TEACHER TRAINING AND THE CHALLENGES OF PERFORMING IN COVID TIMES

Abstract

The importance of digital competences' development of the teachers has been addressed in numerous reports and recommendations, driven by European bodies dedicated to education and training, as well as professional bodies of teachers. The need for digital competences in performing quality, modern and innovative teaching remains actual and many competence profile of teaching profession explicitly include digital competences either as a key-competence or as a professional competence in teaching profession under the name of "use of ICT in teaching, learning and assessment". The extent to which teachers nowadays are closer to developing a functional level of digital competencies and whether online teaching itself is considered a beneficial practice remains unclear. Studies have demonstrated different levels of students' learning and well-being during the pandemic, especially the lack of or low levels, so the question we formulate is: do teachers adjust their online teaching practices so as to increase learning outcomes, even in pandemic times? Is there a preoccupation to improve digital competences in order to perform high level of teaching, even in full online schooling? Are teachers considering to involve ICT in their teaching practices at a higher level than before pandemic, as a consequence of intensive use during lockdown? The present paper addresses these issues following an online quantitive survey that was carried out between January 1st - January 28th 2021, on a sample of 1267 Romanian teachers. The study shows teachers' experience of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic and the main aspects of the analysis consisted of: the teachers' perceived progress on digital skills; trust in own digital competences; the level of trust offered by the courses attended on delivering online lessons; the perceived benefit of using digital skills in teaching from the perspective of students' learning outcomes; a general evaluation of all educational tools offered by online education; and the extent to which the methods and applications of online education will be integrated in the future. The results point to a positive self-assessment of teachers' digital skills, as well as an important willingness to implement the online education tools back to the everyday classrooms.