Teacher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Tensions and Challenges of Initial Teacher Training Practices

Abstract

The objective of the study is to characterize the ways of understanding and functioning of the formative triads of pedagogical practices, based on the decisions, tensions, and challenges faced by the initial teacher training programs in times of pandemic. The research used a qualitative-phenomenological perspective, inquiring into natural situations experienced by the formative triads of the pedagogical careers of 23 Chilean universities with recognized trajectories in teacher training. The interviews were conducted when the country was in a health emergency, that is, when schools and universities were carrying out remote teaching. The results show that the pandemic transformed the collaborative links between schools and universities, some links were broken, and others were strengthened, showing that the functioning of the triads is more declarative than real. In addition, the trainers (university tutor teacher and school guide teacher) faced two disconnected scenarios (school and university) that did not provide them with clear guidelines and concrete support for the development of their roles. This research has relevance for teacher training programs because it stresses the design of action plans to give continuity to practices in emergency situations and orients the evaluation of practice models to decide if they have the conditions to implement a model based on the formative triad.

1. Introduction

Chilean teacher training programs have accepted that pedagogical practice represents the backbone of teacher professional development [1] since it is there where the repertoire of actions, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, emotions, and postures of the teacher is configured [2,3,4]. Regardless of whether it is a school or university teacher, the practice gives life to the teacher’s story, proposals, and actions; it is the place for an encounter and a disagreement with one’s own profession based on the view of oneself, others, the context, and the educational system [5]. This process is led by the formative triad (university tutor teacher, school guide teacher, and trainee teacher) [6,7].

However, the COVID-19 pandemic modified the educational contexts in which the pedagogical practices of initial training had been developed, in which the face-to-face classrooms of the schools of the educational system were the ‘real contexts’ of professional teaching performance. During the pandemic, the ‘real contexts’ of education offered new non-presential conditions and forms of personal and institutional interrelationships that have put in tension the advances that teacher training institutions had installed in the spaces of pedagogical practice to respond to and ensure quality criteria for initial teacher training.

The pandemic affected the dynamics of schools and universities [8,9,10], which made evident the fragility of the understanding and functioning of the formative triads, since it implied transformations in interpersonal relationships and communication [11,12]. Therefore, the objective of this study is to characterize the ways of understanding and the functioning of the formative triads of pedagogical practices, based on the decisions, tensions, and challenges faced by initial teacher education programs in times of pandemic.

Thus, this study focused on a line of research linked to practical teacher training and contemplated in its analysis the effect it has had on two levels of development: first, the ways in which the institutional links between schools and teacher training universities have been rethought, and second, the relationships and experiences of the formative triad of the pedagogy careers (tutor teacher, guide teacher, and trainee teacher) during the periods 2020 and 2021, given the distance education scenarios implemented as a result of the contingency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which generated an unprecedented situation in higher education at a global level.

In the context of initial teacher training, the spaces for pedagogical practices have been developed according to the conditions of each university and the actors involved. This is an aspect that affects the quality criteria of initial teacher training since—as evidenced by different international studies—with the loss of classroom attendance and with it what was considered essential of the practices, the formative potential of the practice spaces and the identity constructions of future teachers have been altered. Consequently, this will affect not only future practices but also the professional development process [11,13,14,15].

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the dynamics of schools and universities because, in general, the lack of educational continuity plans during emergency contexts became evident worldwide [9]. Difficulties were demonstrated in variables such as access to the Internet and other technologies, infrastructure, the administration of virtual classrooms, insufficient qualified human resources, the effect of the home environment and family dynamics, the lack of clarity in management and leadership processes during an emergency, and the extreme traditionalization of evaluation processes [9,11,12,16,17]. What is not clear, and is the gap that this study was able to address, is how strong the institutional agreements between schools and universities to seek joint solutions to provide continuity to the pedagogical practices of initial teacher training were, including unveiling the functioning of the triads during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Being a teacher without being in the classroom has been a challenge for the formative triad of pedagogical practices of initial teacher training, since it has involved transformations in interpersonal relationships and communication of the triad, as well as autonomous learning for the development of digital and socioemotional competencies [14,15,18]. This challenge is a priority for educational quality policies since, as demonstrated by González-Calvo et al. [13], the pandemic has generated feelings of insecurity, melancholy, and uncertainty in teachers in training, and has slowed down their professional development and encouraged a confused identity process. However, at the same time, it has opened up possibilities for new teachers to learn to face the changes and needs of the context.

