Building blocks of instructor professional development for innovative ICT use during a pandemic

Abstract

PurposeInnovative use of information and communications technology (ICT) requires (new) knowledge and skills for the group that has the biggest impact on the quality of education: instructors. Facilitating professional development (PD) of instructors is crucial for the quality of one’s education system(s), perhaps even more so in times of a pandemic.Design/methodology/approachBased on the authors’ analysis of reviews published in the last decade, this paper summarizes the key building blocks of effective PD on the innovative use of ICT during a pandemic. The authors used these building blocks to reflect on two national PD initiatives developed to support institutions of higher education in instructional use of ICT while dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.FindingsBoth PD initiatives include the same building blocks: (1) content-related building blocks focused on technological knowledge, (2) active learning and expert-supported PD (didactics-related building blocks) and (3) contextual building blocks consisting of clearly defined goals focused on the instructor's own practice, use of technology, sustained duration (e.g. taking place over a longer period of time) and evidence-informed PD. One contextual building block that was not evident in the reviews but emerged as a vital building block is “responsiveness” to the situation and needs of the participants.Originality/valueHigh-quality PD is crucial if one wants to safeguard the quality of (online) instruction and learning to ensure high-quality education for all students. This paper can contribute to enhancing the quality of much-needed PD on online teaching (during, but also after COVID-19).

Technostress in Spanish University Teachers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The improvisation to which both teachers and students had to resort, subjected both groups to a level of stress that is not recommended for an adequate level of academic performance, as evidenced in this study and recent research on this topic (Li and Wang, 2020;Özgür, 2020;Penado Abilleira et al, 2020;Schildkamp et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020). Hence, this study is interested in understanding which factors affect this situation the most.…”

“…Due to the subjective feeling of technostress that teachers from face-to-face universities claim to suffer in comparison with their peers at online universities, various measures must be incorporated into face-to-face universities. Examples include actions that favor literacy facilitation, integration of technological and pedagogical knowledge until reaching the “knowledge of technological pedagogical content” (TPACK), and continuous teacher professional development (TPD) ( Rienties et al, 2013 ; Özgür, 2020 ; Schildkamp et al, 2020 ). Technical support provision and involvement facilitation must also be added as strategies as these strategies have already been shown to inhibit technostress in university teachers in other populations ( Li and Wang, 2020 ).…”

“…Teachers today must attend to the interaction between three main components of the learning environment: content, pedagogy, and technology. This is considered necessary as teachers have the so-called "knowledge of technological pedagogical content" (TPACK) (Koehler and Mishra, 2005;Mishra and Koehler, 2006;Rienties et al, 2013;Özgür, 2020;Schildkamp et al, 2020). Today's teachers are expected to integrate technology both positively and effectively into their teaching in the classroom (Graham et al, 2009), and they constantly struggle with the time available to keep pace with emerging technology and with the associated innovations in pedagogy (Tarus et al, 2015;Voet and De Wever, 2017).…”

“…The continuous upgrading of technology exposes teachers to constant technostress because teachers do not always have the knowledge required to use new and updated technologies ( Altınay-Gazi and Altınay-Aksal, 2017 ; Li and Wang, 2020 ). However, teachers’ ability to integrate technology into classroom pedagogically is crucial to educational innovation ( Koh et al, 2017 ; Schildkamp et al, 2020 ).…”

Gamification Within the Learning Evaluation Process Using Ardora at the Salesian Polytechnic University (Guayaquil, Ecuador)

“…The effects of the covid-19 pandemic have increased globally, a rethinking of curriculum plans in education in all its modalities and at all levels [1,2]. The evaluation of apprenticeships is part of the planning of a curriculum offered, based on the objectives to be achieved and the competencies to be acquired [3,4], depending on this and whether the training was based on the web [5,6] requires that it be applied continuously by finetuning its scope in the participants and a modification at an appropriate level according to its effectiveness.…”