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1 Introduction

Witnessing the changes taking place in education amid the COVID-19 pandemic has inspired us to pursue this research. The void caused by sudden school closure in the last two months of the 2019–20 school year prompted emergency responses involving new policies and guidelines, curriculum adaptation, alternative instructional delivery modes, and a substantial investment in technological infrastructure and student devices for remote learning. The opportunity to live through these real-life events has allowed us to undertake reflexive examination into the experiences of our personal, family, and professional lives. Our observations, experiences, perceptions, and reflections as both educators and researchers served as a critical lens to examine the adaptive situations and develop a holistic understanding of emergency education in K-12 settings. Such reflexive experiences have led us to identify gaps in educational practice and research and propose creative solutions to new issues and problems. They also help us to examine our own thoughts, feelings, values, and identity that have an impact on our personal, family, and professional lives. Thus, we set our quest to explore the questions: What had transpired in our lives as a result of pandemic responses in education? What implications do we learn from our adaptation to the new change and new routine? What possibilities and promises are held out for us in the future of education?

2 Contextual Background

The lived experiences of Dr. Durley’s family during the pandemic were the central unit for this reflexivity activity. She and her husband were K-12 educators in an urban district, and their biracial children (the third grade and the 12th grade) were students in suburban schools. Thus, their family’s experience provided a unique study context for us to understand adaptive education and its impact on individuals at personal, family, and professional levels. Both districts (urban and suburban) issued personal computing devices to students and distributed workbooks to their homes, which enabled them to receive remote and online instruction. All teachers were expected to develop online courses, create learning activities, and post assignments through Canvas - a learning management system. Teachers met with students remotely four days a week, with one day designated for student self-paced, independent, virtual learning. The suburban district, however, implemented a two-day in-person and three-day virtual learning weekly schedule. Thus, the parents and their children had an overlap of three days a week schooling and working at home for the most of the fall semester in 2020.

Dr. Ge was a university professor of Learning Sciences. She had a personal and professional relationship with Dr. Durley. They collaborated on several research projects and published a few co-authored articles. They often engaged in intellectual dialogues on many issues regarding educational practice and research. Her role in this reflexivity was an outsider taking an etic position and a researcher who brought a unique perspective and insight to Dr. Durley’s reflexivity.

3 Systematic Approach

The home-bound, social distancing had, in fact, afforded researchers an opportunity for soul-searching and reflexivity activities. To guide our inquiries centering the emerging phenomena during the pandemic, we chose to move away from the positivist research paradigm and adapt reflexivity as a research method (Attia & Edge, 2017; Fook, 1999). Reflexivity is more than a reflection. It involves the examination and reflection of researchers’ beliefs, values, judgements, and practices during the research process. It is a process that challenges and questions researchers’ own implicit assumptions (Bolton & Delderfield, 2018). Research reflexivity is a critical approach to professional practice that questions how knowledge is generated and how relations of power influence the process of knowledge generation (Lay & McGuire, 2010). Reflexivity is a position while reflectivity is a general process, and our position of reflexivity is complemented by a process of reflectivity (Fook, 1999).

In this research, we, as researchers, were the central participants. We were aware of the subjectivity and experiences that influence our interpretations, analyses and perspectives (Bolton & Delderfield, 2018; Fook, 1999). We intentionally engaged in the critical processes that were brought to bear upon what might have been a routine or typical event (Bolton & Delderfield, 2018). As reflexive researchers, we deliberately examined critical incidents, social and cultural contexts, participants, and our relationship with others that had a significant impact on our everyday life during the pandemic. We deliberately reflected on the dynamics of the interactions between all the incidents, situations, contexts, and factors.

Writing and develo** this chapter was a reflexive process. We approached it in two ways: (a) observations and reflections, and (b) dialogues with each other and interactions with other professionals (Attia & Edge, 2017). Each of us engaged in a process of introspection and self-reflexivity, while at the same time in dialogues with one another. In addition, we also had conversations with our family members, professional colleagues, and community members. In doing so, we attempted to establish a reflexive practice that was not only informative but also critical and transformative. Through our own introspections and ongoing dialogues, we looked beyond problems, issues, and challenges in search for meanings to drive us to move forward. Table 13.1 shows the structure of our reflexivity activities including different types of dialogues and examples.

Table 13.1 Different types of dialogues in critical reflexivity and examples
Full size table

4 Meanings Generated from our Reflexivity

In this section, our reflexive accounts are shared, centering the lived experiences of Dr. Durley’s family in our quest for understanding the challenges, opportunities, and possibilities afforded by the pandemic. These accounts are organized by presenting Dr. Durley’s introspection first, followed by Dr. Ge’s comments and sharing. Reflection of critical incidents are presented, critiqued, and discussed, followed by dialogues and insights between the researchers. Three major themes emerged in our reflexive process: (1) shared physical and virtual spaces, (2) learning and growing together in shared spaces, and (3) disparities between urban and suburban schools.

