Conference Agenda

The need for digital competence development of teachers, which goes hand in hand with digital transformation, among other things, requires the adaptation of existing conceptual approaches and their transfer to all phases of teacher education to foster teachers' digital competences in Europe. This leads to challenges in teacher education, which are also addressed in the "Digital Education Action Plan" (European Commission, 2020). One key goal of this action plan is to develop “digital skills and competences for the digital transformation” (ibid., p. 12).

To achieve this goal, digitisation-related resources such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), learning videos or digital training modules that are both theoretically sound and practice-oriented can be used in the context of (prospective) teachers' education and training. This approach has the advantage that digitisation-related competences of (prospective) teachers can be developed quickly and nationwide.

A profitable form of developing such digitisation-related resources can take place in cross-phase Communities of Practice (CoPs; van Ackeren et al., 2020) because the cooperation of representatives from diverse areas and phases of teacher education brings together different expertise. This contributes to the quality of the digitisation-related resources and possibly facilitates the transfer of the resources into the teacher education system by addressing the needs of school practice.

In general, transfer research has identified three main areas that are relevant for successful transfer: the characteristics of the learners, the characteristics of the learning situation, and the characteristics of the scope of application of the acquired knowledge (Baldwin, Ford & Prasad, 2018; Grossman & Salas, 2011). Central characteristics of the learners are their understanding of their role and their motivation to perceive the learning situation.

Among other things, this should be as close to reality as possible (ibid.) and is conditioned by the CoP work in the context examined here. Studies indicate that in general, learning from each other takes place in CoPs when there is a high degree of certain characteristics such as the diversity of the CoP members, the cohesion and group feeling, the quality of interaction and the free structuring of the CoP. Diversity refers to the composition of the CoP. If there is a high degree of diversity, the CoP members benefit from the different expertise. However, the basic prerequisite is a common basis of ideas so that compromises are possible in the CoP. With a high degree of cohesion, the openness in the CoP increases and the feeling of a group can also rise. With a high degree of interaction and the independent structuring of work, knowledge acquisition can also increase due to the possibility of adapting the structures to the needs of the group (Sagmeister, 2019; Henschel, 2001).

In addition, it requires the support of the organisations or institutions in which the new knowledge is to be applied, e.g., by creating situations in which this is made possible (Grossman & Salas, 2011).

These general assumptions that apply to transfer and CoPs have so far been studied mainly in the context of economic organizations. However, the context-specific determinants of teacher educators' transfer in cross-phase CoPs and whether there are different types of transfer in the context of teacher educators' CoP work remain unexplored. Based on the research context and data of the COMeIN project (Communities of Practice for Innovative Teacher Education) with more than 400 participants from all phases of teacher education, this contribution focuses therefore the following research questions:

1. To what extent can types of transfer be identified in the cross-phase CoP work of teacher educators?

2. Which determinants can contribute to the transfer success of digitisation-related resources into the teacher education system?

The use of digital learning material offers new possibilities for teaching and learning in schools: Learning content can be conveyed in different forms of presentation (text, video, audio, graphics) and can be made available to students throughout the learning process, facilitating self-paced learning (cf. e.g. Sánchez Moreno & Martínez, 2022). Compared to analog media, digital media offer more opportunities in self-learning phases to adapt the learning material to the learners (adaptivity) and more interactivity to stimulate students' own activity and to provide them with direct feedback (Köster, 2018). Thus, the findings of Spitzler and Musslick's (2021) study indicate, that digital learning environments can help teachers to support students adaptively (ibid.). Furthermore, digital media can support the implementation of alternative didactic concepts, such as the flipped classroom approach (e.g. Álvarez-García & Enríquez-Díaz, 2020).

However, the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) shows that in Germany, digital media are used less frequently in the classroom than in other countries (IEA-ICILS; Fraillon, Ainley, Schulz, Friedman, & Duckworth, 2019). Yet, the use of digital learning materials presupposes that teachers have been appropriately prepared for it and possess the corresponding competencies (Eickelmann, Drossel & Heldt, 2021). According to the state of research, this is precisely where a glaring deficit lies in the context of teacher training in Germany: For example, a shortcoming is evident in the adequate training of teachers in this area, according to which only about a quarter of teachers in each case have learned how to use digital media (25.9%) or apply them in teaching (26.6%) as part of their training (ibid.) – however, these data refer to the situation before the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in digitization worldwide through the increased use of digital media in distance education (see, e.g., Sonnenburg & Hornberg, 2022), including Germany. At the same time, however, the pandemic also highlighted the lack of media competencies among teachers: One challenge that emerged were the different competencies and experiences of teachers who had to switch to (an almost) nationwide digital distance instruction unpreparedly (cf. in overview Sonnenburg, Buddeberg & Hornberg, 2022). Even though the study results show that younger teachers tended to be trained more in the area of digital media, indicating a gradual development of teacher education in Germany, there is still a considerable need for development (Eickelmann et al., 2021).

Particularly in the creation and use of digital learning materials, it is important that student teachers not only learn the technical skills to use digital media but receive support in the area of media didactic competence (see Blömeke, 2017). Appropriate learning opportunities are considered essential in teacher education for the acquisition of digital media competence in order to learn and practice the use of digital media in the classroom in a way that promotes learning (see e.g. Reintjes et al., 2021).

In order to teach student teachers both technical and didactic media competencies, we designed and implemented a teaching-learning concept for university teacher education. As part of this teaching-learning concept, student teachers create digital, interactive learning material themselves using the open source software H5P. They also test it in the role of the learner. This gives student teachers the opportunity to gain experience with digital interactive learning materials from both the teacher's and the learner's perspective. Based on this, the project presented here examines how student teachers can thereby be supported in dealing with media-didactic aspects in the creation and use of digital learning materials.