2. Materials and Methods

This research used a qualitative-phenomenological perspective [19], inquiring into natural situations and trying to interpret the phenomena according to the meaning that people give to them [20], focusing on the analysis of the processes of the practical training of pedagogical careers and their transformations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study unit corresponds to the formative triad of the pedagogical careers of 23 Chilean universities: 6 in the northern zone, 10 in the central zone, and 7 in the southern zone. All participants were aware of and agreed with the ethical protocols of the study. To this end, the invitation was first sent through the coordinating careers offices in which the internships took place from a formative triad model, who forwarded the invitation via e-mail to the university tutor teachers. The e-mail specified the objective of the study and enclosed an informed consent form. After an affirmative response and signature of the consent form, a meeting was scheduled with one of the researchers, ensuring that there was no friendship, family, or work relationship between them. After interviewing the university tutor, the teachers in training and school teacher guides were invited through him/her. From each university, a triad was interviewed that met the criteria described below.

Working with universities that are heterogeneous in their profiles and with the following characteristics was considered: (a) representativeness of state and private universities, (b) teaching careers accredited by the national commission (CNA-Chile), (c) experience and trajectory in IDF.

A non-probability sample was purposively selected based on certain criteria [21], i.e., purposive sampling was performed according to the following attributes:

(1)

Practice tutor: (a) teaches practical training in kindergarten, elementary, or middle school education; (b) works at least half a day; (c) has at least 5 years of professional experience in practical training at FID; (e) taught practice courses during 2020.

(2)

Practice guide: (a) teaches at the kindergarten, elementary, or middle school level; (b) has at least 5 years of experience as a practice guide; (c) has guided practices during 2020 in the context of a health emergency.

(3)

Teacher trainees: (a) students of kindergarten, elementary, or secondary education; (b) they are in intermediate and final levels of practical training; (c) during 2020, they attended one of the pedagogical practices.

As shown in

Table 1. Dimensions that structure the interviews.

Dimension	Aspect Addressed by the Questions
Decisions and Experiences	Strategies that have been implemented Teaching and evaluation activities Successes and difficulties
Conceptual Tensions	New conceptualization of practice School–University Relationship Triadic Relationships Theory–Practice Relationship
Challenges	Lessons and challenges Short-term action proposals

, an interview [22] was conducted with each of the actors in the triad, which has 3 dimensions validated by experts and was subjected to discourse content analysis [23]. The instrument was applied when the country was in a health emergency, that is, when schools and universities were conducting remote teaching.

A content analysis of the discourse was conducted, focused on meaning [22], following the compare and contrast method proposed by Glaser and Strauss [24]. The information collected was triangulated by means of participants and instruments [25]. The process included:

(1)

Summary and synthesis of the researchers’ field notes and transcriptions of the study.

(2)

Coding and categorization of units of meaning using NVivo version 13 software. Through discourse content analysis, 5 analytical categories were determined that were related to the dimensions of the interview. As shown in

Table 2. Relationship between the dimensions of the instrument and the data analysis categories.

Dimension	Aspect Addressed by the Questions	Category
Decisions and Experiences	Strategies that have been implemented Successes and difficulties	Emergency response capability Practices objectives
Conceptual Tensions	New conceptualization of practice School–University Relationship Triadic Relationships Theory–Practice Relationship	School–University Link Link with between the Triad
Challenges	Lessons and challenges	Triad Formation Practices objectives

, due to the length of the results, interview data related to teaching and evaluation activities and short-term action proposals were omitted from this article.

(3)

First descriptive summary for each member of the triad for each university.

