Abstract:

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that education must adjust to the demands made by digitalization. This impacts university education to the degree that lecturers must increasingly train their digital and didactical competences in order to execute exemplary teaching . Built upon the University of Applied Sciences CAMPUS 02’s beliefs that strong specialist and teaching skills are essential for high quality education, the Centre for Teaching Excellence offers tailored professional development services to all lecturers. Some of these services are designed to promote digital literacy to meet the demands of digitalization. According to the British JISC (2014), becoming a digital literate requires a person to possess the ability to live, learn and work in a digital society , specifically by being able to process and utilize information through and with digital technologies in multiple ways . Digital competences, such as media didactics, media ethics, media design, media communication, critical media literacy and media use , feed into the concept of the digital literate and have also been attributed to successful tertiary educators. As part of the onboarding and general teacher training program for the part-time lecturers at the University of Applied Sciences CAMPUS 02, its Centre for Teaching Excellence has developed the moodle course “Teaching at the University of Applied Sciences CAMPUS 02” to support lecturers in the digital age, train their digital and didactical competences, and accompany them on their didactical journey at CAMPUS 02. Based on a survey conducted by the Centre for Teaching Excellence in February 2022, part-time lecturers who are also working professionals and experts in their line of business reported that they had limited time resources to attend professional development workshops for teaching . The moodle course was then designed to increase participation with the help of a concise and asynchronous online-setting. Lecturers can pick modules according to their interest and needs in this moodle course and complete them in their own time, wherever and whenever they want. Each module is identical in its structure and provides information, new digital tools, and additional resources on the topic covered. In addition, participants can engage in online discussions with other lecturers or CAMPUS 02 staff. Encouraging lecturers to try out new digital technologies in their teaching goes hand in hand with the intention to support their professional development as educators. In our presentation, we will discuss the survey and theoretical concepts this online course is based on, present its structure and design as well as report on our experiences and the lecturers´ feedback.

Keywords:

e-learning, online course, teacher training, digital literacy.