4.1 Shared Physical and Virtual Spaces: Family, School, and Work all in One

Dr. Durley

This pandemic had really brought us closer as a family. I could hear my husband teaching his fifth-grade class in our bedroom. I could homeschool my son the same time I taught my third-grade small group intervention. My daughter, a senior in high school, had been working quietly in her room but once in a while she complained about how loud we were when we taught and how noisy her brother was playing in the living room. Our home turned into a schoolhouse, bedrooms served as classrooms. The only difference was that our students were at their own homes, and their homes, and sometimes, they were as noisy and loud because there were several classes in session at the same time.

In our home school house, we were able to engage all individuals of our family and our students and their families in a highly technology-mediated educational journey. We learned to depend on one another to make school happen. I realized that when home transcended into school, and families became learning communities, my professional and personal lives were integrated seamlessly, allowing all of us to gain a more holistic perspective in approaching teaching, learning, and even living and develo** wholeness within our own individual personhood as well as a sense of togetherness as communities of learners. This experience influenced my thinking about the importance of family and community development and engagement in educational processes as an integral part of student growth for my kids and professional development for myself as an educator.

Dr. Ge

The pandemic has led us to discover interesting phenomena that we had never thought of or experienced before. The experience shared by Dr. Durley, about one home space turned into multiple virtual spaces simultaneously, had also been experienced by many. Being an empty-nested parent, my experience with shared spaces was more confined to my personal life and my professional life. My home office space overlapped with my virtual office space and with my virtual classroom. My institution provided every faculty member with a Zoom account, which enabled me to conduct synchronous conferences from home, where I taught classes, interacted with students, and held office hours. The videoconferencing tool also allowed me to invite guest speakers from any corner of the world to join my class and share their research virtually. For example, I invited Dr. Durley to join my virtual class to share her technology integration projects with my graduate students. Through videos Dr. Durley showcased her third-grade students working on robotic and augmented reality projects. It was as if my students were taking a virtual tour visiting Dr. Durley’s classroom. This virtual tour experience was an eye opener to my graduate students, who gained a better understanding on how technology was integrated to support student learning in an urban school. In addition, the virtual conferencing tool also enabled me to attend professional conferences during the pandemic, and I was able to present my research and interact with other professionals while sitting in the comfort of my home office.

However, with the overlap** of physical and virtual spaces, we also experienced some inevitable challenges, such as background noises from other family members or pets sharing the same physical space as we try to focus on our work in each of our own virtual space. Some of my students, who were school teachers, complained that the fuzzy boundaries between their work and school had made it difficult for them to manage and allocate their time for timely completion and submission of their assignments.

4.2 Learning and Growing Together in Shared Spaces

Dr. Durley

The shared physical and virtual spaces of family, work and school have worked well to facilitate shared learning and professional development. Teaching and schooling at home compel us to become more resourceful and creative as a family. My husband turned to our 11th grade daughter for help so he could have a BitmojiFootnote 1 classroom designed on his Canvas homepage for his fifth graders. She went on to YouTube, learned the process, and designed the class homepage for her daddy. She felt a sense of accomplishment and pride, so she came and offered help to create one for my class. I also involved my son in my third grade reading intervention group of English Learners. I tried to incorporate new technology devices (e.g., Lego sets, drones, and Merge CubesFootnote 2) that I bought with my grant money into my reading lessons to create a novel, virtual learning experience for my students. My son became my aid in operating the devices and testing the simulated learning environment I had designed. He also learned to construct a Lego robot and develop block coding using the Lego set I brought home. I was surprised with his spatial awareness and understanding when he successfully built a robot cat by following the instructions on the iPad.

Dr. Ge

Wow, your stories are so amazing! You have all learned so much from each other in your shared family space. Your children are social-media resourceful, tech savvy, and they are able to figure out problems to help their parents. Learning has become both meaningful and fun for your children. Such informal learning is motivating, goal-driven, and even self-directed, which is critical for the development of metacognition and problem solving. At the same time, the teacher parents also develop their skills with the use of technology to integrate into their teaching.

Dr. Durley

The pandemic has provided affordances for metacognitive skill development that was rarely the central focus of school curriculum. When schools reopened in late March, 2021, I was impressed with my students utilizing their Chromebooks to explore new interests, for example, learning to use a cloud-based voice editor and collaborate with their classmates to create new music or put paper over the screen to trace images of favorite cartoon characters. Technology enabling free exploration allowed students to chart into new territories of their own liking and develop new knowledge or skills based on personal interest. However, not all explorations led to worthwhile pursuits for learning and development, and some of these discoveries could be easily addictive, requiring us educators and parents to provide guidance and support to utilize technology with wisdom and self-control.