(4)

Analysis of the data following the method of constant comparisons between sources. This involved comparing the results of each category between each member of the triad of each university. With this, it was possible to establish the first body of results, presented in the following section.

(5)

Interpretation of data according to concurrent patterns and theoretical conceptualization. Through this process, the results were contrasted among all the universities, and as will be shown in the second set of results, it was sought to group the forms of understanding and functioning of the formative triads of pedagogical practices.

(6)

For steps 4 and 5, the triangulation, convergence, and final integration of data were carried out according to the set of cases under study. For validation and reliability, Cohen’s Kappa coefficient (k = 0.76) and the percentage of agreement between researchers (89%) were used [26].

3. Results

The first group of results allows us to see the central factors that account for the ways in which the universities in the study carried out the pedagogical practices of initial training during the pandemic. To situate each university in each criterion in

Table 3. General results by category, grouped according to the universities’ location zones.

Category	Criteria	% (n = 23)	University Location Zone
			North (n = 6)	Center (n = 10)	South (n = 7)
Emergency response capability	There was an emergency plan for the practices	0%	0	0	0
	Maintaining the practice model and waiting for schools to open	87%	6	8	6
	Openness to think about adapting the practice model to the new context	13%	0	2	1
School- University Link	They dealt with the emergency separately	48%	4	5	2
	They maintained communication, but each one took care of their own problems	43%	1	4	5
	They sought joint solutions	9%	1	1	0
Triad Formation	School and/or University had a training plan to accompany the practices during the emergency	0%	0	0	0
	Self-management of training courses to accompany the practices during the emergency	22%	1	2	2
	Autonomous learning for the development of digital and socioemotional competencies	78%	5	8	5
Link with between the Triad	Developed brainstorming sessions among the three stakeholders	13%	0	2	1
	There were reflection sessions without the school’s guiding teacher	35%	2	4	2
	There was no reflection, only indications for the trainee teacher	52%	4	4	4
Practices objectives	Lesson planning for the return to classroom instruction	74%	5	7	5
	Reading and analysis of educational texts or research	9%	0	2	1
	Understanding teaching, learning and assessment for the emergency context	17%	1	2	1

, the information was triangulated among the three actors in each triad.

Regarding the capacity to react to the pandemic, it was evident that none of the universities had an emergency plan for the practices. In addition, most of them opted to maintain the practices model they had and waited for the schools to open in person (a decision that had to be changed after the first semester of the pandemic). Likewise, regarding the school–university link, only one university was able to give continuity to a horizontal and non-hierarchical link in which joint solutions to common problems were sought.

Regarding the triad, none of the three actors had training processes to address practices in the context offered by the pandemic; however, some took the initiative and saw the need to learn autonomously about the development of digital and socioemotional competencies. However, the relationships between the triads were weak or non-existent, since only three universities developed spaces for reflection in the triad, and some of the other universities chose to carry out reflections without the teachers in the schools. However, most left aside the reflection on the practice to give way to a set of instructions on what the teachers in training should do or say.

Consistent with the above, 74% of the universities in the study chose to focus their practice spaces on planning or designing teaching sequences that were consistent with pre-established curricula or educational research. Although these universities make reference to the new role of the faculty during the pandemic, no evidence was found that would account for the intentional work of constructing a professional identity in light of the opportunities and limitations of the emergency contexts.

Although the tutor teachers wanted to emphasize the importance of reflection on practice, in only 4 universities did the trainee teachers manage to recognize training activities in which they sought to understand teaching, learning, and evaluation in the context of emergency situations. As will be shown in the following group of results, some of these universities were able to initiate reflective processes on the new identity configurations of professors.

The second group of results is obtained from the saturation of the information through the consideration of each triad as a case. The evidence shows that three forms of understanding and functioning of the formative triads of pedagogical practices have been installed: discursive triads, symbolic triads, and triads of co-construction.

1. Discursive triads: as the following excerpt from an interview with a tutor shows, this type of triad corresponds to learned statements and practice models that advocate non-hierarchical approaches to co-construction of learning.

