Abstract

FIGUEROA-CESPEDES, Ignacio; GUERRA ZAMORA, Paula  and  MADRID ZAN, Alejandro. Being an early childhood educator in times of uncertainty: challenges for professional development in context COVID-19. Cienc. Psicol. [online]. 2022, vol.16, n.2, e2692.  Epub Dec 01, 2022. ISSN 1688-4094.  https://doi.org/10.22235/cp.v16i2.2692.

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged teachers and educational institutions to continue developing their pedagogical work despite the closure of their facilities, seeking alternatives for it. This article seeks to understand how a group of Chilean nursery school teachers adapt their professional actions to the demands of the pandemic. This article is part of a broader qualitative study, of a narrative nature, and focuses on the experiences of six professional practicing educators, through semi-structured interviews, which were studied through a thematic analysis. Four main themes were found to constitute challenges for their professional learning: (1) uncertainty and coexistence of roles, (2) the mastery of technologies for remote learning, (3) the relationship with families and (4) pedagogical tensions around virtual teaching in early childhood contexts. These four categories are articulated around the need to train and accompany educators to provide better responses to teaching in contexts of uncertainty, while at the same time the need to recognize the work of early childhood educators for our society emerges.

Keywords : COVID-19; pandemic; early childhood education; teacher identity; professional development.

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