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African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning Journal
Issue 1, Volume 9, 2025
ISSN Print: 2521-0262
ISSN Online: 2662-012X
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
84
Unlearning and re-learning: exploring science teacher educators'
experiences during the transition to emergency remote teaching in the
COVID-19 Pandemic
Hlologelo Climant Khoza1 and Bob Maseko2
1Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
2Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, School of Education, University of Malawi,
Zomba, Malawi
Corresponding author, email: climant.khoza@up.ac.za
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, lecturers were required to transition from traditional face-to-face
teaching to emergency remote teaching (ERT), necessitating a process of unlearning and re-learning
pedagogical practices. This study examines the experiences of science teacher educators as they navigated
this transition, with a specific focus on the nature of their adaptation, the aspects of teaching they
unlearned and relearned, and the mechanisms that facilitated this process. Given the fundamental
differences between face-to-face and online teaching, this study is framed using the theoretical constructs
of border crossing and figured worlds. The research involved five teacher educators from institutions
primarily engaged in face-to-face instruction. Data were collected through written narratives and follow-
up interviews, and analysed using both narrative analysis and analysis of narratives approaches. The
findings indicate that none of the participants experienced a smooth transition to ERT. Instead, their
experiences were characterized as either hazardous or manageable, as they were compelled to unlearn and
relearn various teaching practices, such as assessment strategies. Several key mechanisms facilitated this
process, including critical reflection, collaborative engagement within professional communities, the
utilisation of online resources, and student feedback. These findings provide valuable insights for teacher
educators navigating similar crises and offer implications for fostering adaptability and resilience in times
of educational disruption.
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, transition, unlearning and re-learning, emergency remote teaching,
science teacher educators
Introduction
During the COVID-19 pandemic, higher
education institutions were required to transition
rapidly from traditional face-to-face teaching to
Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) as a measure
to mitigate the spread of the virus (Mishra, Gupta,
& Shree, 2020). Previous research has explored
lecturers’ experiences during this transition (e.g.,
Glietenberg, Petersen, & Carolin, 2022; Valsaraj,
More, Biju, Payini, & Pallath, 2021), highlighting
their lack of preparedness and the Pedagogical
Content Knowledge (PCK) challenges they
encountered. Additionally, some studies have
reported on the opportunities presented by ERT,
documenting the innovative teaching practices
employed by lecturers as they exercised
professional agency (e.g., Sadic & Bavli, 2023;
Nyamupangedengu et al., 2023). Despite these
insights, three key limitations persist in the
existing literature. First, while some studies have
examined changes in lecturers’ teaching practices
during ERT, the process by which these changes
occurred remains underexplored. In this study, we
argue that the transition involved unlearning
traditional face-to-face pedagogical approaches
and re-learning new methods suitable for ERT.
Second, existing research has not sufficiently
addressed how lecturers came to understand and
internalise new practices in the ERT context. For
instance, Glietenberg et al. (2022) investigated
teacher educators’ experiences but focused
https://doi.org/10.70875/v9i1article7
Khoza H.C and Maseko B
85
primarily on perceptions rather than the processes
of unlearning and re-learning. Investigating the
mechanisms that supported these lecturers could
provide valuable insights in case of similar crises
in the future. Third, while some studies have
explored lecturers’ experiences within specific
disciplines such as business studies (Chen, Landa,
Padilla, & Yur-Austin, 2022) and engineering
education (Thurab-Nkhosi, Maharaj, & Ramadhar,
2021), few have focused on science teacher
educators, who play a crucial role in preparing
future science teachers. We argue that the
effectiveness of teaching during ERT depended not
only on lecturers' ability to integrate technological
tools but also on the nature of the content and the
students being taught (Khoza, 2024a). As such,
given the disciplinary differences in content,
pedagogy, and student engagement, the challenges
faced by science teacher educators during ERT
may have been distinct. Researching this group is
particularly important due to the complexities of
preparing science pre-service teachers, which
involve both teaching subject-specific content and
modelling exemplary pedagogical practices
(Khoza, 2022). As argued by Khoza and
Nyamupangedengu (2023) and Loughran, Berry,
and Mulhall (2012), preparing science teachers is
inherently complex and requires careful
pedagogical reflection. Motivated by these gaps in
the literature, we investigated science teacher
educators’ process of unlearning and re-learning
during their transition to ERT. The following
research questions guided this study.
1. What was the nature of science
teacher educators’ unlearning and re-learning
during the transition to ERT?
2. What teaching practices did science
teacher educators have to unlearn and re-learn
during this transition?