“The axis of our practices are the triads. The triads are the ones that allow us to have different views of what happens in the different practices and to know how we are doing in teacher training … with the triads we have learned to work without hierarchies and to understand that we can all learn from each other”.

(Interview with practices tutor)

However, a central activity of the interview consists of giving the participants a group of concepts (Pedagogical Practice, School, University, Theory, School students, School teacher, University teacher, teacher in training) and then asking them to represent, relate, and explain the functioning of the practices during the pandemic period. Figure 1 corresponds to the practice tutor of the previous discursive fragment; there, it is observed that there is a separation and a disconnection between the elements on the right and those on the left.

On the right appears the school, the students, and the school teachers, who are labeled by the practice tutor as absent from the pedagogical practice process. On the left, the university appears, in which the trainee teacher is placed at the center of the pedagogical practice. Moreover, the university professor is held responsible for the theoretical knowledge associated with the practice of the future teacher.

In synthesis with and contrary to the sense of triadic functioning, it is an epistemologically hierarchical perspective of practice, where the university takes precedence over the school and the theoretical knowledge of the university teacher over the knowledge of the school teacher. In this case, it is a process of practice characterized by the absence of the school, the teaching experiences with the students, and the interactions with the guiding teacher.

Therefore, although the discourse points to the desirable attributes of triadic functioning, in reality, pedagogical practice is carried out under the disarticulation between the school and the university, without contact with the real context of the schools, with the bias that only the university generates theory and ignoring the training role that school teachers can have. In this typology, 8 of the triads studied were identified, that is, 35% of the universities in the study.

2. Symbolic Triads: As evidenced by the following excerpt from an interview (I: Interviewer) with a trainee teacher (TT), this type of triad corresponds to the existence and functioning of the three actors, but they work independently.

TT: The good development of the practices is mainly conditioned by the school–university relationship and by keeping track of the school and university professors. I believe that with a school that is well informed of the circumstances that arise within the university and vice versa, it is possible to establish a better panorama of the intern’s development within both institutions.

I: What do you mean by ‘keep track of them’?

TT: in other words, to see what each one wants or what they are waiting for.

I: You told me that you work with the triad, don’t you discuss these things in the triad?

TT: It’s just that, although we are a triad, the three of us never get together.

I: What does it mean to you that they are a triad?

TT: That there are three of us and each one has a role to play.

I: But, do they have common objectives, moments of joint work?

TT: I imagine that there are common objectives, but the teachers don’t have time for us to get together and that’s why it’s impossible for the three of us to agree.

In this case, the functioning of the triad is not a function of the intentional interactions between the three actors but depends on the expertise of the trainee teacher in knowing how to read and interpret what the mentor teacher and guiding teacher want. In this case, the idea that ‘not having time’ is a good excuse for not generating triadic learning spaces has even been installed and normalized. A more complex aspect of this type of triad is evident in the following account of another trainee teacher.

TT: I was very nervous about the triads because I didn’t know what they were going to say, or if they were going to challenge me.

I: Why? Tell me what the triads consisted of.

TT: They would gather all the trainees together with the school teacher and the university teacher, and one by one they would start telling us everything that had happened in the supervision, they would tell you all the mistakes you made, but they would also tell you what you could do next time. E: So why were you so nervous?

TT: Sometimes he would say very strong things to you in front of all your colleagues, he could destroy you in minutes.

I: Could you put forward your views or make recommendations to them?

TT: No, because you had to listen to the feedback, and if you started to contradict, you might do worse in the grade.

I: Was it liking an evaluation moment?

TT: Yes, they would tell you the comments and then the note.

In the latter case, the triadic space becomes a moment of exposure to peers, which can become counterproductive for professional development. From this perspective, the triad is summarized as a punitive moment on the part of the trainers (tutor and guide), in which the trainee teachers assume a passive role. In this typology, 12 of the triads studied were identified, that is, 52% of the universities in the study.

3. Triads of Co-construction: Consistent with Vanegas-Ortega and Fuentealba [2], it corresponds to intentional spaces where the trainee teacher, the tutor teacher, and the guiding teacher participate a-hierarchically, and meet to transform, through careful and conscious reflective processes, their own assumptions, practices, theoretical frameworks, and procedures. In this typology, 3 of the triads studied were identified, that is, 13% of the universities in the study, which implemented different strategies to adapt their practice model to pandemic contexts.

