Building online facilitating skills in the new normal

Abstract

The sudden shift to remote teaching caused by COVID-19 pandemic has created a stressful and demanding context for teachers, specifically on the aspect of delivering remote instruction.This ascertainedthe challenges and opportunities encountered by 311 public basic educationteachers attending different onlinetraining platforms and utilizedthe mixed method design in analyzing the data ofthe teachers’ online facilitationskills and usedthe scanning method in the data collection process.The challenges and opportunities they encountered wasconducted throughan unstructured interview via Zoom.The researcher-made questionnaires were sent to the teachers via email. Results revealed that teachers already had prerequisite ICT skills so the use of technology during the online training was not so much a threat in the enhancement of their ICTknowledge and skills except of the issues regardingvery slow internet access and the lack of necessary and proper equipment and gadgets. In conclusion, teachers easily adoptedto the shift from in-person to remote teaching; enhanced their ICT skills; and becameprepared for remote teaching. Despite the sudden shift, these teachers remained positive in pursuing the direction for digital literacy to build aneffective and efficient skills in remote teaching in the new normal.