Here for the first time is an account of the inner lives of teachers during and immediately after the pandemic lockdown. What is teaching like during a pandemic? How did teachers manage their emotional lives as colleagues became infected, hospitalised, and died? What did teachers actually do to bridge the gap in teaching and learning where schools and homes lacked electronic resources? These are amongst the many questions on which this collection of teacher stories sheds light. Most of these are stories of hope, resilience, and enormous courage in the face of a deadly virus. Your faith in teachers and teaching will be restored after reading this book.

Here for the first time is an account of the inner lives of teachers during and immediately after the pandemic lockdown. What is teaching like during a pandemic? How did teachers manage their emotional lives as colleagues became infected, hospitalised, and died? What did teachers actually do to bridge the gap in teaching and learning where schools and homes lacked electronic resources? These are amongst the many questions on which this collection of teacher stories sheds light. Most of these are stories of hope, resilience, and enormous courage in the face of a deadly virus. Your faith in teachers and teaching will be restored after reading this book.

This handbook showcases extraordinary educational responses in exceptional times. The scholarly text discusses valuable innovations for teaching and learning in times of COVID-19 and beyond. It examines effective teaching models and methods, technology innovations and enhancements, strategies for engagement of learners, unique approaches to teacher education and leadership, and important mental health and counseling models and supports. The unique solutions here implement and adapt effective digital technologies to support learners and teachers in critical times – for example, to name but a few: Florida State University’s Innovation Hub and interdisciplinary project-based approach; remote synchronous delivery (RSD) and blended learning approaches used in Yorkville University’s Bachelor of Interior Design, General Studies, and Business programs; University of California’s strategies for making resources affordable to students; resilient online assessment measures recommended from Qatar University; strategies in teacher education from the University of Toronto/OISE to develop equity in the classroom; simulation use in health care education; gamification strategies; innovations in online second language learning and software for new Canadian immigrants and refugees; effective RSD and online delivery of directing and acting courses by the Toronto Film School, Canada; academic literacy teaching in Colombia; inventive international programs between Japan and Taiwan, Japan and the USA, and Italy and the USA; and, imaginative teaching and assessment methods developed for online Kindergarten – Post-Secondary learners and teachers. Authors share unique global perspectives from a network of educators and researchers from more than thirty locations, schools, and post-secondary institutions worldwide. Educators, administrators, policymakers, and instructional designers will draw insights and guidelines from this text to sustain education during and beyond the COVID-19 era.

How do schools reopen safely during a pandemic? How can they make informed decisions that will allow students to begin learning again at levels surpassing pre-pandemic status? What will designs of post-pandemic schools look like? What key roles will technology play in these schools? What measures will allow students and staff to feel safe again, even with an invisible enemy still lurking? Answers to these critical questions can be found in this desperately needed resourceful book!

This book is to explores a variety of facets of online learning environments to understand how learning occurs and succeeds in digital contexts and what teaching strategies and technologies are most suited to this format. Business, health, government and education are some of the core sectors of society which have been experiencing deep transformations due to a generalized digitalization. While these changes are not novel, the swift progress of technology and the rising complexity of digital environments place a focus on the need for further research and novel strategies. In the context of education, the promise of increased flexibility and broader access to educational resources is impelling much of higher education’s course offerings to online environments. The 21st century learner requires an education that can be pursued anytime and anywhere and that is more aligned with the demands of a digital society. Online education not only assists students to success-fully integrate a workforce that is increasingly digital, but it helps them to become more comfortable with the use of technology in general and, hence, more prepared to be prolific digital citizens. The variety of settings portrayed in this volume attest to the unlimited opportunities afforded by online learning and serve as valuable evidence of its benefit for students’ educational experience. Moreover, these research efforts assist a more comprehensive reflection about the delivery of higher education in the context of online settings.

This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students, teachers and systems in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of the pandemic, the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning, especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For students, as well as for teachers and school staff, these included the economic shocks experienced by families, in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus, and by the constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home, where the demands of schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities, often sharing limited space. Furthermore, the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives, created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects, particularly for students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book.

This collection offers a timely and wide-ranging contribution to the research-informed improvement of the work of teacher educators. Drawing on original research studies conducted across a range of European countries, Canada, and Israel, contributors offer insight into not only questions of curriculum and programme development, research, and professional development, but also their day-to-day experience as teacher educators, student teachers, and mentors in schools. Themes explored include teaching and working with students, teacher educators as researchers, the partnership work of teacher educators, the professional development needs of teacher educators, professional development approaches for improving teacher education, and teacher educator empowerment. Arising from the international community of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE), and drawing together theory and practice, this book offers a unique survey of the contributions of teacher educators and charts a path for future directions of the field.