Technostress as a Factor Affecting the Use of Technology by Beginning Teachers

The use of ICTs has become an obligation rather than an option for teachers. This intense pressure leads to a modern adaptation disorder expressed as technostress. Technostress is one of the many problems experienced particularly by beginning teachers, and the technostress levels of these teachers were investigated. For this purpose, in the 2015-2016 academic years, data were collected from 83 teachers having a professional seniority of 0-5 years. It was concluded that the general levels of technostress of the teachers were moderate, which they had a moderate-level technostress at the learning-teaching process-oriented, technical-issue-oriented, and social-oriented technostress factors, and they had a low-level of technostress at the profession-oriented and personal-oriented technostress factors. When examined in terms of the variables, while the general level of technostress does not vary by gender and branch group, it varies by the variable of average use of the internet. Finally, the solution proposals for technostress were examined.

E-Transformation in Higher Education and What It Coerces for the Faculty

With the phenomenal developments in information and communication technologies, higher education has been facing an unprecedented challenge that affects all the stakeholders. Faculty is no exception. The authors synthesize the demographic, economic, and pedagogical factors that lead to a paradigm shift in higher education and the global trends in digital technologies that impel digital transformation in higher education. They then provide a snapshot of how higher education institutions respond to this challenge and change, and the impact of these factors on the roles and competencies of faculty that need to be covered in faculty development initiatives in the digital age. Finally, examples of faculty development programs and initiatives that address the digital competencies of faculty are provided along with a summary of faculty development models for teaching and learning in the digital age.

Designing and Evaluating Technology-Based Formative Assessments

Formative assessments aligned with learning goals can improve student learning. Integrating technology into formative assessments can further enhance and transform the learning experience. This chapter focuses on how instructors can design and evaluate formative assessment activities that incorporate technology. It provides a practical guide for understanding how to apply the revised Bloom's taxonomy framework and the substitution, augmentation, modification, redefinition (SAMR) model to create meaningful technology-based formative assessments. This chapter includes evaluations of example technology-based formative assessments that align with learning goals based on Bloom's taxonomy. It determines if the technology used to either substitute or improve the functionality of the activity, enables the redesign of an entire activity, or yields a new activity that is impossible without the technology. This information can be applied to ensure the integrity of technology-based formative assessments and to determine if using a technology tool in a formative assessment is worthwhile.

Customized Consultation to Enhance Teacher Educators' Techno-Pedagogical Skills

Educational technology is an indispensable element of higher education teaching. Teacher educators need knowledge and skills to design and successfully implement technology-enhanced learning. However, research reveals that professional development programs have only a low impact on teacher educators' teaching practice. An evaluation framework evaluating professional development training programs was implemented. The model evaluates training impact over four levels: participant's satisfaction, learning, and application of what was learned and connection of the training results to organizational outcomes. Consultation meetings varying in length, offered by the ICT unit, assisted teacher educators to integrate technology according to their content, style, and needs. They could also participate in courses designed and implemented by colleagues, group meetings, workshops, and online synchronous and asynchronous consultation meetings. The college's educational vision and integration of the PD program into the teacher educator's teaching practice were important factors for success.

Supporting Learning Design as a Driver for Pedagogical Innovation Within an Integrated Model of Faculty Development

Research on faculty development supporting pedagogical innovation has gained momentum since effective teaching and learning are deemed a central piece for the modernization of higher education. However, the field is still characterized by a low level of conceptualization, fragmented approaches, and unclear strategies on organizational level. This chapter concentrates on the DIDe-L case, a strategic program of faculty development promoted by the University of Florence and based on an integrated approach to training. Specifically, it focuses on the “e-Learning Desk,” an institutional service ensuring instructional coaching for learning design. Through the analysis of teachers' reactions and renewed practices, the authors aim at exploring what institutional and organizational conditions may prevent or facilitate pedagogical innovation and change. Results showed that the approach characterizing the service had a positive impact on teachers' growth, although institutional obstacles like lack of recognition or support still prevent teachers to fully deploy pedagogical innovations.

Faculty Development in Digital Spaces

The 21st-century faculty member is faced with numerous challenging tasks. Teaching must be current and highly engaging. To ensure the highest quality faculty development focused on digital teaching and learning, higher education academic institutions need to identify innovative new ways to address these challenges, often through digital methods and deliveries. Too often, however, faculty are pressured with diminished time and resources. That is, teaching, scholarship, and service dominate faculty members' schedules and time for faculty development is limited. To confront this serious issue, higher education academic institutions should develop applicable and digitally enabled faculty development programs designed in online, modular environments. This chapter provides an overview and analysis of the concept, design, and implementation of the DEEP (Developing Excellence in Eastern's Professors) online, modular faculty development system as a model for digital teaching and learning.

Measuring the Digital Transformation of Education and Teaching

The digital transformation has reached higher education and many faculty members find teaching in the digital environment hard. A key question for educational institutions is whether the uptake of blended learning within their digitization strategies matches the pace of technological innovation. This chapter discusses a model for monitoring the progress of educational digitization that has been in use throughout four years at HTW Chur, Switzerland. The model connects technologies to practices rather than abstracting technologies from them. This helps identifying performance indicators in campus-wide information systems for understanding the diffusion of technology uses among the faculty, and it helps categorizing new technologies towards their organizational innovation potential. The combined use of these performance indicators with the model supports tailoring faculty development activities for digitization strategies that are based on the actual development needs within the institution.

Artificial Intelligence Methods in E-Learning

Gathering and extracting knowledge from the large amount of data available today is becoming more and more important in our information society, and similarly, learning is an essential important part of our everyday lives. The new requirements of the competing world and the development of more advanced technologies have also changed traditional educational systems, which now employ better and more effective teaching and learning methods. In this regard, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the field of education offers both great challenges and opportunities in building e-learning systems. E-learning systems allow learners to access the educational materials ubiquitously from anywhere at any time. Therefore, these systems have to become adaptive to the needs and preferences of each individual learner. This chapter presents a review of the important concepts and background for research to include introduction and examination of e-learning systems and intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), available today.

Equipping Teacher Educators for Digital Teaching and Learning

Considering that teachers are central to good education and teacher educators are central to good teacher education, it is logical that due care must be taken to equip teacher educators for digital teaching and learning. In fact, continuing professional development of teacher educators in terms of digital teaching and learning is a necessity of our times. Extending these arguments, the chapter, that is mainly based on the review and analysis of policy documents and practices as well as other available literature and statistics related to teacher educators, begins with discussions on role and importance of teacher educators, details the need and promises of preparing teacher educators for digital teaching and learning, delves upon practices of and challenges before teacher educators to master digital teaching and learning, and ends with presenting innovative strategies to empower teacher educators for the world of digital teaching and learning.

Promoting Digital Teaching and Learning

This chapter explores various faculty development digital teaching and learning options that higher education institutions can offer distance learning instructors. The chapter explains specific methods of providing professional development opportunities for these educators. Some of these options are connected to promotion and tenure, acquisition of new technology, and personal satisfaction. Recently developed technological rewards such as digital badges and credentials are discussed in this chapter. The author explains how nationally recognized professional development programs can enhance professional development programs by offering new options to faculty. The author recommends that higher education institutions modify their current processes for offering professional development options for faculty who design and develop distance learning courses. The chapter suggests that faculty members need specific digital teaching and learning professional development training options when designing and teaching distance learning courses.