‘Staying Apart Yet Keeping Together’: Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching During COVID-19 Across the Tasman

COVID-19 has had a profound effect on higher education institutions across the world. The rapid shift to blended teaching has meant changes to ways of teaching and learning. Author One (Australia) and Author Two (New Zealand) are tertiary academics in initial teacher education programmes. In this paper, they draw on narrative enquiry as a way to tell their stories of how they had to rapidly move from of face-to-face teaching to an emergency situation of online (cloud) teaching and learning. Through shared reflection, they offer a snapshot of their lived experience teaching music education, managing students and staff. In the findings, they discuss key challenges and opportunities they encountered in relation to student participation and engagement, teaching and learning, and wellbeing. Staying connected with each other across the Tasman Sea, using email and Zoom were important forms of providing mutual support that contributed positively to their sense of wellbeing as academics during this stressful time. They contend that universities need to consider the more human aspect of changes that have impacted staff and students. They question what the future will hold for initial teacher education programs post 2020. They suggest working collaboratively with schools, professional organisations, and industry when designing new programmes as the landscape of higher education changes due to the ongoing pandemic.