Living at Work: Teaching Online During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article presents a case study of what educators from an initial teacher education provider in Aotearoa, New Zealand learnt from the collapse of institutional practice architecture during the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. It explores how educators responded to the challenges emerging from living at work and recognises the interconnected links of educators’ practices in their sayings, doings, and relatings. The study was conducted using semi-structured interviews to gather in the moment lived experiences of nine teacher educators in their ‘living at work’ context. The insight from these interviews provides a unique perspective of how educator and student wellbeing can be sustained through relationships. The collapse of institutional practice architecture highlighted arrangements and set-ups within the institute that enabled or constrained educator practices and how the changing arrangements impacted student wellbeing.

Keywords

• educator wellbeing
• practice architecture
• context collapse
• initial teacher education
• online teaching