The first strategy was to convert the workshop on reflection on practice (which was usually held at the university) into a virtual meeting in which different actors of the educational system (teachers, managers, teaching support professionals, researchers, and people linked to educational policies) were invited to dialogue with the trainee teachers on the demands of pandemic contexts. As a result of these interactions, the teachers in training designed contingency plans that they implemented in collaboration with the schools of practice. In the workshops, the teachers in training reflected on how the pandemic strained the new dimensions of teachers’ identities, making evident characteristics such as empathic sensitivity, collaboration among peers, knowing how to set limits on work time, and taking charge of one’s own mental health; in addition, other recurring dimensions were the need to strengthen the set of technological skills and to be aware of the need for socioemotional competencies.

The second strategy consisted of focusing on the practice experiences through interviews with students and teachers from the schools. The systematization of the interviews was discussed in 5 virtual seminars developed during the semester. At the same time, the trainee teachers accompanied different types of teachers in virtual classes that could correspond to elementary school, high school, or university. This strategy did not directly address the identity of the triad, but features similar to those of the previous triad, associated with the use of technology, teacher collaboration, and mental health, appear in this strategy.

The third strategy involved changes in the configuration of the practice groups and the expected learning outcome. Before the pandemic, the practice groups were formed according to the level of the students (for example, practice IV corresponded to students in the fifth year of the course). Given that the number of schools and guiding teachers that could support the practices was reduced, it was decided to set up multilevel practices that worked with the same school and the same guiding teacher. From this perspective, the learning from the practices was not centered on what each level required but on the collaborative work between teachers in training and the reflection on the demands that the pandemic placed on the educational system and its actors. This strategy was the one that provided the most evidence of changes in the identity configuration of the triad. Given that reflections on practice were done in triads, the trainers recognized that the trainee teachers contributed to the class and to the questioning of their routines and assumptions because the trainee teachers made successful proposals for the incorporation and management of technology, as well as the implementation of activities that motivated students to participate during the class (for example, with home-made or virtual experiments). The teachers in training, given that they were of different levels, contrasted their diverse formative experiences to support each other and work collaboratively. This allowed them to recognize personal and collective advances in a new identity that requires the consideration of the pandemic context and the incorporation of socioemotional skills of the entire educational community.

4. Discussion

The results show that, in the Chilean context, as well as in other contexts [27], teacher training programs were not prepared to face the challenges posed by the pandemic context. This finding is relevant for educational quality policies since it implies the need to design contingency plans that generate possibilities for new teachers to learn to face the changes and needs of the context.

It is concluded that the institutional agreements between schools and universities are fragile, since most of the cases studied were not able to seek joint solutions that would allow continuity in the pedagogical practices of initial teacher training, nor were they responsible for the training of the actors of the triad to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Therefore, the assumption of this study is confirmed: the trainers (university tutor teacher and school guide teacher) were faced with two disconnected scenarios (school and university) that did not provide them with clear guidelines or concrete support for the development of their roles. However, in some cases, thanks to personal efforts, they have built new forms of communication and collaborative work based on reflective and flexible dynamics that allow them to teach future teachers to learn to be teachers without being in the classroom.

Douglas and Ellis [28] explicitly express that the connection between school and university does not necessarily improve pedagogical practices during initial teacher training; it is not merely an institutional relationship, but the quality of pedagogical practice depends on the relationships between the tutor teacher, guide teacher, and trainee teacher [29,30], which demands that researchers explore new practices that focus on the experiential learning process.

In this sense, the results presented indicate that, in the pedagogical practices of initial teacher training, it is of vital importance to give continuity to the study of the relationship between the subjects that are part of the process, who, in general, are visualized as working separately [2,31]. The root of this disconnection is presented in the practice models adopted by most teacher-training universities, where there are university professors in charge of communicating the theoretical knowledge stipulated in the undergraduate curriculum. On the other hand, in isolation and disconnected, there is the school teacher who accompanies the practices of the teacher in training [7]. Examples of these disconnections were shown in the discursive and symbolic triads, in which, despite changes in the context and modality of practice in times of pandemic, the formative principles and intentionalities remained unchanged [32].