3. What mechanisms supported
science teacher educators in unlearning and re-
learning during this transition?
While the first two questions address the
nature of unlearning and re-learning in relation to
teaching practices, this study contributes to the
broader literature by identifying mechanisms that
can support educators in adapting to future crises
similar to COVID-19.
Literature review
Emergency remote teaching (ERT) and its
challenges
There is a consensus among scholars that
online teaching and ERT are distinct. Online
teaching is characterised by its systematic and
intentional design, where institutions carefully
plan the development, implementation, and
delivery of courses via online platforms. This
planning process includes deliberate strategies to
support student learning (Ferri, Grifoni, & Guzzo,
2020). In contrast, ERT is an immediate
contingency measure implemented in response to
educational disruptions, such as the COVID-19
pandemic. Its deployment is often rapid and
unstructured, leaving lecturers with limited time to
adapt their teaching practices (Hodges, Moore,
Lockee, Trust, & Bond, 2020). During the
pandemic, lecturers faced the imperative to
salvage the academic year, despite incremental
improvements in subsequent iterations of ERT
(Glietenberg et al., 2022). A primary challenge
involved maintaining relationships with students
and collaborating with colleagues (Scull, Phillips,
Sharma, & Garnier, 2020), alongside fostering
student engagement. Additionally, lecturers had to
acquire new competencies, including the use of
digital tools for course delivery, strategies for
fostering interaction in online platforms (Ali &
Khoza, 2023), and adaptations to assessment
practices (Sandvik & Sánchez-Calvo, 2023).
Significant challenges persisted,
particularly in regions where the digital divide
exacerbated inequalities in access to online
learning; a challenge particularly acute in the
African context (Kumi-Yeboah & Armah, 2023).
Nevertheless, lecturers navigated these challenges
through professional agency, developing
contextualized strategies to adapt to ERT (Heikkilä
& Mankki, 2021). Importantly, ERT also exposed
underlying challenges inherent in traditional face-
to-face teaching, particularly in teacher education
programmes. A defining feature of face-to-face
teacher education is the pedagogical significance
of social interactions. These interactions are
central to teacher preparation, as they enable pre-
service teachers to observe and engage with
exemplary teaching practices within their subject
Educators' Experiences During the Transition to Emergency Remote Teaching
86
disciplines (Khoza, 2022). The abrupt transition to
ERT disrupted these critical social interactions,
posing fundamental questions about the nature of
pedagogical practice in science teacher education.
We argue that science teacher educators had to
unlearn and re-learn during this transition.
Unlearning and re-learning
From a theoretical perspective, the
concepts of unlearning and re-learning are
inherently complex and challenging to define due
to their multidimensional nature, encompassing
psychological, social, and neurological
dimensions. Additionally, these concepts exhibit
variability in their conceptualisation, often framed
either as cognitive processes. For the purposes of
this study, we adopt Klein’s (2008) definitions, that
conceptualise learning as the process of
constructing new content knowledge and
pedagogical orientations that contribute to
professional development. Unlearning, in contrast,
involves letting go of deeply held assumptions
about what it means to be a science teacher
educator; re-learning entails the process of
reconstructing new understandings and behaviours
(Klein, 2008).
Unlearning presupposes prior learning in
the sense that an individual must first possess
existing knowledge and/or skills before the
process of unlearning and subsequent re-learning
can occur. In his theory of individual cognition,
Piaget (1964) posited that individuals develop
cognitive structures by linking them to pre-
existing knowledge and experiences within their
cognitive schema. Learning, according to Piaget,
necessitates a restructuring of these cognitive
schemas, which requires individuals to reassess
their conceptions, beliefs, prior experiences, and
knowledge through reflective engagement (Cross,
Jeannin, & Middlehurst, 2018). Within this
framework, we argue that, in order to unlearn
traditional pedagogical approaches and adapt to
ERT, science teacher educators needed to
restructure their cognitive frameworks and
reconfigure their pedagogical identities.
Furthermore, the ability to restructure thinking and
practice in response to change is mediated by
professional agency (Alexiadou, Holm, Rönnberg,
& Carlbaum, 2023), which enables lecturers to
draw from diverse knowledge sources to navigate
the uncertainties of ERT. Tome (2021) and Khoza
& Nyamupangendengu (2023) assert that
unlearning and re-learning necessitate situating
oneself within a new context and actively seeking
alternative perspectives and meanings. Thus, in the
context of this study, science teacher educators
were required to engage with new epistemological
perspectives on teaching science pre-service
teachers while simultaneously exercising
professional agency to reconstruct their prior
knowledge and practices.
