5.2 CYPRUS In Cyprus, 65 teachers in total responded to the survey and most of them were Physics teachers (51 Physics teachers, 6 Maths teachers and 8 Chemistry teachers). As in the case of Slovenia, half of the respondents have 11-20 years of teaching experience and 21.5% of them have been teaching for 20 years or more; they certainly have a clearer understanding of their own and their students' needs and challenges. For all the Cypriots teachers who responded to the survey, the online teaching constraints allowed them to improve their digital skills even if 70% of them reported a very good level of digital skills also at the start of the pandemic. In the majority of cases (almost 70% of respondents) these digital skills allowed them to interact with their students in a more dynamic way: in relation to this it is important to note that a good 29% reported very good interaction with students during online teaching, while only 18.5% considered that interaction was rather poor. To improve the interaction with their students, most of them, used some digital tools during online learning; examples of them are: Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Kahoot, Skype, Classroom, Google forms, Facebook, Youtube, Whiteboard, Simulations, Jamboard, Nearpod, WeBex, OneNote, Quiz, Wacom, Discord, Google meet, Excel, Word. The challenges faced by teachers have interested also the way in which they delivered their lessons; as the survey results show, a large majority of Cypriot teachers interviewed declare that their online lessons were quite or completely different from those delivered face to face, while just only 10.8% report they were quite the same both in content and in the way of delivery. Despite this, the level of students’ attention remained within the average, but it’s important to take in consideration 38,5% of the respondents that believe that the students’ attention was lower or much lower online than in the classroom. In general, both in survey and focus group, Cypriot teachers seem to be divided in their view of this period. There are indeed some testimonies regarding the positive side of online teaching; according to the art teacher who spoke during the focus group for example, “Online teaching gave students the opportunity to use tools they know well, developing their digital knowledge and creativity. Both teachers and students were obliged to adjust to this new reality and explore the new technological trends”; another one noted that 15
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