Essay Example on Adapting to the New Norm: Home Teaching for Kindergarten Children in Jordan During COVID-19

Anthropological Theory and Concepts

Schools across Jordan face a predicament, a similar precedent happening globally, as traditional classroom setting has been suspended due to the COVID-19 lockdown and risk of mass infections. As of, Alkhawaldeh et al. (2017) beyond the normal setting, students are now witnessing a new set of teaching methods guiding them through the coursework with the help of laptops, iPads, mobile devices, and the parents. Most of the learning is taking place online as schools have switched to virtual classrooms in compliance with the social distancing policy to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

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Traditionally, Jordanian parents were used to a particular routine, preparing the children ready in the morning, taking them to the bus point, sending them to school, later picking them from school, and ensuring the homework is completed. However, the tradition has now been challenged by the global pandemic (Bate & Malberg, 2020). For that reason, institutions from kindergarten to colleges are gearing up to adapt to the new norm of online education and parent assistantship to facilitate learning for an indefinite duration.

Acknowledging how to deal with the situation is a delicate matter; it is dependent on parents to juggle through their workloads to balance to serve the educational needs of their children. Given the responsibility of teaching kindergarten children, it is clear that it is not as simple as earlier thought.

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic presenting unique challenges, the remote learning approach offers an opportunity to continue education for kindergarten kids (Fayez et al. 2016). All around the world, teachers and school management for early learning centers and kindergarten are grappling with mechanisms to develop to support for parents to succeed in home teaching during the coronavirus pandemic. Although the predicament is a challenge, there are numerous opportunities for parents to interact with their kids and become actively engaged in learning development. The unprecedented times call for rapid emergence to respond to the virus epidemiology prompting teachers to enhance their creativity in early education while scaffolding learning experiences leading to the integration of the young children to inhabit during the social isolation and COVID-19 restrictions.

Embracing the home teaching environment offers a chance for the Jordanian education community to strengthen partnerships with parents, children, and families to participate actively in learning about their world and complement the learning experiences. In context to, Abu Taleb, (2013), professionally, teachers have a platform to augment their online teaching knowledge and skills to meet the demands of the 21st century. It aligns with the dynamic technological and environmental changes. Education leaders and parents are obligated to find a simple way to ensure kindergarten children are connected and learning proceeds even in the wake of social distancing restrictions. To foster a sense of belonging, virtual learning can help teachers, parents, kids, and peers maintain a close relationship and embrace the new educational setting.

The significance of ensuring home teaching environment is effective and successful is conceived from the premise that early years are pivotal for kindergarten kids to transform from egocentric, independent playful to easily connecting with peers and environment. Drawing from the premise, it lays a solid foundation for the development of social connectedness, which is essential in the wake of social isolation.

Argument Establishment

Creating partnerships in the education sector is now more important than any other time in a civilized world. The COVID-19 forged a path to strengthening partnerships with teachers and parents for the sake of the kindergarten children. Parents are the most noteworthy individuals in children's lives as they grow and embrace learning as a process. Therefore, working closely with the teachers will foster to maximize the expected outcomes of early education.

As of, Spradley, (2016), effective partnerships augment the learning experiences of children as it allows accommodation of individual needs-including accessibility to technology. Integration of home teaching environment with virtual learning, through close partnership, allows parents to align learning activities with daily routines. Teachers should also be mindful of encouraging parents to create a reasonable schedule that accommodates formal and informal learning following respective school guidelines.

At the center of the home teaching environment and online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic is efficient communication channels. It includes channels such as email, online discussion forums, or by phone in observation of restriction guidelines to promote safe living. The success of Jordan kindergarten education is dependent on teachers and parents collaborating to monitor home environment teaching and online activities. The parents' role is to respond to their children through interactions within the home environment and maximize learning experience to serve their curiosity and acquire problem-solving skills. Empowering kindergarten children to become agents in their learning ought to be the priority during this unprecedented pandemic.

In reference to, Yeo et al. (2014), early years educators in Jordan should that home teaching for kindergarten children is rolled out to all corners of the country, and it ought to be a priority going forward. Children at an early age are precious, and teachers have the role of working closely with their parents to initiate nurturing. It denotes the significance of early learning for children, and the COVID-19 pandemic should not shift the focus of teachers in administering the obligation. Working together, both parents and teachers, fostering continuity in learning will offer reassurance in responding to children learning needs, which is vital in the present predicament. Teachers and parents have the responsibility of ensuring that children feel safe and supported and focus on learning.

The home teaching environment has offered a lot of families in Jordan to contribute to the good of the society in nurturing the future generation amid global pandemic. Kindergarten children are now engaged in exploiting selflessness models and conceptualizing shared responsibility, which is certainly a valuable learning experience to encourage future generations to pursue genuine citizenship.

Challenges of Home Teaching Environment

Even with a promise of education continuity through homeschooling and online learning, teacher and school leaders are faced with a challenging task. The challenge is sustaining rich learning experiences and support for all kindergarten children considering that a significant percentage in Jordan lacks equal access to technological resources and guidance. The research suggests that homeschooling for kindergarten children facilitated virtually cannot fill the efficacy of traditional classroom settings. The early learners' experiences will be different from each other because it depends on family economics and the parent educational background. Usually, when kids break for summer, they lose track of learning. Especially for kindergarten children, consistency in learning is important to enhance their reading skills. The unprecedented times necessitate close follow up for early learners. When it comes to virtual learning, it is different from face-to-face interaction in a classroom environment.

Again, effective administration of virtual learning is different for children drawn from different economic backgrounds. As of Ihmeideh & Alkhawaldeh, (2017), although schools could make the effort of sending laptops and mobile devices to support online learning, there is a prevalent challenge. The consequences of a longer pandemic break from school are causing a dramatic phenomenon of an economic gap in social class and ultimate support from parents.

Ethnography Participant Observation

Ethnography refers to a process where a researcher is entitled to conduct a scientific description of the subjective individuals through the mirror of their culture. While at it, researchers consider the lifestyles of the particular region to acquire expressive and inductive participant observation (Antoniadou & Dooly, 2017; Spradley, 2016). Therefore, the ethnographic participant observation methodology purposes of checking on the behavior of parents and teachers to establish a partnership in facilitating the success of home teaching model for Jordanian kindergarten children. The main focus is directed to female teachers and Jordan women to foster partnerships through remote communication to ensure continuity of early education and patterns of utilizing virtual technology learning. The primary resolve to undertaking the research using the ethnography participant observation is to determine the behavioral pattern and key themes throughout observation.

Methodology

Throughout the process of the ethnography methodology, the research will exploit the inductive approach complemented by observation. Utilizing the inductive methodology offers the most suitable approach to forge routinization of the subject population and characteristics as it enhances the massive collection of data. In context to, Spradley (2016), the data collected from the field determines how the study's hypothesis becomes strong. The application of the inductive approach through ethnography participant observation accommodates the development of preconceptions, therefore providing sufficient information regarding the effectiveness of teachers-parent partnerships to forge the success of home teaching environment for kindergarten children in Jordan.

For many years, participant observation has been earmarked as the hallmark for anthropological studies. The recent past has witnessed an increase of qualitative studies in early childhood education, calling for participant observation to collect the needed information. Methods of data collection utilized in qualitative studies include observation, interviewing, and analysis of documents that have been put under the umbrella of ethnographic methods. Notably, observation methods are viewed as significant in numerous ways. Through observation, researchers can document and make inferences from non-verbal expressions such as feelings, tonal variation, and immediate reaction through the interaction and determine the effectiveness of remote communication in this study.