Digital transformation requires the field of education to increasingly deal with the interplay between the teachers’ individual development of digital competence and institutional integration and adoption of digital technology. This is especially crucial in the vocational education context, which is closer to the world of work and, therefore, more sensitive to the disruptive changes of digitalisation. This chapter addresses this issue by proposing the result of a project that aimed to identify a new professional profile in the context of dual vocational education in Switzerland. The Digital Facilitator is a new term that refers to a teacher with advanced digital competency who is an expert in facilitating digital innovation adoption within educational institutions. Thus, it constitutes a possible concrete way to address the issue of integrating the individual and the organisational perspectives related to digital transformation. The profile is discussed by presenting an analysis of acknowledged existing frameworks and by considering the specificities of the context in which it was developed. The opportunities and challenges associated with introducing the profile are also critically addressed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of the digital transformation of educational organizations. The effects of this transformation process are not limited to the classroom level but extend into various areas of the school, such as Equipment and Technology, Strategy and Leadership, Organization, Employees, and Culture. Against this background, we assessed the status quo of the digital transformation in Swiss vocational schools from the perspective of both school management members and teachers. For this endeavor, two surveys were conducted: the first one in the period from November 2019 to January 2020 (school management members) and the second one between June and September 2020 (teachers). In total, 202 school management members and 1,739 teachers from 62 schools participated in the study. The results of the analyses indicate that the digitization-related dimensions of Strategy and Leadership, as well as Pedagogical IT Support, were perceived better by school management members, whereas teachers considered the areas of Digital Competencies, Attitudes, and Culture to be more advanced. Furthermore, linear regression models show that the dimensions considered important when assessing the status quo of digital transformation differ between the groups. The results emphasize the importance of communication between and the inclusion of all school stakeholders for the successful management of the digital transformation.
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