We assume that the process of unlearning
and re-learning during ERT was grounded in the
teacher educators’ existing knowledge and skills
related to teaching pre-service teachers. The core
knowledge base for teaching is PCK (Shulman,
1986). PCK refers to the integration of content
knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. However,
teacher educators hold a dual role: they must think
about pre-service teachers as students in higher
education institutions while also preparing them to
become future teachers (Korthagen, 2001). As a
result, teacher educators’ knowledge domains exist
at two distinct levels; the university level (teaching
pre-service teachers) and the school level
(preparing pre-service teachers to teach school
learners) (Nyamupangedengu & Lelliott, 2016).
Within the ERT context, the use of digital
technologies introduced an additional layer of
complexity to teacher educators’ pedagogical
knowledge. Koehler and Mishra’s (2005)
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge
(TPACK) framework highlights the need for
educators to develop a nuanced understanding of
how technology interacts with both content and
pedagogy. Thus, effective online teaching extends
beyond the mere use of digital tools; it requires a
deliberate integration of technology, pedagogy,
and content knowledge to facilitate meaningful
learning experiences. A systematic review by Sum
and Oancea (2022) revealed that academics’ self-
exploration of digital tools was a prevalent
strategy during ERT, highlighting the need for
educators to continuously re-learn how to
effectively utilise technology for instruction.
Similarly, Inamorato dos Santos, Chinkes,
Carvalho, Solórzano, and Marroni, (2023) found
that lecturers recognised the importance of re-
learning pedagogical and technological skills to
Khoza H.C and Maseko B
87
effectively teach in online environments during the
pandemic. In this study, we anticipate that the new
knowledge required for teaching science pre-
service teachers in an online environment was not
readily available to teacher educators. Instead,
they had to actively engage in the processes of
unlearning and re-learning, guided by reflection,
agency, and adaptation to the emerging demands
of ERT.
Theoretical lens
To frame this study, we employed the
notion of border crossing alongside the theory of
figured worlds. The concept of border crossing
was introduced by Phelan, Davidson, and Cao
(1991) in their exploration of the relationships
between students' personal lives and their
experiences in formal schooling. They proposed
that students navigate multiple "worlds"; one
characterised by personal life and another by
schooling. Each of these worlds represents a
distinct cultural context defined by its own norms,
values, beliefs, and practices. In this study, we
conceptualised traditional face-to-face instruction
and ERT as two distinct educational worlds, each
with its own norms, values, and pedagogical
expectations. Science teacher educators and pre-
service teachers were viewed as participants
within these two worlds. According to Phelan et al.
(1991), there are four possible patterns of border
crossing when transitioning between cultures. The
first is a smooth transition, where the two cultures
are highly congruent. Individuals experience
minimal resistance in adapting to the culture of the
second world. In this case, a teacher educator may
experience little difference between the
pedagogical approaches used before and during
the pandemic. The second is manageable
transition. Although differences exist between the
two cultures, adaptation is feasible with minor
adjustments. Here, the teacher educators would
tailor their pedagogical approaches to align with
ERT without major disruptions. The third is a
hazardous transition. This occurs when the norms
and values of the two cultures conflict, resulting in
significant discomfort or challenges in
transitioning (Phelan et al., 1991). In the context of
this study, a hazardous transition would manifest
as substantial difficulties in adapting teaching
practices from traditional instruction to ERT. The
fourth is impassable transition, which may be
entirely unfeasible, preventing full adaptation to
the new culture. Yow, Eli, Beisiegel, McCloskey,
and Welder (2015) further emphasize that when
two cultural contexts contradict one another,
transitions are rarely smooth. By applying these
patterns to science teacher educators’ experiences,
we aimed to analyse the complexities of their
transition from face-to-face instruction to ERT. In
transitioning from one culture to the next,
individuals have to figure out the new culture.
The notion of figured worlds was
introduced by Holland et al. (1998) as part of their
theory of self and identity. They define figured
worlds as "realms of interpretation in which
particular sets of actors are recognized,
significance is assigned to certain acts, and
particular outcomes are valued over others"
(Holland et al., 1998, p. 52). In the context of this
study, the figured world refers to the online
learning environment that science teacher
educators had to navigate during ERT. As they
engaged with this new environment, they
redefined their professional identities, shaped by
their interactions, experiences, and social
relationships within this space. According to
Holland et al. (1998), individuals develop their
sense of self through their participation in a figured
world, which involves learning, negotiating, and
adapting to its norms and expectations. An
essential aspect of this process is professional
agency, which allows individuals to exercise
decision-making, and negotiate their roles within
the figured world. Damsa Langford, Uehara and
Scherer (2021) argue that teacher professional
agency is particularly critical during educational
crises, as it enables educators to adapt to
disruptions in teaching and learning. Applying this
perspective, we interpreted science teacher
educators' experiences during ERT as being
influenced by the interactions, perceptions, and
agency they exercised within the online learning
environment. Their professional practices and
beliefs were, therefore, shaped not only by the
transition from face-to-face to online instruction
but also by the social and pedagogical
engagements within this newly constructed
figured world.
