DP: The urgency of digital pedagogy training

As a professional teacher, tutor, lecturer or trainer, you might be familiar with the two key words: pedagogy and digital. While pedagogy can in simple terms be defined as the method and practice of teaching, Digital Pedagogy refers to the use of technologies in teaching and learning.

More than just the technology

But Digital pedagogy isn’t just about the digital tools that are now available for educators to use in the classroom or to teach and facilitate learning virtually. It is an ethos that educators embrace in all of their teaching and learning practices while using different technologies to aid teaching and learning. The tools may change, but the practices stay the same. What you need most as an educator is the skill to evaluate emerging digital tools and how to integrate them into your teaching, while maintaining a consistent pedagogical vision for your classes and or learners.

This course is aimed at exploring with you how technology can show us new ways to think and learn, what technology to use when and how—as well as when we should not consider any technology. It is about exploring how to bring new approaches and tools into your teaching, while also allowing your students to make critical choices about how they learn, develop themselves and share their knowledge and experiences.

Are you tapping the education technology opportunities?

It is no secret that changes in education supporting technology are creating opportunities for schools, teachers and individuals; including greater access to rich, multimedia content especially on the internet, the increasing use of online course taking platforms and learning materials-but how much of this are you as a teacher contributing to or influencing. How much digital content are you using to teach, or better have you created?

Despite the fact that in most countries digital devices and applications are widely employed for teaching and learning purposes, education fails to respond to the emerging needs and foster 21^st century skills due to domination of traditional pedagogical approaches and methods. To address these challenges, UNESCO recommends reform of the educational paradigm and the revision of traditional pedagogy and curriculum are needed.

Don’t let this widespread availability of mobile computing devices that can access the Internet (phones, tablets, ipods, watches, smart TVs) go untapped. Or the expanding role of social networking tools for learning and professional development, and the growing interest in the power of digital games for more personalized learning pass you by.

It is not just about being aware or witnessing the uptake of technologies but having the right strategy to ensure the best education outcomes while using technologies.

The government of Uganda had by  2014 for example set up more than 1,450 computer laboratories in both government and private schools across the country, while many private schools are using presence of computer laboratories as an indicator of offering good quality digital enabled education. All tertiary institutions including universities have computer labs and emphasis computer skills as a key learning achievement. The horizon has been further enchanted with increased development of education supporting digital tools and apps that can help teachers and learners improve teaching and learning. In all this we continue to see limited if any active participation of teachers, tutors and lecturers, with some only eager to share digital content developed by others from more developed countries or non-profits.

While education technologies have over the years ushered in fundamental structural changes that can be integral to achieving significant improvements in education in many countries, there are limited professional development (PD) processes and support given to teachers, lecturers and trainers  of teachers to adopt and adapt to education technologies and new ways of teaching for better learning outcomes. This has resulted in limited or half-hearted adoption of digital teaching and digital learning.  A recent report by USAID Supported ICT Works noted that there are many professional development (PD) processes that are:

1. Ignoring PD Needs:Teachers are handed technology and expected to know how to integrate it into the classroom with no professional development or training.
2. Poor PD Practices: Teachers are provided with basic orientation on a technology with very little practical application. Imagine PowerPoints and lots of talking, no doing.
3. Limited PD Interventions:Teachers are provided with one PD session which involves practical application before an intervention begins, but there is no concrete practical utilisation.
4. Tech-focused PD: Teachers are trained to use a specific technology which might or might not accompany content/curriculum. This is often very structured and teachers are provided a play by play of what should happen in the classroom, which sometimes is not relevant.

Teachers need to be enabled to use the good technology tools available to create and facilitate successful learning experiences. The next topics are aimed at helping you in the purposeful application of new technologies to enhance teaching and learning. This Digital Pedagogy course is focused on:

• Teachers change We help teachers to show not tell. We help teachers understand what good facilitation with technology looks like -we model it for them (I DO/WE DO/YOU DO).
• Teachers are designers, not just deliverers. For technology to be an amplifier in the classroom, teachers need the skills to design the learning experience.
• Not one Tool, Any: Good professional development takes a learning-first approach. This also means that teachers know how to adapt any tool or a digital activity into an analog activity.
• Need for continuous experimentation and learning towards better digital teaching -should be incremental, iterative, continuously building on new skills & responsive to teachers’ needs.

Note: More reading at the hyperlinks in this unit

But the big question is do students like learning using digital tools? It is a question you can answer best if you ask it in your own class or ask your own children. Many young learners have a high preference for learning digitally.

But beyond the technology, there is real urgency for all teachers, tutors, lecturers and trainers to advance to the highly acclaimed but less practiced practice of learner centered education approaches. Digital technologies and a digital pedagogy mindset give us the best opportunity to focus on learning and not on teaching/ lecturing.

Learner-Centered Teaching Techniques are defined by a shift from a teacher or lecturer focused classroom environment to one that is

focused on the needs of the students. Learning is an active search for meaning by the learner and constructed rather than passively received.

Thinking critically about this and implementing it will drive us towards that ideal of what makes teachers good or even great. Not the way you as a teacher, lecturer, tutor or trainer think, but as the learners think. You will also get to understand the whys and how of offering recommended education including competence based training, individual learning paths, multimedia content for learning, gamification, blended learning, functional education, flipping the classroom and other such concepts that we are going to explore in detail in the coming course units.

We hope you are inspired to do more than you have been doing, to change and adapt what you can, to learn and unlearn as well as to keep your teaching/ learning facilitation interesting and focused on the future.

As we conclude this introduction, we invite you to watch this video below on what learners think makes a great teacher.

Here are more resources you can explore

Tips for Humanizing digital Pedagogy- https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-tips-humanizing-digital-pedagogy 

Digitally Enhanced Teaching and Learning- https://learn.canvas.net/courses/942/pages/a-digital-pedagogy

Japanese E-learning model – https://download.atlantis-press.com/article/25883155.pdf

Qualities of a great teacher – https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/2017/12/qualities-of-a-good-teacher

Key in being a good teacher, lecturer or trainer is appreciating that not all people learn the same way. There are different types of learners as explained in the video below

It helps to understand the different types of learners in your class as strive to provide for all of them instead of using one method or similar sets of methods