Didactic strategies and methods during the Covid-19 emergency: a comparison between data obtained from the qualitative analyses of SIRD survey

The aim of this paper is to describe the results obtained from the qualitative analysis of the answers given by teachers to the open-ended questions of the SIRD national questionnaire on distance learning, widespread during the COVID-19 global lockdown. The focus of the present work is on regional data of primary and secondary schools of Tuscany and Umbria, for which the occurrences and the relative percentages by Regional sample were calculated in order to be compared with National results. In addition, a content analysis of teachers’ responses was conducted. Some categories which showed more relevant results were selected in order to compare Regional and National results in relation to the use and the effectiveness of certain didactic strategies and methods. The comparison is also made with the quantitative data of the questionnaire to analyse a possible match between different outputs. First, the study revealed that the Tuscan teacher’s sample has identified the innovation of teaching methods as a strength of distance learning, compared to the Umbrian and Italian samples. The analysis of the content of the answers has shown, in fact, how distance learning has represented for teachers the opportunity to propose new activities, different from those usually carried out in the classroom, and to revolutionize their teaching strategies mainly thanks to the new potential of the learning environment. The answers also highlighted teachers’ intention to use these new strategies even in future. On the other side, we have found in the Umbrian sample the perception of inadequacy of the distance learning environment for practical and group activities, such as the practising of a musical instrument or laboratory subjects, as a weakness of online teaching. The aforementioned results appear to be particularly evident for upper secondary school teachers, while, for primary school teachers, data are very similar to the other two samples, showing a lower perception of inadequacy of the learning environment for these grades. Another weakness of the didactic remodulation is related to difficulties in design and achieving objectives and it was found mainly in the answers of primary school teachers of the Umbria region. These critical issues are related mainly to the expansion of time requested for preparing and carrying out activities, to the difficulty of effectively following all the pupils effectively and the inability of planning activities that involve also the weaker students. Furthermore, in line with the quantitative data, it was found that the percentage of primary school teachers reporting comments related to the implementation of innovative didactic strategies appears to be higher for the Umbrian sample than for the Tuscan and National samples. The percentage of answers related to education innovation that emerged for Umbrian data decreases for higher school levels. The purpose of this contribution is therefore to highlight, not only the difficulties encountered by the teachers, but also their ability to adopt new and effective teaching strategies. The use and the implementation of multimedial methods and the multiplicity of teaching tools made the learning process more innovative and engaging for students.