Educators' Experiences During the Transition to Emergency Remote Teaching
88
Methods
This study employed a qualitative case
study methodology, grounded in the interpretivist
paradigm (Kivunja & Kuyini, 2017). We adopted
the ontological stance that science teacher
educators' experiences of online teaching are
inherently subjective and shaped by their
individual contexts. As noted by Priya (2021),
qualitative case studies provide researchers with
the opportunity to collect rich, contextualised data,
facilitating an understanding of complex social
phenomena. In this study, the case under
investigation comprised science teacher educators
navigating the transition from traditional face-to-
face instruction to ERT.
Participants
Table 1: Details of participants
Lecturer
(Pseudonyms)
Years of
teaching
in
teacher
education
Modules they
were teaching
Thabo
1
Methods of Life
Sciences
Leo
5
Methods of Life
Sciences and Life
Sciences content
Ben
7
Methods of
Physical Sciences
Melusi
1
Methods of
teaching
Mathematics,
Science and
Technology
Calvin
2
Methods of Life
Sciences and Life
Sciences content
The participants were five science teacher
educators who were responsible for teaching
Bachelor of Education pre-service teachers at
South African universities where the predominant
mode of instruction is face-to-face teaching. These
participants were purposefully selected based on
their engagement in teaching science education
modules and their availability to participate in the
study. Table 1 presents detailed information
regarding the selected teacher educators.
As can be seen in Table 1, the teacher
educators were teaching Science Education. In the
South African context, teacher educators teach
content and/or methods modules depending on the
structure of the institution’s science teacher
education programme (Khoza, 2022). In the South
African context, some education faculties or
schools teach both the content and methods
module (in the case of, for example, Calvin) while
some only teach methods modules (in the case of
Ben). Three of the teacher educators were
considered novices as they had less than five years
of teaching pre-service teachers, and the others
were considered experienced as they had at least
five years of teaching. This discrepancy had
implications in terms of how they experienced the
ERT, as we will show in the Findings section. The
last column shows the modules that the teacher
educators were teaching.
Data collection procedures and analysis
Data were collected through written
narratives and follow-up interviews. Connelly and
Clandinin (2000) described narrative research as a
form of research used to capture stories of people’s
experiences. The five science teacher educators
were requested to write a narrative of their
experiences about the transition to ERT. The
teacher educators were given four prompts to
guide their narrations. The narratives were
collected at the end of ERT when the teacher
educators were beginning to go back to face-to-
face teaching.
• Prompt 1: What were your experiences of
transitioning to emergency remote
teaching?
• Prompt 2: How did these experiences
change over time during the emergency
remote teaching? What contributed to the
change?
• Prompt 3: What challenges were you faced
with during the emergency remote teaching
as a teacher educator?
Khoza H.C and Maseko B
89
• Prompt 4: In what ways was your
knowledge of teaching science pre-service
teachers enhanced through what you
experienced during the ERT?
We gathered written narratives ranging
from 2–3 typed pages for each teacher educator.
These narratives were subjected to both narrative
analysis and analysis of narratives approaches to
reveal the teacher educators’ experiences.
According to Polkinghorne (1993), narrative
analysis entails the researcher re-telling the stories
constructed by the participants, while analysis of
narratives entails coding the narratives and finding
common themes based on a particular typology or
lens. The lens that we used in this study to code the
narratives was informed by the literature review
and theoretical framework of this study. For
example, we used the four transitions as categories
to characterise the nature of the teacher educators’
move to ERT. Below, we show an example of how
we coded the narratives.
Although written narratives are powerful
in revealing participants’ stories, one of the
shortfalls is that participants may withhold some
information regarding their experiences in the
absence of further probes. We therefore conducted
follow-up interviews to amplify the written
narratives. Since each teacher educator told
personal stories in their own context, we
constructed the interview questions based on the
preliminary analysis of the written narratives.
Using the example of analysis above, the
following questions were asked for that part of the
narratives.
Although certain questions were designed
to be asked to the teacher educators based on their
written narratives, there were follow-up questions
based on the responses that they provided. The
interviews took between 36 to 54 minutes and
were analysed using the same method of analysing
the written narratives.
