This paper explores faculty members’ concerns and level of preparedness for open and distance learning (ODL) at the University of Malawi’s School of Education during the recent Covid-19 pandemic within a context that considers ODL as a means of mitigating the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with four experienced academic leaders within the school of education. The Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM), particularly stages of concerns, served as a framework to understand the faculty’s concerns about the implementation of ODL initiatives. Inductive and deductive analysis approaches were used to analyse the interview transcripts to identify emerging themes. Deductive analysis revealed that faculty members expressed several concerns such as awareness, informational, as well as consequences concerns as they talked about their feelings and attitudes towards the implementation of ODL. Inductive analysis on the other hand revealed that faculty members’ perceptions such as minimal preparation, negative orientations, and lack of policy awareness hamper the implementation of ODL. These findings underscore the importance of members’ orientation change to ensure effective implementation of ODL in contexts like the institution under study. We discuss these and propose that professional development could help members develop positive attitudes towards ODL.

This study took a critical perspective to explore teacher educators’ conceptualisation of instructional technology in Malawi. Participants included teacher educators from three different public teacher education institutions, and staff members of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that trains teachers and student teachers in the use of digital education technology. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The findings showed prominence of the media view of instructional technology, especially digital technologies. These conceptualisations appear to be shaped by the teacher educators’ prior training, experience in teaching an instructional technology course, and organisational structures that facilitate the use of instructional technology at the institutions under study. These findings might be useful for teacher educators’ technology professional development content and activities. The findings can also provide insights into extending conversations on the applicability of Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs) in contexts beyond the USA, where they were primarily developed.

Teacher educators still face challenges to model effective technology integration into their work partly because they lack necessary technology competencies. With teacher educator technology competencies and technology professional development gaining prominence internationally recently, there is a need to continue making sense of the existing literature on the subject. This article is a literature review and includes proposals for new areas of research that can extend our knowledge of technology professional development (TPD) for teacher educators. Thirty papers published between 2000 and 2019 were included in the review. The findings include knowns and unknowns on the evaluation components of TPD teacher educators. The article has suggested further research on understanding teacher educators' technology professional development from student teachers' perspectives; the link between teacher educators' technology competencies and their professional roles; and balancing between formal and informal TPD. The unique contribution of the paper is a proposed framework for conceptualizing teacher educators' technology professionalism.

Student teachers' perspectives on how their teacher educators act as exemplars of using technology appropriately (or fail to do so) could create a basis for teacher educators' technology professional development (TPD). However, there is a dearth of research on student teachers' input into teacher educators' TPD, as research is dependent on self-reports of teacher educators' own competencies. This study explored teacher educators' TPD based on perspectives of student teachers. The study involved policy analysis, a survey, and interviews with student teachers in a universitybased teacher education programme in Malawi. Findings indicate that student teachers have a stake in what it means to be a professional teacher educator in Malawi. The case study has also shown the contribution of student teachers' perspectives in strengthening teacher educators' TPD. The contribution includes clarifying the image of a technologically competent teacher educator and student teachers' co-learning with teacher educators. The paper discusses scholarly and practical implications of these findings. For instance, it is suggested that teacher educators should make the co-learning process more explicit to the student teachers.