Preschool Initial Teacher Training: Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Guatemala

Abstract

Social distance, as a sanitary protocol, during the Covid-19 pandemic, altered learning processes at all levels. The transition from in-person to distance learning urged initial teacher training centers to implement a series of efforts to adapt their educational processes. This study’s objective was to explore those adaptations and describe how teacher trainers and trainees, in the 2018-2020 cohort of two private educational centers in Guatemala, assessed them. It was a qualitative study with a narrative design and a descriptive scope. A series of focus groups with twelve teacher trainees and interviews with ten teacher trainers were conducted to explore the adaptations as well as the participants’ views on those adaptations. The resultant information was processed using the Constant Comparative Analysis Technique in which speech was segmented and codified in three stages: open, axial, and selective. Atlas.ti software was used for this task. These findings led to good practices such as modeling emotional accompaniment with students and the diversification of pedagogical mediation to include children’s families as they turned into co-educators. There were also some challenges such as the urgent need to incorporate ICT in psycho-pedagogical subjects and the creation of online teaching practice opportunities. Some possible ways to compensate for those challenges can be training for teacher trainees and trainers in virtual learning environment management.