environment? This context sets the objective of the present study, i.e. how the school teachers exercised their self-learning efforts for their professional development. Grounded on an interpretive paradigm, my ontological stance in this study was relativist; epistemological assumption was constructivist; and axiological consideration was value laden. I believe the knowledge related to teachers‟ self-learning efforts is co constructed by a researcher and the participants. Methodologically, I used narrative inquiry; I collected five participants‟ lived experiences expressed through their stories during interviews and deep conversations. Meanings were derived through the thematic narrative analysis and interpretation of the respondents‟ narratives. From the narratives, I derived six major themes: transformative relationship with pedagogy and technology, self-effort as an outcome, sustained efforts, multiple difficulties, parents‟ mentality and specific activities. All these themes show that teachers‟ self-effort after the suspension of face-to-face classes was multi-layered, arduous and self-motivation demanding. Notably, teachers‟ professional development during this crisis appeared to be differently dynamic than the nature of professional development during normal times. A unique feature of the teachers‟ effort during the crisis was urgent, unsystematic and cacophonous.