Chapter 1: Introduction: Instructional Survival in the Midst of the Perfect Storm: The Experiences of K–12 Teachers During the COVID-19 Global Pandemic

In 2020, many K–12 schools across the world initially planned to shut down for a brief period of time in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. As the Coronavirus began to spread rapidly across the globe, The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this epidemic a pandemic (Mseleku, 2020), and these shut-downs were extended into months and even into entire academic years in an effort to protect students. During these shut-downs, many schools quickly implemented newer modes of instruction for teachers to continue to teach and reach their learners. Specifically, many schools began to implement emergency remote teaching to continue to deliver instruction (Marshall et al., 2022; Trust et al., 2020; Whittle et al., 2020).