GENERAL SECONDARY TEACHERS’ VIEWS ON EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AMID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: TWO-YEAR EXPERIENCE OF BLENDED LEARNING

Abstract

The main purpose of the paper is to identify and generalize the tendencies of changes in the system of education influenced by the unexpected shift from face-to-face learning (traditional) to blended learning (as being regarded as a pattern of a certain mix of face-to-face and distance learning). The research is also targeted at investigating general secondary teachers’ readiness to respond to the educational challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper presents the information obtained at the very beginning of the sudden and unpredictable shift to total distance learning and then after the gradual transition to blended learning. The pros and cons of blended learning under conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic are revealed. The ideas that are closely connected with the accepting or not accepting absolutely new ways of teaching and learning from the points of view of general secondary school teachers, schoolchildren and their parents are given in the paper. The main problems of general secondary school teachers, schoolchildren and their parents face and practical ways to address these problems are enumerated and analyzed. The authors offer a variety of possible ways and means for overcoming the problems identified. Some certain innovative approaches and technologies, methods, techniques and means of blended learning aimed at delivering quality education to general secondary schoolchildren are mentioned. The research sample includes 3600 general secondary school teachers from different regions of Ukraine.