Lessons learned, moving on from corona?

By empowering teachers in blending their corona-gained-expertise with their post-corona classroom needs, 'Lessons Learned: moving on from corona?' aimed at increasing their digital readiness, resi...

By empowering teachers in blending their corona-gained-expertise with their post-corona classroom needs, 'Lessons Learned: moving on from corona?' aimed at increasing their digital readiness, resilience and capacity and at supporting them in the digital transformation in the post-corona era. We therefore wanted to develop an online professionalization course consisting of several themes and available for secondary school teachers as this way of learning allows teachers to learn at their own pace and needs. Main focus of the e-course had to be the pedagogical and didactical approach of using specific interactive and online tools in classroom or in a blended learning environment as we wanted to enforce secondary school teachers in their ability to implement their expertise concerning ICT supported learning in the most effective way in order to maximise the learning results.

The first activity was an extensive needs analysis of the training needs of secondary school teachers in the field of ICT supported learning in the post-corona era to ensure that the content of the modules meets the actual needs of the participating schools. We gained insight in their needs by distributing an online questionnaire, by doing interviews with secondary teachers in Belgium and the Netherlands and by interviewing experts in the field of blended learning. Once this puzzle was laid, we started designing the online course, adding our own expertise and knowledge as teachers as well as that from educational experts. We defined the structure or road map of the course by identifying the overall curriculum, the learning goals and (interactive) learning content. By using this road map, we were able to commence the actual course development phase: we created the content of the course, filmed interviews with experts, recorded and edited voice-overs and translated the course. Once the first version was developed, we then asked feedback from several secondary teachers and made modifications to the course based on this feedback. Finally, we presented the online course to a wider audience through events and online marketing.

Concrete outputs of 'Lessons Learned, moving on from corona' are: - Research methodology, identifying the research tools that were used to gain insight in the needs of our direct target group - An overview of the current professional expertise and needs in terms of ICT supported learning in secondary schools - An e-course road map including the learning goals and content of each section in the course - An e-course, available in Dutch and English, on how to stimulate ICT supported learning based on the expertise gained by secondary teachers during corona and on new insights of educational experts. - A list of minor and major modifications made to the e-course based on the feedback from teachers. Besides that, two events were held in the Netherlands and Belgium and several digital marketing efforts were made to promote the e-course to secondary school teachers and other educational experts.