Findings
The findings are organised according to
the research questions.
The nature of the teacher educators’ transition
There was variation in the science teacher
educators’ experiences of the nature of the
transition to the ERT, depending on their prior
exposures and experiences. For two of the teacher
educators, their transition was hazardous and too
demanding as they never experienced a situation
where there would be a need for ERT.
Thabo: The transition was very
challenging…it was my first year here, remember
I was a teacher and everything that I learnt as a
teacher was somehow taken away…but, I
ultimately learnt the kind of activities and
assessments I could provide online (interview).
Melusi: I would not lie and say I knew
what I was doing…The way it was difficult, I even
wanted to go back to my previous teaching job
(interview).
Thabo and Melusi shared how their
transition to ERT was hazardous (signified by
difficulties and discomfort) mainly because they
were coming from being school teachers. The
practices that they knew and learnt as school
teachers were no longer applicable. Melusi’s
• In your narrative, you said designing assessments was a challenge. How did you ultimately
design assessments for your modules?
• You wrote that you were shy to ask your colleagues as you were new in the field. Did you
ultimately learn to ask them? How did you do that?
Educators' Experiences During the Transition to Emergency Remote Teaching
90
transition was very challenging. However, he
managed to re-design his teaching material, as he
described in his interview: “I had to re-design an
experiment on the relationship between current,
voltage and resistance”. In contrast to Thabo and
Melusi, two of the teacher educators had been
exposed to a similar situation before. As such, their
transition was not as rocky as for the teacher
educators without prior exposure similar to ERT.
Ben: We only had a few weeks before we
could start teaching online but I managed to turn
things around and re-design my activities and
other things (interview)…we get a lot of protest so
we usually have plan B if the protest takes long
(narrative).
At first sight, Ben’s transition would
seem like it was smooth. However, when he was
questioned further, he said; “COVID-19 was
different and we knew that it could take long…so
we had to prepare for long term and this was a bit
challenging”. This is an indication that Ben,
despite his prior experiences of crises like student
protests served as a springboard for their
manageable transition to ERT. The teaching
experience was not the sole factor, as another
teacher educator who was exposed to a similar
situation as a student also experienced a
manageable transition.
Calvin: When we were told to start
teaching online, I immediately remembered how
they did it, I mean how my lecturers taught me
during the strike…when students were striking for
free education…and I had to somehow mimic what
they did (narrative)…This was my way of
managing the whole thing and doing what I was
required to do which was to save the academic
year (interview).
When Calvin was further questioned in
the interview, he said; “I think I managed…of
course with some obstacles there and there…it was
something that could manage” to denote a
manageable transition. Calvin further said; “It got
better with time…I improved my modules from
one term to the next” when explaining how he
experienced his journey.
Teaching practices that the teacher educators
unlearned and re-learned
The teacher educators had to unlearn
what they had prepared to teach their pre-service
teachers.
Calvin: At first, I just continued but as
time went by, I was worried if what I was teaching
them is still relevant (narrative)…I changed some
of the things. For example, in my methodology
module, instead of teaching about facilitating
practical work, I had to learn about online
practical work and how I can include that in the
module (interview)
Melusi: during that week I was trying to
change some of the readings, some of the content
so that it suits the online platform…(interview)
Calvin wrote in his narrative how he was
worried whether the content that he had planned
was still suitable for the pre-service teachers.
When he was asked to unpack this statement
during the interview, he provided an example of
the content he changed (as seen in the extract
above). This indicates that Calvin had to unlearn
what he considered as appropriate knowledge
(knowledge of how to facilitate practical work in
face-to-face teaching) to teach to the pre-service
teachers and then re-learn the new knowledge that
would be relevant (knowledge of facilitating
practical work in an online platform). Although
Melusi could not provide specific examples of the
readings and content he changed, his utterance
reveals unlearning and re-learning the content
knowledge to be taught to his pre-service teachers.
His reasoning for this was that “we are teaching
the student how to teach but the students who were
being taught online, but when they are going to
work, they are not going to teach online. They're
going to teach face-to-face. So, it was important to
change”.
Since what teacher educators teach needs
to model how the pre-service teachers should teach
in schools, Thabo also spoke about how he needed
to change his ways of teaching.
Thabo: And another thing that we also
need to remember we are dealing with students
Khoza H.C and Maseko B
91
who are learning about teaching. We need to treat
them the way that we expect them to treat learners.