The studies conducted [33,34,35,36,37] show that in most cases, university professors are unaware of the specific classroom practices faced by the student teacher, and school teachers are unaware of the curricular mesh under which the future teacher is being trained and, therefore, unaware of the theoretical and methodological foundations that support and guide their practice.

The results of this study provide the opportunity to investigate and learn about the little or no preparation that the practical training teams of the pedagogical careers have for the new training scenarios that have involved providing training in health emergency contexts when they are unable to directly access the real contexts of interaction with the school. Similar to what happened in other latitudes [38], Chilean universities spent too much time in class planning for utopian contexts (applicable in pre-pandemic classrooms) and in forcing or postponing decision-making by keeping the practice model static.

Contrary to what was proposed by González-Calvo et al. [13], the results allow us to affirm that it was not the pandemic itself that has encouraged a confused identity process in teachers but rather the absence of spaces for reflective and collaborative work. In the triads of co-construction, although there were also feelings of insecurity and uncertainty, the triadic work was able to make explicit and reflect on the new challenges that the pandemic context presented to education professionals, making decisions and taking actions that allowed them to incorporate individual and collective identity dimensions that considered the development of digital and socioemotional competencies [14,15,18]. Moreover, the negative connotations of taking risks and making mistakes [39] were mitigated by peer collaboration, empathic sensitivity, and self-care.

We know that the results of this study are limited only to the Chilean context, and it is not possible to extrapolate the conclusions of each triad to the entire operation of the respective university; however, in any context, it must be ensured that institutions and undergraduate programs satisfactorily comply with quality standards, encouraging the creation of knowledge and the transfer of valuable practices, which allow for the training of suitable professionals for the challenges of the future [1].

It is vital in this process to work collaboratively among various teacher training institutions, which represents an opportunity for quality assurance through the transfer and joint construction of knowledge and good academic and institutional practices [6,7]. In this sense, one of the contributions of this study is to show that it is essential to recognize the type of triadic functioning that each teacher training program has, in order to make a conscious work of decision-making and the establishment of operating conditions that allow for the transition from discursive or symbolic triads to those of co-construction.

5. Conclusions

It is concluded that most universities have installed a symbolic understanding of the formative triad, and in some cases, this view became discursive during the pandemic. Only in three cases are the understanding and functioning of co-construction consolidated. As a consequence, practice is still understood as a unidirectional learning space (only for teachers in initial training); there are gaps between the expected and real learning of teachers in initial training, the feedback of practice involves minimal dialogue and interactions between trainers (tutors or guides) and teachers in training, and there is teachers in training are dependent on the interventions, orientations, and knowledge of the tutor or guide teacher. In addition, hierarchical forms of accompaniment centered on summative and punitive evaluation prevail. In this sense, teacher training programs should design action plans to give continuity to practices in emergency situations, and at the same time, they need to evaluate their practice models to decide whether they have the conditions to implement a model based on the formative triad, and if so, to guide training processes and support plans that allow their trainers (both school and university) to implement co-construction triads.

The little knowledge and experience demonstrated by schools and universities with which to face an emergency context confirm the first assumption of this study: the pandemic transformed the collaborative links between schools and universities since, in complex scenarios, each institution took charge of its internal difficulties and did not seek joint solutions that would allow them to respond to educational quality criteria and the challenges that this implied for the practical training of future teachers. As a result, some links were broken and others were strengthened, developing their own mechanisms that allowed them to move forward to think of possible ways to face the emergency. This has implications and projections that should lead the institutions to review the type of link they have developed and, in particular, to seek mechanisms that allow them to move forward from agreements that only remain in a document or in utilitarian actions that only serve one of the parties, to bidirectional processes that recognize the knowledge and experiences that are built in both schools and universities.