ENTWICKLUNG DER DIGITALEN KOMPETENZ VON ANGEHENDEN DAF-LEHRKRÄFTEN AN DER UNIVERSITÄT LJUBLJANA
DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL COMPETENCE OF FUTURE TEACHERS OF GERMAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA

Summary/Abstract: In modern society, digital technology is becoming increasingly important and, at the same time, is experiencing a growing interest in the research landscape. Without digital technology, active participation in professional or private life is no longer imaginable. The European Union also takes this fact into account by establishing digital competence as one of the key competencies for lifelong learning (European Commission 2006, 2018). The development of digital competence and the use of digital technologies in the teaching-learning process also poses major challenges for teacher educators and future teachers, as teachers are expected to contribute to better teaching quality through the use of ICT while serving as role models for the next generations. On the one hand, teachers must have their own digital competence, and on the other hand, they should design lessons in such a way that learners also develop the necessary digital competence. Based on the relevant literature, it can be seen that the concept of digital competence has changed with the development of digital technologies. Ferrari defines digital competence as the set of knowledge, skills, attitudes, abilities, strategies, and values that enable effective, efficient, appropriate, creative, autonomous, flexible, ethical, and reflective action in the context of work, leisure, and learning (2012, 3). According to JISC (2014, o. S.) „ [d]igital competence [...] includes the knowledge and skills required to use information and communication technology and digital media.” Vuorikari (o. D., o. S.) describes „digital competence as an overarching competence (that) also helps us to master other competencies, such as communication, language skills, or basic knowledge in mathematics and science.” At the EU level, two definitions have been put forward by the European Commission. First in 2005 as computer competence and then in 2018 expanded as digital competence. „Digital competence encompasses the safe, critical and responsible use and handling of digital technologies for education, training, work and social participation. It includes information and data competence, communication and collaboration, digital content creation (including programming), security (including digital wellbeing and cybersecurity skills), and problem solving.” (European Commission, 2018, 4). From the various definitions of digital competence, it is clear that digital is not a stand-alone competence that can be developed in a specific way, but a cross-cutting or transversal competence that makes linear development difficult or even impossible. In the field of teacher education and teacher training, much attention is paid to digital competence and its development. For example, Ortmann-Welp (2021) provides an overview of the changing roles and required competence development of teachers, Krempkow (2021), Çebi and Reisoğlu (2020) investigated how digitally competent students are in the first place, Gudmundsdottir and Hatlevik (2018) investigated teachers' digital competence at the beginning of their teaching career, Rubach and Lazarides' (2019) study leads to a self-assessment scale of student teachers' digital competence, Lázaro-Cantabrana et. al (2019) focused on the knowledge component, Eichhorn and Tillmann (2018) focus on the necessary digital competence of university teachers and Frischherz on digital competence in the field of science (2018), Becker et al. (2020) present an orientation framework for the development of digital competence of universities of applied sciences, just to name a few. Most studies are either based on self-assessment by participants or are designed as smaller case studies. There are numerous attempts to define digital competence within the framework of a competence model. The two best known models are the TPACK and SAMR models. Mishra and Koehler's 2006 TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Framework) model, which is an extension of Shulman's (1986) concept, describes different types of knowledge that teachers need to successfully integrate technologies into the classroom. The model emphasises the interrelationships among the pedagogical, technological, and content knowledge that teachers must balance to create a technologyenhanced and successful learning environment (Mishra and Koehler 1025). The TPACK model consists of seven knowledge domains, with TPACK knowledge representing the intersection of all domains. Puentedura's 2006 SAMR model, modified in 2013, has a stage-like structure and includes four stages (replacement, enhancement, modification, and reassignment) that show teachers how to transform analogue learning materials into digital learning tasks. The model provides teachers with a way to analyse, systematically develop, and reflect on their own use of digital tools. Another research aspect of digital competence development is the attempt to capture, model and systematise the digital competence of individuals. The most well-known reference framework across Europe is called DigCompEdu or Digital Competence Framework for Educators (Redecker 2017). The design of this framework was adopted for our university course. The DigCompEdu competency framework aims to capture the competencies that a digital professional teacher needs in everyday life for meaningful use of digital media and targets teachers at all levels of education with the intention of supporting them in developing and assessing their own digital competence. The framework is based on a model that defines three overarching areas of competence: Teachers' Professional Competencies, Teachers' Pedagogical and Didactic Competencies, and Learners' Competencies, which are in turn divided into six subordinate areas. In the compulsory internship at elementary and secondary schools, future teachers are expected not only to have professional and didactic competencies, but also strong digital competence in planning and delivering modern instruction in German as a foreign language. Although today's students are digital natives, it is not a given that they will also automatically have digital competence for teaching a subject. When planning the course, the goal was to acquire the basic competencies to prepare future teachers for digital challenges in the real world. An attempt was made to achieve the highest possible level according to DigCompEdu. The knowledge and competencies of the future teachers targeted by the course were also immediately tested in practise during the 2020/2021 academic year due to the Corona pandemic. The course ICT in Teaching German as a foreign language, which is evaluated with three credits, is designed for 45 contact hours, of which 15 hours are organised as lectures and 30 hours as exercises. Self-study accounts for 45 hours. In order to find out how effective the design of the course and the activities planned in the course were for developing digital competence for teaching and learning and how future teachers perceive their digital competence, the quantitative research method, namely a survey, was used to investigate this question. Following Tondeur et. al. (2017) and DigCompEdu (Redecker 2017), an online questionnaire was created with 19 statements, asking respondents to express their agreement on a five-point Likert scale and also to rate their digital competence with DigCompEdu in teaching and learning. Twenty-two MA future teachers (18 women and 4 men) who completed all or part of the school internship online and took the ICT in Teaching German as a Foreign Language course in the 2020/2021 school year participated in the online survey. This represents 95% of the total cohort. The results in the area of teaching show that student teachers rate the development of their digital competence very highly in all aspects listed. The results in the area of learning show that after the course, the student teachers are able to support learners in their search for data and promote a critical approach to data. In the learning process, they are able to help learners organise and structure data and process data. In addition, the future teachers were asked to rate their digital competence in teaching and learning using the DigCompEdu grid (Redecker, 36). Of the 22 future teachers, 13 future teachers assessed themselves at the B1 level, five at the B2 level, three future teachers assumed they were already at the C1 level, and one person assessed themselves at the A2 level. Although a self-assessment tool has its limitations and does not indicate whether the selfassessments actually correspond to their digital knowledge, it can be inferred that the future teachers are quite confident about their own digital competence and do not feel let down by higher education. According to the survey, the course proved to be a successful dovetailing of theory and practise, enabling future teachers to acquire sufficient digital competence for beginners in both areas (learning and teaching). The selfassessment shows that they are able to plan and design lessons and integrate digital media into various learning processes. They can create collaborative learning opportunities and are able to promote self-directed learning. Future teachers will be able to communicate successfully using digital media. They are less digitally literate in the area of assessing learning outcomes. Although today's students belong to the generation of digital natives, they do not automatically have highly developed digital competence that they can easily apply in their professional lives, nor should it go unmentioned that digital competence varies widely among future teachers. For this reason, designing the course in the context of teacher training is more than necessary.

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