"We Didn't Know What We Were Doing": Developing a Literacy Camp During COVID-19

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Struggle, Learning, and Transformation in a Pandemic

Abstract

COVID-19 disrupted field experiences for many teacher education programs in 2020. This qualitative case study explores the experiences of three graduate students (GS) who shifted from an in-person program to designing and implementing a fully virtual summer literacy camp for children ages 6-9, and their instructor who guided them. It is situated within the theoretical frameworks of distributed leadership (DL) and culturally relevant teaching (CRT) in examining the perspectives of the GS and their instructor. The findings suggest that there are challenges and affordances in facilitating a fully virtual literacy camp; the GS and instructor displayed leadership practices consistent with DL (e.g.: mentoring and task enactment); and the GS limited themselves by only utilizing multicultural literature as their CRT practice.

Authors

• Whitney Impellizeri Cignatta, National University

• Katie Mathew, Drexel University

• Vera J. Lee, Drexel University