Dr. Ge

The adapted responses to life, work and school during the pandemic led to the creation of new routines, structures and orders. Our new multi-purposed and multi-faceted home environment served as a comfortable and safe space to engage in self-directed learning, just as Dr. Durley’s two kids did. That said, scaffolding is still needed to help those students develop self-directed learning skills. There are various technology tools, apps, and devices (smart phones and watches) available to help students develop plans, monitor time, manage school work, and regulate their learning processes.

4.3 Disparities Between Urban and Suburban Districts

Dr. Durley

I thought that putting devices in the hands of our students might have given them a chance to level the playing field and bridge the digital divide gap between them and their suburban counterparts. However, my experience of remote teaching at the beginning of the school year indicated that disparities continued to exist between our urban schools and my children’s suburban school district. My school district was a Community Eligibility Provision district that serves non-pricing meals to low income areas, so almost one half of the student population had a bilingual family background. In my school, over 60% of students were identified as English Learners who had yet to reach full proficiency in English. When school first started remotely, parents had already picked up devices for their children, but they didn’t know what to do or how to connect to their children’s teacher through Canvas and Google Meet. Teachers were asked to contact every student’s parent to initialize remote learning, however, most teachers were unable to provide the needed technology assistance. Because of low educational background and language barriers, some parents relied on their own children to translate and relay information for home-school communication. Thus, confusion and uncertainty about remote schooling added even more stress onto the parents in addition to what they had already been suffering due to COVID.

The suburban district, on the other hand, had implemented 1:1 Chromebook and Canvas for secondary students, and classroom sets of iPads were also available in elementary classrooms three years prior to the pandemic. With strong parental engagement and financial support from the district, all students had already had access and experienced the latest technology, tools, and resources both in school and at home. Through the parent portal, I was also able to monitor my children’s academic progress and express my concerns to their teachers with little effort.

My experience as an urban school teacher and a suburban parent led me to be more conscientious about what I should focus on to make optimal opportunities accessible to my students. I was blessed to have my effort rewarded with $5000 grant from DonorsChooseFootnote 3 in July, 2020. The grant provided funds for the newest technology equipment, such as 3D printers and robotic devices of an innovation lab for school-wide implementation. I collaborated with several teachers and coached them to integrate coding and 3D printing into STEMFootnote 4 lessons for all grade levels at our school. Together, we witnessed the excitement and curiosity of students flourishing and felt that our effort helped pave the way, which allowed us to take one step further toward bridging the gap between our students and their suburban counterparts.

Dr. Ge

It seems that the pandemic has further revealed the digital divide and widened the gap between the suburban and urban schools. On one hand, we felt positive that the federal, state, and local government, as well as school districts had responded to the pandemic by providing technologies and infrastructures to teachers and students. On the other hand, we saw further disparities between the urban and the suburban schools. The urban schools seem to have caught up with educational technologies, but in fact they still lagged behind due to the lack of student and teacher preparation for using technology to implement remote instruction. However, I found hope in some dedicated educators, such as Dr. Durley, who worked tirelessly to change the educational conditions for their students in the urban school areas by kee** up with the latest technology development and figuring out how to integrate technology and best practices in their instruction for the best interest of their students.

5 Implications & Conclusions

Our reflexivity helps us gain insight into the meanings of our experiences during the pandemic. The pandemic has confined individuals in our homes, but it has also afforded us with opportunities and possibilities to be creative, resourceful, and innovative and to achieve more than what we could have imagined. The shared virtual and physical spaces have enabled us to integrate family, school, and work into our home spaces, in which we learn and grow together to develop essential knowledge and skills for the twenty-first century. We recognized the existence of disparities and the challenges confronting educators in urban districts, but we also noticed that educators were inspired to respond to the emergency situations with creative and innovative educational practice during the pandemic.

The reflexive practice reported in this chapter provides a critical lens to examine our personal and professional experiences during the pandemic. Our everyday life was disrupted. However, we found that resilience, creativity, and professional expertise flourished in our dealing with emergency situations. New perspectives also developed, and we have become more integrative, transformative, reflexive, and even technologically advancing in solving problems we encountered in our personal, family, and professional spaces. In our attempt to provide a narrative for meaning making, we characterized, compared, and interpreted pandemic responses of K-12 public schools in different social and economic settings. We hope that our efforts would offer new insights for classroom practice, new directions for professional development, and new explorations for future research. The events, practice, and experiences identified for our reflexivity interpretations were intentional and purposeful so lessons could be learned not only in challenging times such as a global pandemic, but also for future practice and research in education.