Examination of Pre-service Teachers' Experiences in Teaching Practice with Distance Education

The COVID-19 epidemic, which affects the functioning of institutions in almost every field, has also affected pre-service teacher education. In this process, unlike the traditional practice, pre-service teachers carried out the teaching practice with emergency distance education. However, since the application was sudden, urgent and new, it could not be adequately evaluated. In this research, it is aimed to examine the pre-service teachers' experiences of teaching practice with distance education in the COVID-19 process. The research was designed as a case study. Research data were obtained by semi-structured interview and observation forms. The collected data were analyzed with descriptive, and content analysis methods. The participants of the study are seven primary school pre-service teachers selected according to the typical case sampling technique and two primary school practice teachers who guide these candidates in the 2021 academic year. According to the results of the research, pre-service teachers teach according to their own possibilities and adapt to the process in teaching practice. However, they faced some problems such as the late delivery of the course topics to be taught, the lack of computers, and not knowing the level of the students in preparation, classroom management, teaching process and using technology. It is expected that future applications will be more effective if pre-service teachers receive training on distance education, are supported with distance education tools, and their infrastructure problems are resolved.