Pedagogical adaptability as an essential capacity: reflective practice of applying theory to practice among first-year early childhood teachers during remote instruction

ABSTRACT

Situated within the theoretical framework of reflective practice, this phenomenological study investigated how early childhood teachers reflected on the ways in which they were able or unable to engage in developmentally appropriate practices during the first four months of the 2020–2021 school year in the context of COVID-19-induced remote instruction. The participants were nine first-year early childhood teachers (teaching preschool to third grade) in a northeastern state of the United States. These teachers (ages 22–32 years, M= 28 years) were all females, consisting of five Hispanics, two Caucasians, one Black, and one Mexican. Except for one Caucasian teacher educating all Caucasian children from affluent backgrounds, the other eight teachers were teaching children from mostly ethnic/racial minority and low-income backgrounds. The data were collected from interviewing each teacher virtually via Zoom for 1.5 hours. A thematic analysis of the data was conducted. The findings revealed four salient themes: (1) theory-practice consonance, (2) theory-practice dissonance, (3) pedagogical challenges due to contextual constraints, and (4) pedagogical adaptability emanating from reflective practice. Collectively, the affordances and constraints engendered by the remote environment seemingly created both a fluid and a constricted space for the teachers to apply theory (e.g., developmentally appropriate practice) to practice. The findings of this study yielded important implications for preparing preservice teachers in teacher education programs and supporting in-service teachers in professional development activities.

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the support from the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) Foundation for the 2020 Research on Early Childhood Teacher Education Established Career Award for this work. She is also grateful to the early childhood teachers whose participation made this study possible. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments on the original manuscript. She would also like to thank Dr. Eleni Zgourou for reviewing and providing helpful feedback on the research results and interpretations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In this study, the terms, “first-year teachers,” “novice teachers,” and “beginning teachers” are used interchangeably to refer to those teachers who are in their first year of teaching full-time after graduating from their teacher education program.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the NAECTE Foundation’s [2020 Research on Early Childhood Teacher Education Established Career Award].