The school to come. Reflections on the sidelines by Stefania Capogna
(by Stefania Capogna) “Digital Culture for Educational Organizations. Guidelines for Teachers and Education Agencies "(1) is the final outcome of the research carried out in the three-year period 2016-2019 for the realization of the DECODE Project" DEvelop COmpetences in Digital Era. Skills, best practices and teaching in the 2st century ”. Project carried out within a strategic partnership in the field of education, in the framework of an Erasmus + KA2016 project (1-02-IT201-KA024234-2). (XNUMX)
The main objective of that project was the desire to start a discussion about the real experimentation / incorporation of ICT in teaching practices, with the aim of entering the black box of the educational space to understand how digital transforms the system of relationships through which the context and the process of personal growth and training develops.
The starting point of the research is to be found in the idea that knowledge of the state of the art on the use of digital for educational purposes is fundamental for: informing education policies with respect to the strategic choices of direction in digital at school; feed the reflection on the expected education model; face the challenges of the 4.0st century. Challenges that ask us to deal seriously and critically, without prejudice, with the meaning and value of digital technologies for the integral training of man and for the renewal of organizational and production processes driven by the revolution of industry XNUMX.
The project ended at the end of August 2019 and the main results of the research were made available through a dedicated online space (http://decode-net.eu/), from which it is possible to access all the materials produced.
Even if only a few months have passed, it seems to be an ice age, following the forcing imposed by the lock down of the Covid 19 emergency at school and university. But precisely for this reason it is necessary to distance oneself from the digital 'hangover' that the whole educational system (and not only) has undergone, in order to critically rethink the unsolved, and never fully understood, problems that distance learning has only highlighted and aggravated.
The DECODE project aimed to reconstruct also in a comparative key:
- the uses, the methodologies and the most widespread practices in use among school teachers of all levels and degrees, in the enhancement and integration of Learning and Knowledge Technologies (TAC);
- the framework of skills and training needs that characterize teaching professionalism in the digital age, in order to support strategic decisions regarding training, updating and accompanying in service;
- the emerging competence profiles, prompted by the changes observed within the new educational paradigm.
A path that ended with a training-intervention action, with the ambition to activate a 'transformative learning' and "community of practices", based on the enhancement of reflective practice, self-evaluation, co -evaluation and peer learning; because the teaching professionalism is not acquired once and for all but is cultivated throughout life.
Downstream of the Covid 19 emergency and the on-line movement of all the activities that until a few months ago seemed impossible, if not when irregular, stopping to look at the starting situation seems essential, to avoid the risk of "clearing customs" digital as a panacea for all evils, through the trivialization of educational action, and the loss of sense of the holistic and systemic perspective of a foundational relationship for the subject and for the community.
The project sought to promote better knowledge than the use of digital in professional and educational practices, with the aim of intercepting, sharing, enhancing and disseminating the good practices present in schools, to activate virtuous innovation processes from within ”, And give voice and recognition to those who do it every day, with passion and dedication.
This long research path comes to an end with the final publication that traces the most salient stages of the work carried out, with the aim of delineating factors of similarity and differences, strengths and weaknesses, development prospects and threats, which weigh on the world of the school, in comparison with the digital challenge. The perspective that accompanied the analysis is of a descriptive-interpretative nature, with the aim of understanding the tensions that inhabit the daily life of educational action, accompanying the search for new solutions and identifying useful suggestions for "sailors", to the different levels. Not a punitive work, nor the search for guilty to sacrifice or responsibility to distribute but an effort of knowledge of daily practices, in order to support the path towards the new challenges that await us.
Referring to the project site for further information, we will focus in this short contribution on a summary representation that outlines the pre-Covid state of the art. And, although many say that three forced months of distance learning have made more than ten years of investment and training, the state of departure and the system problems on which the emergency has grafted cannot be ignored.
