Alternative Approaches to the Teaching Practice: Offline, Online and Hybrid Solutions during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract

The years 2020 and 2021 were critical periods worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic. The ever-changing quarantine situation resulting from the epidemic posed severe challenges for Hungarian education too. The closure of educational institutions required an enforced transition from physical attendance at school to remote teaching in matter of days. In achieving this, the Hungarian teaching community demonstrated high levels of professionalism, flexibility, innovation and determination. This article presents some possible best practices and offers solutions to one of the most difficult challenges: the planning, organisation and implementation of a course of teaching practice during the pandemic, carried out jointly by a teacher training institution and a primary school. Of the eight alternatives proposed for offline, online and hybrid teaching, the article focuses on reverse mentoring and team peer-teaching. Experiences based on this research project suggest that these techniques successfully develop student teachers’ pedagogical competencies, and have a positive impact on motivation, reflection and pedagogical awareness for all participants (students and tutors alike), even in such unpredictable times.