Abstract:

The COVID-19 caused global pandemic has been a challenge in Latvia not only in school and university education but also in teachers’ professional development (TPD). Latvia like other nations is experiencing a curriculum change (Nieveen, & Plomp, 2018) that features a center on 21st-century skills, complex utilize of information, attitudes, and students’ capacity to solve complex issues. These changes lead to a demand for TPD programs, which Interdisciplinary Center for Educational Innovation of the University of Latvia is organizing for various teacher groups.

With the beginning of the restrictions, the ongoing TPD programs were carried out online. The henceforth scheduled face-to-face 36-hour TPD program was dedicated to changes in participant corresponding subjects’ curricula, planning, teaching 21st-century skills, and interdisciplinary learning. Due to the restrictions, the program was modified – the first two days of the program (four 90 min. seminars) were carried out online, the concluding two days (after the abate of the restrictions) – in face-to-face seminars. The orientation towards online and blended learning led us to research questions:
1) how to design a blended learning based TPD model?
2) how to evaluate the designed TPD model?

Research shows a number of benefits for teachers from online TPD, one of them – anytime/anywhere professional learning (Swenson & Curtis, 2003; Vrasidas & Zembulas, 2004). The program was planned according to the matrix described by Grant and Dickson (2008), in which an online TPD program is described according to 7 practices (communication, cooperation, active learning, feedback, time, expectations, respect for diversity) and 7 lecturer competencies.

810 primary and middle school teachers participated in the online seminars from April till June. The teachers were split into groups of 20 to 25 according to their subject and grades taught (35 groups in total). The online part of the program started with a 90-minute online seminar dedicated to changes in curricula, after which participants were given 3 hours to complete an exercise regarding the covered content. Another online seminar dedicated to teaching 21st-century skills. The second day of online learning was planned similarly. Between the days of learning the participants had to complete homework dedicated to lesson planning. The online seminars included input from the lecturer, discussions, and analysis of curriculum materials and lesson recordings. The two days of face-to-face seminars dedicated to interdisciplinary learning and planning are planned in August and September. These seminars place more emphasis on participants' group work and discussions.

The research is still going on. Preliminary results were obtained from the online part of the program, which was evaluated using feedback from participants, lecturers, and also from experts who observed the seminars. Based on the matrix mentioned previously, a set of 14 Likert-scale type questions (on a scale from 0 to 5) was created and offered to participants. The feedback from lecturers and experts was obtained in separate discussions, which were led according to the questions given to participants. The preliminary results show that the teachers evaluate instructors' time management and the relevance of the program's topic highest (4.75 and 4.65 average), but cooperation between participants and participants and instructors were rated lowest (3.51 and 3.89 average).

Keywords:

Blended learning, teacher professional development, online learning.