Interaction and collaboration in Lithuanian schools during COVID-19 pandemic distance learning

The results of the study showed that after the introduction of distance learning during the pandemic, the interaction between teachers was exceptionally active. How this interaction corresponds to the interaction described in the theoretical Model of E-Learning is given in Figure 2.

Figure 2:

«…That goodwill from the team… Whether you need it, or someone asks you, everybody is ready to help… Almost like in wartime…» F5T3. It looks very strong from the point of teacher–teacher interaction. How was it achieved? The creation of virtual ‘Teachers’ Rooms’, as well as frequent virtual methodological group meetings, allowed not only the quick sharing of information but also the sharing of insights into the means of effectively organising distance learning, and collaboration on lesson planning. Teachers point out that very often they received a lot of help from ICT teachers who were their colleagues, who advised them on technical issues even after working hours: «…The school’s ICT teachers and specialists were very eager to help… You could ask and they would help to solve technological problems…» F1T7. Most of the teaching community was happy to help one another. Teachers became innovators in their field and became an active learning community.

During the urgent introduction of distance education, many courses on distance learning topics were organised for teachers. In multiple virtual meetings with the administration, teachers shared their best experiences. However, research has revealed that most of these events were aimed at improving the emotional state: «…but it was more of an emotional support…» (A4); «…I am just very pleased with our psychologist’s initiative, which has helped teachers to stabilise all situations on their own, in an emotional sense…» (A8). The other important topic of the meetings was related to mere technological solutions, but not to the methodology of organising teaching in virtual learning environments: «…training on how to work, how to connect to virtual environments was very important, … and IT specialists have done all the work there…» (A8); «…now there will still be this training ‘reflects’, …, it is an innovative tool…» (A6).

During the pandemic, a large proportion of teachers used YouTube videos to provide teaching content or created their own videos for lessons. For example, dance teachers filmed the lessons themselves and presented the pre-prepared material to the students on their YouTube channel, where the students learned the dance steps: «… all lessons were pre-filmed and material was prepared for students, all videos were uploaded to YouTube…» F3T7. Physical education teachers not only pre-filmed the exercises but provided students with useful programmes for active sports, depending on the age and capabilities of the students. Music teachers also provided students with programmes that could be used to create music: «… we have created many pieces of music with the students using a variety of music creation apps…» F3T4.

The situation was more complicated in the development of content for the exact and natural sciences. Since the elements of equipment available at homes are typically simple and not really conducive for enabling the performance of sophisticated scientific experiments, the major challenge lay in securing an effective means for facilitating students to actually carry out the required scientific experiments at their homes, by teaching them to use rudimentary tools that would nevertheless result in imparting of the needed scientific knowledge, at the same time encouraging them to take up an active involvement in the learning process. A proven approach is integrated lessons: «…In the natural sciences, we tried to integrate more than two subjects: biology, chemistry, physics and geography…» F3T6. It is expected of teachers that, using integrated lessons, they formulate their online teaching content in a way that would be relevant to students’ life experiences. Activities to find answers to real-life questions encourage students to think critically and creatively to combine knowledge of different subjects. Such a process transforms into an active interaction among students, curriculum and teachers. However, the study showed that researchbased activities and creative tasks were applied only in very few lessons. As the pandemic broke out, teachers tended to focus more on various student examinations, tests and template tasks. Learning content creation transformed into the development of a testing and control mechanism. Testing has become one of the most used activities during distance learning: «…Yes, we used enough additional tools to control, test and monitor the progress of students…» F1T4. Here, however, teachers have faced the most common and very difficult problem – students’ academic dishonesty.

The study found that there were schools where new relationships based on collaboration and mutual trust were developed: «…those students who previously never dared to ask during distance learning they finally dared to approach the teacher…» (F3T3). The emotional climate created by such relationships demonstrated not only the trust between the students and the teacher but also the satisfaction of the teacher in creating such relationships that helped get to know the students better: «…I really liked that. Because it’s a completely different relationship, a new relationship is formed with students with whom that relationship didn’t exist before…» (F3T3).

When using the traditional teaching method in virtual learning environments, students do not have the opportunity to engage in effective learning or to develop self-employment skills (Chyr et al., 2017). Thus, teacher–student interaction inevitably contributes to the transformation of the teaching and learning process in virtual learning environments. There were schools where teachers became facilitators and moderators: «… we mainly talked, communicated, held discussions…» (F4T5); on the other hand, the learning centre was dominated by a student rather than a teacher: «… And the interesting thing is that in the real classroom, I dominated and in the distance learning, the student dominated…» (F5T7).

Positive aspects could include self-directed learning, and the promotion of independence: «…it could be said that during distance learning students were still given more opportunities for independent work, information search and experimentation… They did experiments at home. Sent what they filmed…» (F5T3). However, such communication and collaboration took place only in individual schools, mostly only with motivated, more gifted students with a positive attitude to learning: «… and communication took place mostly with, as they say, more gifted students…» (F5T2). Students with difficulties or lack of motivation who often needed help with learning were often forgotten, unnoticed: «…Those students who joined, …, who really need special help seem to be forgotten overboard, to connect with them sometimes is impossible, they turn off the cameras and are usually sleeping, bored or doing nothing at all…» (F5T2).

