Preparation of teachers under conditions of quarantine

On July 3, 2020, within the ongoing project at Abai KazNPU «Evidence-based educator preparation and organizational culture», an online webinar was held on the topic «Preparation of teachers under conditions of quarantine». The project is funded by the Government of America, the U.S.-KAZAKHSTAN UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS GRANTS program with the support of the American Council for International Education.

Moderator: Bayan Sapargaliyeva. Head of the International Programs and Cooperation Office, Project Coordinator from Abai KazNPU.

Speaker: Alexander Sidorkin, Project Coordinator, Professor, Dean of the College of Education, California State University Sacramento.

Symbat Yessimkulova, a member of the project team, PhD candidate, senior lecturer of the Department of Foreign Languages at the Institute of Philology and Multilingual Education of Abai KazNPU made a report on «The students`teaching practice under conditions of quarantine». In the presentation, there were given the types of practices, their duration, the transition to online education using information resources, and examples of feedback from students, and the audience was asked to discuss the question: Who suffers the most during self-isolation?

The speaker on the topic «Training teachers under conditions of quarantine» Alexander Sidorkin presented information on teaching practice in California schools. According to State reform, the training of a school teacher is based on practice and universities provide up to 800 hours of teaching practice. During the quarantine, the university created a special online platform for conducting a volunteer lesson program and announced information about various types of online lessons for students of California schools, and such a practice program was considered by the university. The California State University Sacramento is preparing to conduct teaching practice online in the new academic year, in the fall of 2020, but students will go to school, following the rules of the quarantine. There are many issues regarding the organization of training during quarantine, for which universities and schools should be prepared.

During the online meeting, there was held an interactive survey for all participants in the webinar. One of the surveys revealed a dilemma that during pedagogical practice, according to moral and professional considerations, it is believed that if the teacher went to school to give a lesson, the student, upon the teacher`s first request, should go to school too, despite the restrictive quarantine measures just out of a sense of solidarity.

The theme of our project is organizational culture; it is supposed to consider issues of a stressful and unusual situation as a type of case analysis: «Stress test as a type of case analysis method». Any organization or university, in the face of the crisis, is more transparent than in a stable environment, and all the strengths and weaknesses become visible. In stressful situations, people choose what is important to them at this point. The educational institution declares values for supporting students, takes care of the welfare of students and good education but when it comes to lack of resources what will people choose: common benefits and support of students or their own needs and interests? This is a test of the sustainability of not only teachers, but also leaders, how much leaders are able to be flexible and prepare for unpredictable things to see themselves in the mirror. As well as to see how good we are, how we think, how great our creative potential is, because it is necessary to improvise and show creativity in uncertainty. Will we have many new solutions that we were not aware of? Or will people act in the old-fashioned way and do what they used to do? This is not a measurable but easily described result. The focus is on external forces, that is, subordination to the requirements of some external forces but there is also a preference to follow one`s own professional attitudes, principles, and assume responsibility.

I would like to emphasize that the materials presented by the speaker demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency of the methodology used in their work.

Many participants, representatives of universities of Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan took an active part in the discussion of the webinar.

During the webinar Aymena Kurmangali, Doctor of Political Sciences, Lecturer of the Sorbonne-Kazakhstan Institute, Abai KazNPU expressed gratitude to the speaker for such important and relevant topics today. She pointed out, «During quarantine, I, as a teacher, was surprised that during online distance learning, students wanted to meet and study face-to-face while attending classes at university. Universities have the same problems both in the USA and Kazakhstan but it is important to emphasize the issue of the quality of education».

60 participants attended the webinar among them there were the representatives of universities in Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

As recommendations, participants in the online meeting suggested considering the possible continuation of series of webinars within the framework of the project.

Information on subsequent webinars can be found in the announcements on the website of Abai KazNPU.

Contact for further information within the project: Tel.: +7 701 732 6344, e-mail: bayan_sapargaliyeva@mail.ru, bonya_sh@mail.ru

Video material

Department of International Cooperation