Emergency Remote Teaching Scenarios, Struggles and Soundboxes: A Case Study on Malaysian Teachers

Abstract

The shift to emergency remote teaching has created a ripple effect in education across the globe. Although efforts to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic can be lauded, much remains unknown in terms of the challenges that teachers have gone through in fulfilling their roles during emergency remote teaching. The study is a necessary step to identify and determine how teachers articulate their perspectives as an educator during emergency remote teaching. A case study on a group of trained graduate teachers in Malaysia was conducted to investigate strategies and struggles they faced in the emergency remote teaching period through a survey and a thematic analysis of narratives they provided. Findings show that though respondents were equipped with pedagogical knowledge in integrating technology, they were unable to fully utilise what they have learned in their teacher training programme during emergency remote teaching due to lack of administrative support from school and poor infrastructure accessibility. Their narratives also suggested a pertinent need for future study to investigate the synergy between parents, schools and teachers in working cohesively to ensure learning is supported effectively at home and in school especially during emergency remote teaching.