So we are more of exemplary…(interview)
Thabo’s comment above reveals the issue
of modelling exemplary practices in an online
teaching platform. The teacher educators’
statements show that they were used to showing
practices to pre-service teachers in a traditional
face-to-face mode, and now had to re-learn how
the culture of modelling practices can be
maintained on an online platform. Furthermore,
Calvin said; “I ended up showing students how
they can use things like simulations which is
something that I had not planned to do before the
pandemic” to explain that he learnt a new
pedagogy that could be included as part of the
module content, and modelled to pre-service
teachers.
A major pedagogical practice that was
problematic for all the teacher educators was
assessment, as seen below.
Melusi: I needed to ascertain the validity
of these assessments…especially for science
student teachers (narrative).
Leo: Science content is just math. I found
it very difficult to come up with authentic
assessment…This is something that I did not do
when the students were here [during face-to-face]
(interview)
Thabo: In terms of assessment, I learnt
the hard way…I found that students would
subscribe to a certain website and pay then get all
the answers they needed but through this, I
changed the way I assess (interview)
What is apparent from the teacher
educators’ narratives and interviews is that they
had to unlearn the way they assess: that is, moving
from content-based assessments to authentic
assessments. In the same vein, Thabo argued; “you
need to allow students to exercise their creativity
and encrypt the content there”. The process of re-
learning for the teacher educators, therefore,
involved understanding what constitutes authentic
assessment.
Mechanisms for unlearning and re-learning
during the transition
The first mechanism that the teacher
educators (like Ben) used was embarking on
reflection using their prior experiences.
Ben: I first went to my notes then I
reminded myself of what we did in the past when
(Narrative)…
Some of the science teacher educators
had not experienced something like the pandemic
where they had to move to online teaching.
However, they also engaged in critical reflection.
Thabo: If you are not a reflective teacher,
then you're in the wrong business…I kept on asking
myself serious questions. Suppose you are
surprised that learners are not participating in the
classroom. You can only be able to see that if you
are reflective about it, and you can actually see
what can I do to address this issue (Interview)
Leo: I had to ask myself why these
students do not want to talk during live lectures.
After a while, I realised that…I had to reflect a lot
(Interview)
Thabo and Leo shared how they had to
engage in reflection to understand why certain
incidents were happening in their teaching. In this
case, it was the pedagogical practice of engaging
students in an online synchronous teaching mode.
Thabo uses the phrase “asking myself serious
questions” to explain how he began his reflective
practice. Leo also alludes that he had to ask
himself a question concerning why the students
were not engaging in verbal talk in his
synchronous sessions. What is interesting to note
about Thabo’s comment is that he understands the
role of reflection as a means of understanding and
tackling new educational demands.
The second mechanism that seemed to
help the teacher educators to unlearn and re-learn
during the transition was collaboration with
colleagues.
Calvin: It was a mess to just start
teaching online but we ultimately got support
(Narrative). I also shared with a few colleagues
Educators' Experiences During the Transition to Emergency Remote Teaching
92
how to do some stuff online and it was nice
(Interview).
Melusi: I was shy to ask my colleagues at
first. As time went by, some offered to help and we
would share stuff like how to deal with students
who just logged into the lecture but were not there
(Interview).
Thabo: I think we [the participant and his
colleagues] spoke a lot about the problems that we
had but experienced lecturers helped in terms of
how they did it during the fees must fall strike.
Although the teacher educators spoke
about the significance of collaboration with
colleagues as a mechanism to unlearn and re-learn,
they further noted that at times, what they talked
about during collaborations were generic
strategies. For example, Calvin said “I could not a
sense of how I can teach biology online… some of
the things, I had to figure out by myself.”
The third mechanism was consulting
online resources and using social media. All the
teacher educators spoke about how the online
resources helped them to unlearn and re-learn
during the pandemic. However, what seemed to be
key for these teacher educators was tailoring what
they acquired online to suit their context.
Melusi: I started going to Tik Tok and
searched for stuff and I was surprised that many
teachers shared what they do in online teaching
(Interview).
Ben: Going online and searching how to
do certain things helped. I even searched how to
set good assessments for online learning and I got
some good ideas (interview).
Even though Melusi relied on online
resources and social media, he took a step back and
tailored the resources to his context. This was
evident in the interview, as he said; “you have to
know that you are preparing teachers and they
have trust you and take whatever you do as a good
thing” to explain how he had to critically think of
how he presents what he took online. He reasoned
that pre-service teachers often watch how you
teach as a teacher educator so that they can also
teach like that in schools. Ben also learnt how to
assess in an online environment. This is similar to
Calvin, who said “I visited a few websites where
they give tips with things like how to keep students
engaged in an online platform”.