Communication with such students was only fragmentary: «…Speaking in Silence…» (F2T8). The question is, why was it so difficult for these students to engage in distance learning?

The study found that many teachers chose traditional methods for distance learning, emphasising that there are few teaching methods in distance education that would allow students to engage in active activities: «…I think that there are almost no active teaching methods in distance learning…» (F1T9).

Analysis of the study data also revealed that teachers used not only a synchronous teaching method during distance learning to recreate a traditional lesson in digital space using video conferencing tools but also an asynchronous teaching method. However, this method of teaching was mostly used for presenting tasks to students: «…you load the task for students and give a certain period to turn in…» (F1T4); «…I create a task and ask everyone to upload it…» (F1T9). Communication and collaboration with students in asynchronous learning usually took the form of email correspondence, electronic blogging or social networking groups: «… presentations were not presented during lessons or during video lessons, but they were emailed to me…» (F3T8); «…students sent me their works to google classroom or just to my mail, …, consultations were usually done in the form of correspondence…» (F3T3).

During the discussions teachers identified a sensitive problem of academic dishonesty in distance education: «…there are really many phenomena of dishonesty…» (F2T3). The fact that students not only cheated using books during tests or through discussions with each other on chats, but parents also did the tasks for them, thus further encouraging academic dishonesty: «… academic dishonesty was one of the biggest problems (parents did the tasks for the children; students were cheating en masse)…» (F3T1). Perhaps this is why the mechanism of control, discipline and ‘power’ criticised by Foucault (1977) has become even more apparent in schools. Attempts by teachers to solve the problems that have arisen have transformed the role of the teacher in the teaching process into a ‘controller-guardsman’ of the students: «…we used enough additional tools to control, test and see progress…» (F1T4); and the ‘executioner’: «…you can set the test time very clearly – how much the student is able to do, that’s how much he will get…» (F4T8)

According to the study data, it can be argued that the teacher in distance learning can be seen as taking the role of the guard who encourages students to turn on cameras and microphones: «…I say – turn on your microphones, you won’t hear anything, but I’ll hear whether you’re talking to each other or not…» (F1T9). In this case, a teacher is not aiming to get as close as possible to real collaboration, to collaborate and create a culture of distance communication, but to be able to control the students: «…but the good thing is that they (students) are really controlled, say, they can do something not at any time, but at a specific time…» (F5T1). Teachers are observing what students are doing, whether they are cheating or doing the task themselves: «…it was like controlling students’ work…» (F2T6). It can be concluded that teachers paid a lot of attention to discipline, control and policing.

According to students, without motivation to remain ‘academically honest’ is very difficult: «…There was everything, and I tried to work honestly, but sometimes, when I remembered to do some kind of work, that I had to complete, at the last minute, and the motivation to do it was completely gone, then I just took another student’s work, read it, and I would be able to do it, I adjust it and I send…» (F2S2).

‘Academic dishonesty’ is unjustifiable, but let’s look at this phenomenon from the perspective of student– student interaction and try to see the strengths of this phenomenon. Students’ independent activities and cooperation often outperformed teacher-organised activities in distance learning. Students worked closely together to help one another with tasks: «…We connect through Zoom, through Messenger, through something, and instead of all of us getting fives, we discuss the questions, delve into the topic better than we could during the lesson, and we all get tens…» (F2S5); they looked for information together and held discussions with each other, with better learning students teaching others, helping to solve problems and correcting grammatical errors: «…I helped my class a lot, and there was even a case where we agreed that we would call after school, and I explained what they didn’t understand and helped them.…» (F2S1). There have been cases when students have trusted their classmates more than the teachers themselves: «…you can go deeper, you can also ask, and you can get a lot of help from someone else, for me it is very important that you can get a lot of help, not from teachers but from friends…» (F2S8).

During the interviews with teachers, it was emphasised that during distance learning it is difficult or impossible to implement active teaching methods, in addition to the difficulty involved in implementing research activities: «…I think that in distance learning there are almost no active teaching methods…» (F1T9). However, the conversations with the students showed that they can cooperate and overcome difficulties: «…We connect through Zoom, through Messenger, through something, and instead of all of us getting fives, we discuss the questions, delve into the topic better than we could during the lesson, and we all get ten…» (F2S5). Students admit that ‘academic dishonesty’ was present, but exclusively during reporting and control work: «… My academic honesty was certainly not great, but I don’t see a downside to that because at least during the test I liked the fact that I was getting calls from classmates…» (F2S5); however, students see this as an opportunity to collaborate and overcome tasks presented by the teacher. In other words, ‘academic dishonesty’ transformed into an active collaborative activity – the student’s assistance to the student.

