CLOUD | Teachers' professional development in the digital age

The CLOUD is a flagship magazine published by UNESCO-ICHEI since 2021, aiming to build a platform that connects professionals in the realm of global higher education by sharing knowledge, project updates, data and best practices related to the digital transformation of global higher education. The name CLOUD symbolizes a global network for knowledge sharing driven by Information and Communications Technology (ICT). As of September 2022, CLOUD has published six issues that covered various subjects such as digital transformation strategies for higher education, capacity building for university teachers, and quality assurance systems in higher education.

Interviewing

Distinguished Consultant at UNESCO-ICHEI

Emeritus Professor at East China Normal University

Professor Zhu Zhiting, Emeritus Professor at East China Normal University, Doctoral Advisor in Educational Technology, Chief Expert of the Ministry of Education's Committee for Information Technology Standards in Education, and Distinguished Consultant at UNESCO-ICHEI. This interview primarily focuses on Professor Zhu's past research achievements and recent works in conjunction with the direction of the UNESCO-ICHEI (located in Shenzhen, China). We invited Professor Zhu to share insights and reflections on the digital transformation of higher education and teacher empowerment.

01

Digital Resilience in Education: 

Adaptation, Openness, and Innovation

You once mentioned the concept of 'contingency theory' in educational reform, suggesting that when the education system faces external shocks like pandemics, it should build 'resilience', and gradually transform this systemic resilience into a new norm for systemic change. In your opinion, in what areas can teacher professional development training enhance the resilience of institutions and even the entire educational system? And how should it be done?

Source: Freepik

The pandemic is not only a crisis but also an opportunity for reflection and learning. Through "suspending classes without suspending learning", the education system had demonstrated remarkable adaptability and innovation, especially teachers' ability to adjust to digital teaching. When facing external shocks like the pandemic, the educational system should build "resilience". Digital resilience is not merely a technological issue; it pertains more to human resilience — the digital literacy of teachers and students. The "resilience" of the education system should encompass openness, flexibility, and adaptivity.

At present, education is at a pivotal stage of digital transformation. The gains during the pandemic — experiences, resources, platform support — urgently need integration to aid this transformation. In the digital transformation of education, we should contemplate how to transform the post-pandemic reluctance of "no turning back" into a conscious choice of "not wanting to return". However, if "resilience" becomes too rigid, it may hinder innovation. We aspire to an open, flexible, and adaptive system, embodying the true essence of digital resilience. Therefore, the future of education must be a technologically integrated ecosystem, both robust and open, capable of proactively adapting to and shaping change. This is also the expectation for every participant in education. Only in this way can we truly embrace the digital age and face every unforeseen challenge.

Q2

Transformation and Innovation: 

Integration of Teacher 

Professional Development with Information Technology

Considering that teachers might feel apprehensive when facing changes, is there a need for a collaborative, holistic ecosystem to promote adaptation and growth in teacher professional development? In such an ecosystem, what forms and methods might teacher professional development activities adopt?

Source: Pexels

One significant dilemma that university teachers currently face is the immense pressure of research, which makes it difficult for them to take the time to explore teaching methods. The concept of "Building Affordable Universities" proposed by professors at MIT highlights the misalignment between the current educational system and sustainable societal development, emphasizing the need for diverse and personalized growth. Such development requires the support of diversified resources like information technology, but many educational systems, including institutions of higher education, still lack diverse thinking.

China has a profound foundation for teacher professional development at the basic education stage. The "360 Plan" is a prime example. This plan initiated research on teacher capability standards training from the beginning of the 20th century and has repeatedly promoted the enhancement of teachers' information technology application capabilities, with the current focus shifting towards digital transformation innovation. Since 2020, the Ministry of Education has launched pilot projects for constructing virtual research rooms in universities, with over 600 projects currently under construction. These research rooms aim to enhance the quality of teaching and educational capabilities. Their core missions include innovating research methodologies, strengthening teaching research, collaboratively building high-quality resources, and conducting teacher training.

In the information era, the combination of teacher professional development and information technology is especially crucial. Particularly during the pandemic, the practice of "suspending classes without suspending learning" enabled most teachers to acquire skills in online teaching or video micro-lesson production, leading to a surge in shareable high-quality Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The National Higher Education Smart Education Platform has gathered numerous online courses, virtual simulation experiments, digital textbooks, and other resources, showing a trend towards ecological development. In the information era, the most lacking "key species" are intelligent disciplinary tools, especially virtual simulation modelling software.

03

Wave of Emerging Technologies: 

New Perspectives on Teacher Professional Development

With the rise of disruptive technologies such as GPT-4, what new demands do you believe these technologies place on the capabilities of university teachers and the future needs for talent cultivation?

Source: Pexels

Recently, "high-conscious learning" has become a widely discussed topic. While large models like ChatGPT can answer a wide range of questions, learning how to pose questions accurately to obtain effective feedback supporting deep learning is essentially a process of "thought programming". Currently, the philosophy of thought programming is guiding the design of prompts, offering new avenues for research into prompt engineering. The emergence of disruptive technologies has moved education beyond the confines of traditional classrooms and disciplines. For teachers and students, large models like GPT-4 represent both powerful learning tools and new challenges to teaching capabilities, signifying a new transformation in education. This transformation impacts everything from access to teaching resources and modes of teaching to research methodologies, heralding a new chapter for higher education.

