Teacher Identity Formation During The Pandemic. Evaluation of an Experience.

Abstract

After more than twelve years of experience of the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education Teaching in Spain, the initial training received by future teachers continues to require improvements that enable them to face the challenges of the 21st century school. A continuous reflection in and on practice is required to optimize the training processes. Therefore, this article aims to analyse a training plan developed in the specialty of Social Sciences, Geography and History of the Master’s Degree in Teaching, in a particular context, such as that caused by COVID-19 pandemic declared by the WHO in March 2020. From an evaluative research methodology, we investigate our formative project for the teaching of Geography and its impact on students. The research, which has a sample of 42 subjects, is organized in several phases, relied on various techniques and instruments for collecting information, such as direct observation, student productions or semi-structured interviews, which were examined based on both discourse and content analysis. The results are positive, including how, from initial positions marked by disciplinary training and reluctance towards the Master's Degree, students transformed their epistemological conceptions about the teaching and learning of Geography in Secondary towards a model of critical teacher. However, taking the several levels of scope of the program, results show that it requires improvements that stimulate the development of skills for the critical teaching of this subject. We conclude that, despite the initial resistance, the doubts caused by the health crisis, and the limitations of our program, the training effects were beneficial in strengthening a future teacher who should teach in a complex and uncertain world.