The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate the planning and delivery of training provided to help teachers prepare for emergency remote teaching. The broad aims of the training were to help teachers become accustomed to the functions of Zoom, an online video communication platform, and to consider how teaching remotely might impact their teaching practices. The first step in the training was a checklist of can-do statements which teachers could use for self-directed guidance and self-assessment. A subsequent seven-hour synchronous training day then allowed for hands-on practice of hosting Zoom lessons and provided a forum for discussions of the implications of the move to emergency remote teaching. In this paper, the effectiveness of the training is also evaluated using data from participant feedback as well as trainer reflections blended with references to the literature. Overall, despite the trainer’s inexperience of online training and the lack of adequate preparation time, the training was a broad success which achieved its intended aims of preparing teachers for their initial forays into emergency remote teaching.
Peter Brereton (Wed,) studied this question.