Abstract:

The digital transformation in Higher education (HE) is driven by several causes such as flexibility and globalisation, and during the spring in 2020 also by the Corona-pandemic. This article identifies and discusses the challenges and consequences concerning increased digitalised education to which today’s instructors’ in HE are exposed, and how these influences and changes place new demands on what characterises instructors’ professional knowledge. This article reports on the literature associated with instructors’ uptake and use of digital technologies. The review highlights the role of pedagogy and suggests that instructors’ agency about pedagogy and teaching with digital technologies are central to further development of HE. It is suggested and introduces the concept of Pedagogical Agency in Digitalised Education (PADE), built on pedagogy, the agency and digital competence to better understand instructors’ professional knowledge within a system of increasingly digitalised higher education (i.e. in universities), which respond to and balance the needs of new competences and agencies in education. Developing PADE is an important factor in overall teaching and education development and the article may provide valuable insight into how instructors’ relation with digital technology may contribute to enhancing their agency to handle relations and expectations between technology, content, pedagogy and changing contextual realities.

Keywords:

Higher education, Digitalisation, Pedagogical Agency in Digitalised Education, Pedagogy.