The fourth mechanism was involving
students in their process of unlearning and re-
learning. This involved entailed seeking feedback
about their teaching from students.
Melusi: In all my lectures, I asked them
[the students] what their problems were so that I
don’t do things that do not benefit them (interview).
Calvin: It might seem strange to say but
my students became my anchor (narrative)…After
all, it is about them and their learning…if they [the
students] are enjoying what I do or
what…interview).
Ben: At times, I would ask my students to
tell me their challenges…it was interesting to
notice how they want to learn…I learnt a lot from
them (interview).
As can be seen in the teacher educators’
statements above, they did not isolate themselves
from the students they were teaching. They saw
students as vehicles through which they could
learn about teaching practices. Melusi and Calvin
further noted that what they taught and how they
taught during the ERT was informed by their
students’ perspectives.
Discussion
Findings suggest that none of the science
teacher educators experienced a smooth transition
from traditional face-to-face teaching to the ERT.
Instead, they experienced a “rocky” transition,
with many challenges. This is in line with many
studies that investigated lecturers’ experiences
when transitioning to ERT. For example,
Colclasure, Marlier, Durham, Brooks and Kerr
(2021) found that faculty members found it
difficult to transition to ERT due to the fact that
they were used to teaching in a face-to-face setting.
This was not surprising because COVID-19 caught
everyone off-guard (Tasci, 2021) and a transition
to a new culture is never smooth when you are
used to another culture (Yow et al., 2015). While
some teacher educators had faced similar crises
Khoza H.C and Maseko B
93
before, they were still used to the traditional face-
to-face teaching and were confident in how they
prepare teachers in this mode. In the new
dispensation, the teacher educators had to “figure
out” what the new culture entailed. Although the
transition was challenging, the teacher educators
resisted using the material that they had developed
for a traditional face-to-face setting. For example,
with the challenge of practical work, as also found
by Saha, Pranty, Rana, Islam and Hossain (2022),
the teacher educators reported that they had to re-
think what could replace real-time laboratory
practicals and then learn about virtual labs.
When faced with crises, one needs to
unlearn what one has previously known, and re-
learn pedagogies in order to survive the crises.
This was the case with the science teacher
educators who participated in this study. They had
to unlearn and re-learn what they teach to the pre-
service teachers, including their ways of teaching
and assessment. Firstly, the teacher educators
talked about appropriate content knowledge for the
pre-service teachers, especially in methods
courses. In the 21st century, the appropriate
content knowledge for pre-service teachers would
be the knowledge of how to use digital tools, and
that they are exposed to these before going to teach
in schools (Mavhunga, Rollnick, & van der
Merwe, 2023). The teacher educators did not focus
merely on learning the technological tools and
using them, but also on how these are suitable to
the content they are teaching. This is in
contradiction to Blonder, Feldman-Maggor, and
Rap’s (2022) finding that lecturers gave less
attention to how their application of technology
influences the scientific content. However,
changing the content meant changing the way that
content was planned to be taught. For example,
instead of teaching about digital tools and practical
work in science, the teacher educators also had to
think of how they could “model” this to the pre-
service teachers in an online environment.
Therefore, they had to think of alternative
pedagogies and assessment strategies that align
with the new outcomes. Since the teacher
educators themselves were also learning to teach
online, it was challenging to devise new
pedagogies and assessment strategies. This finding
resonates with the work of Sandvik and Sánchez-
Calvo (2023), who found that teachers struggled
with re-learning new pedagogies and assessment
strategies suitable for online teaching during the
ERT. This problem was worse for teacher
educators, as the pedagogies and assessment
strategies they apply would need to match how
they would want their pre-service teachers to teach
and conduct assessments in their teaching context.
Although this was the case at first during the ERT,
the teacher educators’ ultimate awareness of the
pedagogies and assessment strategies in an online
environment was fostered by looking into the kind
of modules they teach and the outcomes of these
modules, as well as the context in which they are
teaching. This study confirms Almossa and
Alzahrani’s (2022) argument in the sense that the
teacher educators considered their contexts while
taking into account the dynamics associated with
the calibre of their students. A study conducted by
DeCoito and Estaiteyeh (2022) with Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
teachers showed that the teachers’ experiences of
online teaching during the pandemic did not shift
their mindsets about teaching online. The current
study showed that teacher educators were able to
shift their understanding of teaching science pre-
service teachers through a variety of mechanisms.
To negotiate the transition into the new
culture of online teaching during ERT, the teacher
educators, regardless of prior exposures to similar
crises, relied on critical reflection, collaboration
with other academics, and online resources.