Discussions in the focus groups of the students revealed that the distance learning lessons did not differ from the lessons that took place in the traditional classrooms. Teachers used the same slides that they used in traditional classrooms, and a board in the classroom where the teacher wrote was replaced by a virtual whiteboard: «…this, I think, was not much different because most teachers tried to present all the information on the slides, teachers solved everything on the computer and showed everything to us on the screen… it’s the same as the task being solved on the regular board in the classroom…» (F1S3). In other words, teachers tried to move the traditional lesson into a virtual space.

The research data revealed that distance learning lessons were dominated by traditional textbooks and exercises: «…lower classes used only textbooks and exercises because they had all the learning material needed with them…» (F2T6), «…mainly textbooks, exercises were used…» (F4T5). A few weeks after the introduction of distance learning, in addition to traditional textbooks, teachers began to use digital tools more often to present teaching content: «…I started making slides for teaching… at the same time, I was also using textbooks…» (F2T3). Students also stated that the main teaching tool during distance learning was the traditional textbook: «…We used simple textbooks at home, most often to complete tasks…» (F1S2); however, they also appreciated the teachers’ efforts to find other ways to present the teaching content: «…What I find very useful, I think, is when teachers show slides and comment on them because you see the image itself on the screen right away. This was very useful…» (F1S2). There were teachers who also provided students with digital textbooks, usually scanned: «…In fact, we used both methods digital and traditional, often the teacher sends, say a link to the textbook, and we learned from it…» (F2S2). Teachers feel that they have overcome this challenge and do not see a big problem with the presentation of digital textbooks: «…This is not really a problem with textbooks. And I agree that it may be possible to scan textbooks or find them in other ways…» (F2T2). However, there is a huge risk associated with textbook copyright here. It is likely that copyright disregard and irresponsible behaviour by teachers may also encourage students to behave irresponsibly.

Discussions in the focus groups of the students revealed that there were schools where the ‘send-receive’ or ‘pingpong’ distance learning model to present the learning content prevailed using one of the most primitive methods – email: ‘Teacher sends assignments’ ⟹ ‘student solves and sends to teacher’ ⟹ ‘Teacher evaluates and sends new assignments’: «…some teachers were not talking at all, they were just sending assignments, you send it back to them, and they send you other assignments anew…» (F2S5); «…the teacher had such a system that we send all the task to her in the mail and she sends us assignments in the mail, and so it repeats…» (F2S7). During the interviews with the students, some of them mentioned another problem during distance learning: meaningless and non-life-related learning activities and learning content are just a waste of precious and highly scarce time: «…usually you get a task to make some slides on a topic which is not interesting to you. Well, you are just given a topic, and you are literally wasting time just putting information from Google into slides when you really don’t need it. This results in such a waste of time…» (F1S7). During such distance learning, the students with nostalgia remember even ‘live’ lessons that were permeated by the teacher’s monologue: «… when it was live you sit down, listen, write down what the teacher is saying, and then you already understand it…» (F2S5).Summarising the thoughts expressed by the students, it can be said that the students lacked such teaching in the virtual space, where they could create the teaching content by researching and collaborating with both the teacher and classmates: «… throughout the lesson we usually explained something, but did not do any practical tasks…» (F2S4); and avoid the teacher’s monologue or uninteresting stories: «… it was like getting up and listening sincerely for two hours and talking about nothing but just being there for two hours…» (F2S5). The ‘overloaded’ curriculum, the constant looking at the computer screen and the excessive learning load make students very tired: «…I really like to sit at the computer, but even then, my brain was fried in the true sense of the word…» (F2S2). Given these insights, it would be worthwhile to look for more diverse forms of asynchronous education in distance learning environments during distance learning.

The study revealed that the ‘content–content’ interaction in the distance learning model was practically nonexistent. This can be linked to the leadership chosen by teachers in delivering curricula and teaching strategies, which usually focuses on the ‘all-knowing’ teacher and standardised, knowledge-oriented teaching content: «…but the day is coming when they will be assessed and then they will have to know everything, so there is a need for knowledge…» (F4T6). Undoubtedly, this strategy requires very large time resources: «…it really takes a lot of time to prepare a lesson…, and the time is still 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s impossible to stretch it…» (F1T8). Therefore, the choice of such a strategy helps implement only the lowest level of any teaching taxonomy – ‘knowledge’.

The study found that students with high motivation and attitudes to learning were much more successful in overcoming distance learning. Often it was those students who were able to choose different learning content and select the sources of information that are relevant to them today: «…My perhaps good practice was that through selective selection, I deepened my knowledge in the fields that I am taking exams, that I am interested in, that I need…» (F2S5). In other words, students not only acquired knowledge but also improved their ability to select useful, reliable information, analyse the differences in the content presented in different sources, evaluate them and make decisions. The students also revealed another important fact – that some things are much easier for them to learn on their own: «…I agree that it depends on the subject, for me some things were also easier to learn on my own…» (F2S4).