Fjarkennsla og stafræn tækni í framhaldsskólum á tímum farsóttar vorið 2020: Sjónarhóll kennara og stjórnenda

Distance learning at upper secondary school level (grades 11 to 13) in Iceland has been developing since the early 90s and online learning has become an important part of how many schools organize their programmes with different blended learning models. Rural schools have used the flexibility of online access to open up possibilities for their students to select courses available in the other schools. Also they have organized vocational programmes as a blend of face-to-face and online modules, sometimes in collaboration with specialized schools in Reykjavik for enabling people in rural districts to access more diverse education. In the school-year 2019–2020 distance students were enrolled in about 50% of Icelandic upper secondary schools; thus, many schools have considerable experience in planning and implementing distance learning. However, the majority of upper secondary students are enrolled in schools that have relied mostly on faceto-face teaching and learning. During the 2020 spring semester school buildings were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, necessitating all teaching to be moved online. Surveys were sent out during the 2020 spring semester by the Educational Research Institute (ERI) at the University of Iceland School of Education to start monitoring the effects of the COVID-19 situation on students and schools at the preschool, primary and secondary level in Iceland. RANNUM – Centre for Educational Research on ICT and Media contributed survey questions relating to the use of digital technologies and online learning. The focus was on how the schools were prepared and able to cope with increased distance and online learning, changes in the use of digital technology and how pedagogical and technical support for teachers was provided in these altered circumstances. Additional focus was placed on how the experience of distance learning could affect the development of teaching methods and the future organization of the curriculum. In this paper we outline the results from the survey answered by 823 teachers and school administrators from 35 upper secondary schools. Most administrators (94%) thought their schools were very well or rather well equipped, regarding technology and digital tools and felt their teachers were well prepared. Many teachers (41%) reported previous experience of distance teaching and about half of them believed experience and exposure to distance learning and teaching had helped them during the period. Most school administrators (88%) thought that students’ access to technology had been sufficient and served them very well, or at least rather well, for online communication and distance learning. Significantly fewer teachers, (74%), felt that students’ access to technology had served them very well or rather well Answers to open-ended questions revealed teachers’ views regarding the main challenges they faced. Many felt it was difficult to stay in contact with all of their students and had tried to ensure that they did not give up on their studies. There were reports of additional stress as teachers had to work from home often under demanding working conditions. Also, some felt it was hard to apply a variety of teaching methods and thought there was a tendency for the online teaching to be more traditional and use a one-way transmission from teacher to students. On the other hand, the experience opened the eyes of many teachers to new opportunities, including better meeting students’ needs by using a more individualised approach instead of traditional methods. Some teachers anticipated that in the future schools would increasingly employ blended learning methods which could provide increased flexibility in education. The experience of this unprepared transfer of teaching in upper secondary schools to distance learning shows that teachers’ technical skills and pedagogical knowledge played a key role in the outcome. The importance of technology for learning and teaching in the future makes it an urgent task to ensure that teachers have these competencies or can acquire them through access to relevant professional development.