Critical reflection in such crises seems to be a
major process that facilitates transition trends and
border crossing regardless of the context and
experience. Like Ali and Khoza (2023), who used
a reflective inquiry to understand how they learn
to foster engagement in online teaching
environments during the pandemic, this strategy
also worked for the teacher educators who
participated in this study. Critical reflection goes
together with a trial-and-error approach in
unlearning and re-learning, which Peschl (2019)
identified as a possibility for discovering possible
solutions when necessary. In this approach,
lecturers try new pedagogies and reflect on
whether these are working or not for their students,
then restructure their thinking. The essence of
critical reflection in unlearning and re-learning is
about reframing of knowledge and skills, as well
one’s own perceptions of these. In this case, the
Educators' Experiences During the Transition to Emergency Remote Teaching
94
teacher educators were looking at what they used
to do versus what is possible in the new culture of
teaching and learning. Thus, this opened up new
spaces for the emergence of new knowledge and
skills.
Collaboration was found to be another
mechanism used by teacher educators to unlearn
and re-learn. Godber and Robyn (2021) notes
sharing of critical knowledge to sustain oneself.
Sürmeli et al. (2024) found that collaboration and
collegial relationships became a support
mechanism for teachers to transition to ERT.
However, an interesting finding in this study is that
collaboration did not help the teacher educators in
subject-specific pedagogies. We argue that
pedagogies are discipline-specific. As such,
although the teacher educators got support from
their colleagues, their challenges about how to
teach science in an online platform were not
addressed. They therefore had to explore other
mechanisms like critical reflection, using online
resources, and student feedback. Another key
mechanism that helped the teacher educators to
unlearn and re-learn teaching practices during the
ERT is the use of student feedback. Student
feedback in higher education has already been
proven to be a way through which lecturers can
foster their professional development (see Khoza,
2024b). The teacher educators understood that
their pre-service teachers were as unprepared as
they were to learn in an online environment. As
such, it was important for the pre-service teachers
to voice not only how they would like to learn, but
also that the way they are taught impacts their
learning, and that various challenges are
associated with this. Therefore, using student
feedback was an enabling space for them to
unlearn and re-learn. This finding suggests that
lecturers can co-learn with their students.
However, as noted by Demerath, Kemper, Yousuf,
and Banwo (2022), trust between the two parties
needs to be established so that as teachers improve
their teaching practice, student learning can also be
attained.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The purpose of this study was to
investigate the teacher educators’ nature of
transition to ERT and their process of unlearning
and re-learning teaching practices. All the teacher
educators shared how their transition was
hazardous and manageable, depending on whether
they had prior exposure to similar situations or not.
However, none of the teacher educators
experienced a smooth transition. The pandemic
crisis presented itself with new demands that
required teacher educators to unlearn and relearn
teaching practices specific to initial science
teacher education contexts. Despite these
hazardous and manageable transitions, the teacher
educators seemed to rely on a variety of
mechanisms to survive while exercising
professional agency. The novelty of this study lies
in the mechanisms that the teacher educators used
to survive the crisis; for example, critical
reflection, collaboration and using student
feedback as a foundation to unlearn and re-learn.
These allowed them to have a better understanding
of the demands of online learning (in their own
teaching contexts). It was not only about the
process of re-learning but also about resisting the
already existing knowledge and skills on how to
teach science pre-service teachers. We argue that
critical reflection, collaboration and using student
feedback can be the means through which lecturers
can unlearn and relearn teaching practices. This
study builds on the existing literature regarding
transition to ERT during education crises. The
main contribution of this study lies within the
mechanisms that lecturers can use to unlearn and
re-learn when transitioning to ERT. Of particular
importance is the role of collaboration and using
student feedback to learn. We therefore
recommend that institutions can better prepare for
such crises by exposing faculty members to the
value of such mechanisms, as well as valuing them
in the absence of crises.
Future studies
In this study, we have only reported on the
process of unlearning and re-learning during the
crisis, as well as unpacking the mechanisms that
assisted the teacher educators in this process.
While we argue for the significance of these
mechanisms, future studies can build on the
study’s findings and investigate how science
teacher educators have adapted beyond the
immediate crisis. Such studies can shed light on
how teacher educators continue to embrace (if at
all) the pedagogies that were learnt during the
ERT, as well as how the mechanisms used to
Khoza H.C and Maseko B
95
unlearn and re-learn shape the identities of teacher
educators.
ORCID
Climant Khoza https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0359-
6586
Bob Maseko https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3533-
8226
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