Navigating the Virtual Shift: Moroccan Educators’ Perspectives on Distance Teaching Challenges, Opportunities, and Pathways Across Pre, During and Post-COVID-19 Period

Abstract

This article examines the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on distance teaching in the Moroccan context. It tries to determine how the sudden shift from the actual to the virtual has reshaped education landscape in Morocco. Middle and High school teachers are used as illustrative examples in an attempt to understand the interplay dynamics between online teaching experience and student learning. Several studies documented that due to the outbreak of Covid-19, the use of ICT was further accelerated and that the transition to online learning was an eminent decision to deal with the new imposed situation. As Covid-19 created an unanticipated experience for teachers, many reactions came out to reconceptualize, redefine and adapt the teaching practices during the school closures. Middle and high school Moroccan teachers found themselves transitioning to remote teaching courses using various digital platforms. This led to the creation of a new and complex teacher-learner interaction. This paper engages with three phases of online teaching pandemic: the pre, the while/during and the post. We argue, amidst Covid-19 pandemic that caught teachers and students off guard, the online teaching experience that teachers went through during the lockdown has triggered a new hybrid approach mixing the traditional in-class face-to-face education with online education. Under such circumstances, the key to success lies in the development of appropriate and innovative instructional practices. A case study-approach was used to obtain further in-depth information on how Moroccan educators conduct their teaching in times of crisis. The purpose of this paper is twofold: a) to show how the impact of Covid-19 crisis has brought to the forefront the issue of teaching outside classrooms walls; and (b) to provide insights that could potentially improve and make e-learning effective.