Folk Pedagogies for Teacher Transitions: Approaches to Synchronous Online Learning in the Wake of COVID-19

Abstract

In the COVID-19 shift to online education, many educators have sought out video conference technologies (such as Zoom) aiming to replicate traditional classrooms online. At face value, synchronous video appears to offer more immediate replicability of existing f2f synchronous teaching than asynchronous modalities. However, moving pedagogy from one medium to another is not always a smooth transition. The COVID-19 situation forced urgent transitions, and without adequate opportunities to design for a new medium, some instructors have struggled with old challenges, made new by the medium. We suggest the reification and rejuvenation of Bruner’s concept of folk pedagogies, to help teachers consider the affordances and constraints of different teaching and learning modalities to particularly suggest ways of designing learning in synchronous settings. We highlight issues and offer possible approaches and implications for teaching via video conferencing technologies, offering up a contemporary view on folk pedagogies as a model for teacher educators to ground themselves in through shifts in learning modalities.