School culture and teaching practices for the effective student- centred learning during emergency remote teaching

This paper explores teaching practices during emergency remote teaching, drawing on data from a nationwide online survey of Estonian high schools. The study was motivated by an attempt to understand effective teaching under conditions of emergency-related logistic, online teaching and economic constraints faced by the schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study design adopted a quantitative approach, employing exploratory factor analyses and structural equation modelling of self-report data from a sample of 1,788 teachers. The model brought out three teaching strategies employed during the emergency remote teaching period and their relationship to school-level factors, perceived workload and perceived effectiveness of student learning. Student-centred learning strategies were especially perceived as effective and influenced by stronger collaboration at the school level. Our findings illuminate the necessity of implementing a varied and flexible teaching methodology under emergency remote teaching contexts, backed by a proactive and dynamic collaboration among school members and parents.