Educators\u27 Experiences With Teaching During COVID-19: Journey of a Participatory Action Research Inquiry Team

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) issued 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2030) for everyone in this world to address. The need to act on these goals was intensified in 2020 when the world faced the COVID-19 pandemic spotlighting inequitable infrastructures and systems throughout many countries. The UN, in SDG4, urges us to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” (UN, 2015, p. 21). To address this crisis, the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET) and MESHGuides sent out a call for research to scholars across the globe to capture teacher voices and find out about their experiences with teaching during COVID-19. Members of the College of Education program Professional Opportunities Supporting Scholarly Engagement (POSSE) at Texas A&M International University initiated a participatory action research project to join them and learn about changes in educators’ professional requirements. This report delineates their journey of collecting and analyzing data on teaching during COVID-19 and shares preliminary findings. Sixteen educators were interviewed in a focus group inquiry; six qualitative researchers analyzed the data using a systematic constant comparative method of analysis (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994). Educators shared challenges encountered when transferring curriculum, strategies, and pedagogical mindsets to a virtual platform. Teachers emphasized the significance of building collaborative relationships with parents as a supportive strategy. To face the pandemic-related changes, teachers paid both physical and emotional tolls, describing feelings such as frustration, helplessness, and uncertainty. As the participatory action research inquiry and analysis was being drafted as this article, at least half of the co-authors were still juggling expectations of altered face-to-face and virtual teaching–learning experiences while identifying the multiple impacts of a pandemic that lasted an entire calendar year, overlapping two academic years, while the research team had invested the time in listening to teachers’ voices to learn how best to promote equitable quality educational experiences for all