The results of national research, in fact, have highlighted some "limits", which are transversal to the policies of the various partner countries of the project: lack of a vision and a unified national framework to support digital policies; absence of a national coordination on the subject of digital innovation, accompanied by a fragmentation of responsibilities and competences, and not only in relation to schools; difficulty in making the most of virtuous experiences and getting out of a stop and go logic linked to projects; endemic lack of investment on the school side; difficulty in grasping the real needs of accompaniment for school managers and teachers, on how digital can transform the school organization and the educational pact between school-students-families-territory.
The integration of digital technologies in the environment and in the teaching-learning process is not limited, as was done in an unusual emergency situation, to the mere transfer, within on-line environments, of the traditional activities carried out in the classroom , but the need for an overall cultural and didactic-organizational re-planning. Although accessibility represents a decisive constraint that cannot be ignored, the quality of teaching-learning cannot be improved simply by investing in the technical dimension. The mediating role of educators (teachers, parents, reference adults), and their alliance with respect to the educational purpose / value, is more important than ever, as the experience of the suspension of ordinary activities has also shown. But the educational action, and the related didactic-methodological choices, cannot take place in a vacuum, on the basis of abstract principles, but must dialogue with the legacy determined by social, economic, cultural and local factors, and must start the needs and resources present in the contexts in which educational action is called to 'act'. And if the school is asked to create an action plan, identify verifiable objectives to be achieved, set up mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance, it is also true that its school "micro-policy" moves in a governance framework with variable configurations and double polarity, that is stretched between the central and intermediate levels, within which the margin of autonomy recognized to it does not always correspond to the spectrum of responsibilities attributed to it. This is why it is necessary to recompose the framework of the different responsibilities in order to move towards a common goal in a united way.
The survey carried out through the DECODE research involved a total of 2652 teachers who participated voluntarily and free of charge in the online survey (Italy: 937; Spain: 693; Romania 401; Finland: 366; United Kingdom: 255). The questions in the questionnaire aimed to explore four main areas: daily teaching practice in relation to the technological equipment provided by the school; the concrete use of technologies and personal resources in professional practice and daily teaching; the wealth of experience and skills of the teachers; the most relevant experiences. An essential reference point was the Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu), through which the teachers involved were able to self-assess their digital skills. Without going into the details of the research results, we summarize here only the elements that seem to us most in line with the challenge of the moment, focusing in particular on the Italian situation. In this regard, we will focus on the results of statistical analysis, to identify the dominant profiles through which the teaching agency is expressed in the comparison with the digital. On the basis of the population of respondents it was possible to distinguish three profiles.
Profile 1 (cluster 1: 295 teachers) is distinguished by a residual use of ICT in teaching practice, although they have digital skills and resorting to technologies for professional and personal use, they are not incorporated into teaching practices, except, in fact, in residual manner. The dominant orientation with respect to the way the digital interface is approached in this case seems to focus on interaction based on a transmission logic of information / content; while there seems to be no specific use in its function as a mediator of knowledge, to support and integrate the transmission function operated by the teacher.
Profile 2 (cluster 2: 277 teachers) is characterized by a prevalent use of basic digital technologies, with particular attention to promoting creative and participatory activities. If you look at how ICT is used in their interface function that allows you to extend our capacity for action / interpretation and knowledge, an orientation guided by the value attributed to interaction and relationship seems to emerge, also for learning purposes; the reflective dimension aimed at self-empowerment, and the access / construction of new knowledge. The difference does not make the type of technical resources used but the methodology and training objectives with which it is adopted.
Finally, profile 3 (cluster 3: 228 teachers) is characterized by a prevalent use of advanced digital technologies. In this case, the network is mainly experienced as a "place" for the development of the self and the opportunities for recreation, with a tendency to use digital resources to promote collaborative activities for educational purposes.
The overall results of the work have revealed the presence of a 'two-speed innovation' and the persistence of an opposing tension between innovation and tradition. On the one hand, the tendency to adapt the consolidated strategies and practices by the professional body is observed; on the other the attempt to experiment innovative solutions, build new knowledge and develop new skills.
