Title:

Exploring Teachers’ Lived Experiences Teaching Online in the Wake of COVID-19: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

The problem addressed in this study was the challenging lived experiences, beliefs, and perceptions of K-12 public school teachers from the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state areas who were precipitously forced to move from face-to-face to online during the COVID-19 pandemic despite their lack of skills and preparedness to perform in the new environment. This qualitative phenomenological study aimed to explore those teachers’ experiences, beliefs, and perceptions in the context of those teachers’ lack of skills, emergency training, and preparedness. This study was driven by a conceptual framework built on constructivism, connectivism, and constructivist design theory, as those three theories share the concepts of collaboration, communication, and interaction, as depicted in Figure 1. A sample of 10 participants was recruited, selected through an online Qualtrics survey, and interviewed via Zoom between June 6 and July 12, 2023. Three research questions on teachers’ experience and preparation, their beliefs in alternative better preparation, and their perception of alternative emergency planning and preparedness guided this inquiry. The collected data were imported into NVivo and analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s guidelines to generate the categories and themes consisting of seven positive strategies to adopt and three negative approaches to avoid as a blueprint for developing and nurturing a constant and effective level of readiness of academic institutions for emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings inspired six recommendations for practice that include the adoption of a blended educational system, teachers’ training and professional development, and the implementation of best-practice disaster recovery planning, among others, and four recommendations for future studies addressing other effects of the pandemic of other stakeholders such as parents, students, and administrators.

Acknowledgments

This PhD Degree marks the most significant milestone of a long journey that started in 1964 when, at the age of seven, my adorable late Dad and Mom put me on the back of a donkey to be taken from my native village of L’Acul to Ecole Sainte Croix boarding school in the City of Leogane, Haiti, to start a first-grade education. I have since met many great people who competently, selflessly, and generously contributed to my upbringing, survival, education, and scholarly voyage. Some of those great souls are no longer with us, but they deserve to be acknowledged along with those who witnessed this wonderful accomplishment. First, I am thankful to God Almighty for paving my path from my remote native Haitian Village of L’Acul of Leogane, where I had my late Dad as a kindergarten teacher, to undergraduate and graduate studies in the USA face-to-face and online.

I am sincerely grateful to all the teachers, educators, academic institutions, and the Episcopal Church who contributed to my overall education. I am incredibly thankful to those great outstanding teachers who taught me so much, from Madame Abel Henry, who patiently trained me on reading and writing using the blotter, to Doctor Ann Armstrong, who competently and patiently guided me throughout this inquiry as the Chair of my dissertation committee. I want to express my most sincere thanks to the entire dissertation committee, Dr. Armstrong, Dr. Summerville, and Dr. Shriner, for their scholarly brilliance, which has led me to this day. I am especially grateful to Doctor Christina Dawson and Doctor Regina Wright for their gracious support. I must give special thanks to Teacher Josep Desir, who initiated the bottom-up writing strategy for me in high school. To the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut school teachers who volunteered to participate in this inquiry, I must say that this effort would have been impossible without your outstanding contribution. Thank you. I must also thank Reverend Doctor Jean Baptiste Rock (Saint John Parish Episcopal Church, Bridgeport, Connecticut), Mr. Guy Bocicaut (Bocicaut Real Estate and Haiti Plus), and Ms. Heather Nivaggi Diliberto (New Jersey Teachers Facebook Group) for giving me access to use their venues for the recruitment of participants.

Closer to home, I am genuinely thankful to my beloved late father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Jean FabiusVermeille, for their love, sacrifices, and commitment that nurtured my life and upbringing. To the late Reverend Pierre Thevenot, who I think was a social change agent beyond his time, and to his late wife, who facilitated my secondary and high school education in Haiti with housing and scholarship, I say thank you. To my beloved wife, Marie J. Vermeille, I am grateful for your love, support, commitment, and patience as a prime witness to my long days and nights through this endeavor. To my dear sons Kennickholson and Luc Vermeille (my Web Master), to my dear brothers and sisters, to my dear friends Professor Lionel Rene, Professor Duce Rebecca, and the Reverend Pierre Lindor, I am embedded in your relentless encouragement and solidarity that contributed to keep me going. Finally, to my grandsons Benjamen (six years old) and Caleb K. Vermeille (one year old), I hope this accomplishment will inspire your destiny to the marvelous universe of knowledge.