An Educator’s Response to COVID-19: Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives on Flipped Distance Education

With the COVID-19 pandemic, students and instructors had to carry out lessons with distance education practices, and this sudden change made it a necessity to reorganize educational processes under the conditions of the pandemic. This study sought to make an undergraduate course more effective by designing the distance education course based on the flipped learning model. In this qualitative study, a phenomenological approach was used, and 53 preservice elementary school teachers’ views on the flipped distance education course were investigated. Exploration of student errors during in-class activities, encouragement of active student participation, and compatibility to individual student differences was listed as positive aspects of the flipped distance education. On the other hand, the difficulties pre-service elementary school teachers encountered in obtaining information, their concerns about attending the class or discussing the homework in front of their peers, and the issues experienced during in-class communication were identified as the negative features of this approach. Moreover, the preservice elementary school teachers needed easily accessible information resources about the course content, a stable internet connection, appropriate technological equipment, and extension of the course time to effectively perform in the flipped distance education course. As a result, the flipped teaching model emerged as an effective approach to increase the efficiency of distance education courses, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.