The essence of digitalization is to de-border or break boundaries. This implies the sharing of quality educational resources. Students can access vast amounts of high-quality learning materials, such as online courses, academic papers, and research reports, through digital platforms. With digital technologies like big data and artificial intelligence, researchers can collect, analyze, and study data more efficiently, pushing innovation and development in scientific research. Digital technologies also foster increased academic exchange and collaboration, allowing for faster sharing and dissemination of research findings, thus promoting the globalization of academic research.

Teachers' responsibilities extend beyond just teaching and research to include societal service and cultural preservation. However, how to balance teaching with research is a challenge for many. To address this, we can transform our teaching approaches, gradually shifting from a "teaching-centered" model to a "learning-centered" one. This not only represents a change in educational philosophy but also a transformation in the role of teachers. The future educational landscape will be framed as a Cyber-Physical-Social System (CPSS) system, within which learning activities and scenarios will be more diverse, necessitating a reconstruction of teacher capabilities. Currently, some enterprises have adopted a role-based hiring approach called "fluid agile teams", which is gradually being accepted by higher education institutions. Additionally, projects focusing on "micro-skills, micro-certifications" emphasize role-based competency development. The dynamic demands on teaching capabilities mean that teachers' skills will need continuous updating and expansion.

04

Step by Step:

Building a Community for Teacher Instructional Development

Furthermore, considering the continuous changes in the educational environment and the evolving needs for teacher professional development, when one-off certifications like teaching qualifications are no longer sufficient to meet long-term development requirements, how should we effectively evaluate and consistently enhance teachers' professional competencies?

Source: Freepik

In response to the continuous changes in the educational environment and the professional development of teachers, the strategy for effectively assessing and consistently enhancing teachers' professional abilities is: in line with current technological trends, regularly training and assessing teachers, encouraging their participation in community building, while also emphasizing the practical application of skills to ensure that education keeps pace with the times. Changes in instructional scenarios lead to shifts in student activity patterns, which subsequently cause changes in the positioning and skill requirements of teachers. The students' activity modes have also changed, further leading to a redefinition of the teacher's role and an update of their skill requirements.

The renowned Bloom's Taxonomy in the educational field encompasses three major domains: the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. In the past, educators primarily focused on the development of lower-level objectives in the "cognitive domain", often overlooking the connections with the other two domains. However, while some fundamental knowledge learning may not involve extensive affective or psychomotor values, many affective and psychomotor objectives can enhance cognitive value. Nowadays, international educational trends have shifted towards a "skills-based" approach, as exemplified by the Education 4.0 framework and the "Open Loop University" concept introduced by Stanford University. If we consider the "cognitive domain" as a pyramid, representing the learning and accumulation of knowledge, and view the "affective domain" and "psychomotor domain" as two inverted pyramids, symbolizing the nurturing and enhancement of emotions and skills, a perfect coupling relationship can be formed among the three. This aligns with the significance of skill learning and updating for teachers' knowledge acquisition and personal development in the era of artificial intelligence.

05

Credential-Based Learning: 

A New Definition of Digitalization in Higher Education and Teacher Competencies

For countries with limited resources, providing high-quality professional development opportunities for teachers poses a significant challenge. What solutions do you believe could effectively facilitate the digital transformation of institutions and educators?

Source: UNESCO

The digitalization of higher education indeed faces certain challenges. High-quality resources do not directly translate into learning outcomes. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), with varying levels of difficulty, cater to a limited audience and urgently require diversification. The advantage of technology lies in promoting this diversity and supporting the low-cost expansion of MOOCs. Furthermore, technology bridges the physical, informational, and social spaces, leading to diversified teaching scenarios that in turn bring about changes in teacher roles and skills. On the one hand, there is a need to strengthen information technology training for both teachers and students, enhancing their digital literacy and application capabilities. On the other hand, it is necessary to establish a comprehensive mechanism for sharing and disseminating digital educational resources, aiming to improve their usage rates and benefits. At the same time, strengthening research, development, and innovation in digital technology is imperative to enhance the level and application capabilities of digital technology.

Internationally, the rise of micro-learning and micro-credentials is becoming an effective tool for assessing and enhancing teacher capabilities, catering to the dynamic needs of education. This "1+X" model, i.e., a degree/diploma plus multiple skill certificates, offers students and faculties a flexible career development path. While a degree certificate suggests potential, a skill certificate proves capability. The Open Education College of East China Normal University has collaborated with UNESCO-ICHEI to develop a micro-credentialing project for university teachers, dedicated to AI-enhanced teacher capability development in education. In this rapidly changing era, teachers are no longer mere transmitters of knowledge but designers and guides of the student learning process.

As the flagship programme of UNESCO-ICHEI and an open learning platform, IIOE is dedicated to empowering universities and higher education professionals worldwide to enhance their knowledge, skills, and competencies facing the digitalization trend. Click iioe.org to learn more about the IIOE Micro-certification details.

Recommend Reading

The content of this article is compiled from the preparation content of UNESCO-ICHEI‘s flagship publication CLOUD. Click to read previous issues.

https://www.ichei.org/dist/index.html#/InauguralIssue?nid=8

Interviewer：HUANG Chen、 SU Rui

Editor：YANG Lan、LEI Ming、YAO Yi

Proofreading: KPCC