No Such Thing as a New Normal : The Future of Teaching in a Pandemic World

Due to the many changes wrought on our society by the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers in high school classrooms have had to dramatically alter their methods of teaching in order to comply with new rules and regulations. These guidelines, deemed safe by the CDC, have completely upended high school classrooms and left teachers scrambling to effectively teach their content and assess student learning. The purpose of this research is to determine the successes and/or failures of high school teachers’ teaching strategies that have undergone dramatic adaptations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this research, I intend to produce a concise understanding of effective teaching strategies for future teachers living in the post-COVID world. I will also provide predictions, based on my research, of strategies that may gradually die out. I began my research by examining and analyzing past research on effective teaching strategies and crisis management in schools. Then I interviewed English teachers in the Western Kentucky region to obtain a greater understanding of the changes undergone in high schools over the course of the pandemic. My research is focused primarily on the teacher perspective, although, when determining the effectiveness of certain teaching strategies I have taken into account some important student variables such as socioeconomic status, learning styles, and the physical and emotional health of students. Through this research I hope to highlight the resilience and ingenuity of our educators in Western Kentucky despite unprecedented circumstances and to encourage future generations of aspiring teachers