It is clear that the emergency of the last few months has grafted onto a system which, albeit with many delays and difficulties, did not start from scratch. Reason why, in a short space of time despite all the problems mentioned on several sides, we managed to recreate a semblance of the minimum process of transmitting knowledge, inevitably losing the other two essential functions to which school contributes in the training of the person: the dimension of subjectivation and that of socialization, essential for the affirmation of the individual and collective self.
What we can learn from this research, also to try to design a new post-Covid normality, is that in the majority of cases represented, in all the countries involved, learning with respect to the use of digital technology in teaching takes place through paths of self-socialization, mainly played in informal contexts, within professional communities, often virtual, or gathered around common projects, objectives and values, giving evidence of virtuous experiences scattered patchy and struggling to make system and mass criticism. At the same time, the research results show the difficulty of intercepting that component of the faculty less inclined to attend social networking spaces / communities for professional development, and who feels less comfortable in online learning environments. . This is a component, therefore, which risks living its role in solitude, and not having sufficient opportunities to increase one's skills and professionalism.
In fact, the teacher's professionalism does not end in the acquisition of purely disciplinary knowledge and skills, nor within the physical limit of the class and the ritual and scenic paraphernalia that accompanies a traditional classroom lecture.
The teacher is increasingly required to:
- design environments and paths of discovery and construction of knowledge;
- manage personalized, individualized and disjointed learning environments and processes, which are aimed at an audience of students who bring to the school (thanks to mass schooling processes) a mass of unresolved requests and problems, not even imaginable only twenty years ago;
- practice the art of an empowering assessment that allows everyone to activate their personal resources for the exercise of an active and responsible citizenship to act in the scenario of the challenges posed by global and sustainable development;
- acquire knowledge and skills in the management of interpersonal, group, organizational and process communication, also within digital environments;
- remember that all this is useless if the educational act does not engage in the Master-Student relationship. Not the aseptic and impersonal teacher-learner relationship, but the authentic and profound one, founded on the empathic recognition of the other, and therefore always unique and different.
All of this is not replaceable with DaD, and with no digital technology, but the good news is that it is not in contrast with it. It is possible to assume, what good the digital can offer, from time to time, based on the specific needs that each subject / context brings with it, within this value-methodological context.
To conclude, therefore, the problem is not whether the teacher knows how to use digital technologies in teaching practice or not, but rather to rethink and recompose the tertiary socialization paths essential in the formation of the professional habitus and ethos that should distinguish teaching, at all levels, in the third millennium. It is trivial and ungenerous to reduce the difficulties of the moment to the problems of the school. School is not an abstract and indefinite subject. The school is a 'community of co-responsibility', it is all of us, each of us, each with his role as private and public. Each in defense of the value of a school, and a profession, dedicated to the care of our best resources, our children, our young people who are the present in which to invest. It is for this reason that there can be no reopening of the school, nor investment in the DDA, which can ignore a renewed culture of the "network", able to recreate in the territories - and not only - stable networks (university school-civil society- local and national institutions), and to cultivate social capital, in order to direct the educational project towards the changes imposed by the digital revolution that imposes on us in the immediate, and in the near future, much wider challenges than the DDA.
Stefania Capogna Associate Professor and Director of the Research Center Digital Technologies, Education & Society, Link Campus University and Head of AIDR Digital Education Observatory
NOTES
- The publication we are reporting on is a summary of the work of a much wider team in which students and colleagues participated in various capacities. A heartfelt thanks goes to each of them, and the teachers who have had the patience to participate in the research with their testimonies and the compilation of the online survey.
- The project partners were: Link Campus University Foundation (FLCU); CRES-IELPO Research Center, Department of Education - Roma Tre University; ANP National Association of Public Managers and High School Professionals (Italy); UOC, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain); Omnia, the Joint Authority of Education and Regional Center of Espoo (Finland); IES, Institutul de Ştiinţe ale Educaţiei (Romania); Aspire International (UK).
- As regards the Italian case, 935 complete questionnaires were received and multivariate analysis was possible on these.