| Abstrakt: |
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted learning across the world and led to school closures. Consequently, several institutions of higher learning switched to online teaching. In the Nigerian context, however, the field experience component of teacher education witnessed an unprecedented setback as the online system that was activated in some universities failed to factor the component into the alternative arrangement. Given that COVID-19 is not likely to be the last, as suggested by various reports, including the World Bank December 2021 document, there is a serious concern over the idea of suspending or delaying the exercise of emergency school closures. This paper aims to formulate an alternative field experience framework for the Nigerian setting. Data collection was conducted through survey, observation, and document analysis, while data analysis was done through descriptive statistics, analytical methods, and creative synthesis, with the constructivist paradigm as philosophical direction. The study covers three Nigerian public universities where the lead researcher was, at different times, a teacher educator and field experienced assessor. The study found, among others, that an alternative field experience framework has the potential to mitigate the risks of school closures during pandemics through its prevention mechanism for learning disruptions in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
