Abstract
The current pandemic crisis the world is living in has brought new and emerging challenges to teachers, making it essential to acquire digital skills, especially in virtual learning environments and online technologies. In this sense, from the DigCompEdu CheckIn self-assessment questionnaire, validated for the Portuguese population by Dias-Trindade, Moreira, and Nunes (2019), the research presented in this paper aims to identify the most fragile and robust areas of digital skills of primary and secondary education (ISCED) perceived by teachers in Portugal. The quantitative methodological approach emphasizes teachers' perception of their digital skills in three dimensions: teachers’ professional competences, teachers’ pedagogical competences and students' competences and involved 434 teachers from mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions. The results allow us to conclude that teachers have an overall moderate level of digital proficiency – level B1 - Integrators – and the dimensions pedagogical competences and students’ competences are those where teachers have more weaknesses than in other levels. From a panorama observed before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible to understand their needs regarding work that involves digital technologies at different moments in the teaching activity. The results thus, show the need for teachers to increase their level of digital competence through specific training and the importance of developing public policies that prepare teachers for a more digital school.
Highlights
Throughout this century, and primarily due to the changes taking place in society, which is more and more immersed in a networked digital culture and reality, it is increasingly urgent to rethink the teaching and learning processes
From the DigCompEdu CheckIn self-assessment questionnaire validated for the Portuguese population by Dias-Trindade et al (2019), the research presented in this paper aims to identify the most fragile and robust areas of each teacher, based on their perceptions, which allows, a posteriori, each one to invest in adequate training to increase their proficiency level to the desired digital fluency
Teachers and students need to know how to integrate digital resources into their pedagogical practices and how they can improve the way they teach and learn. This fact has been, since 2005, a key concern of the EU Science Hub. This department has prepared various benchmarks, namely the DigCompEdu, presenting a common European framework for the digital competences of educators, launched in 2017, which states that teachers “[...] need a set of digital competences specific to their profession to be able to seize the potential of digital technologies for enhancing and innovating education” (Redecker, 2017, p. 8)
Summary
Throughout this century, and primarily due to the changes taking place in society, which is more and more immersed in a networked digital culture and reality, it is increasingly urgent to rethink the teaching and learning processes. Educational institutions have to face the challenge of setting up hybrid learning scenarios that promote the acquisition of knowledge and spaces appropriate to cross-cutting competences. Taking this reality into account, the World Economic Forum in 2015 highlighted the crucial role of digital technologies in developing cross-cutting competences and how this is decisive in today’s world (World Economic Forum [WEF], 2015). Digital technologies have become wholly part of how one can ‘make’ education (Selwyn, 2016), but it is important to understand how they can be effectively used to promote an educational change and enhance quality pedagogical practices. More than instrumentally using technologies, “[...] the discussion must focus on its pedagogical impact and on what is perceived as ‘good’ teaching and as factors promoting quality in learning” (Dias-Trindade & Moreira, 2017, p. 99-100, grifo dos autores)
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