Conference Agenda

Ever since their creation, institutions of higher education have been closely bound up with the diverse, incessant changes brought about by the political, social and economic conditions that have ceaselessly continued to evolve throughout history (Redondo & Sánchez, 2007; Rojo, 2000). In this regard, it becomes inevitable to talk about information and communications technologies (ICTs). The great cultural and social changes brought about in recent years by technological evolution and development, and in particular the situation in the wake of the global COVID19 pandemic, cannot be ignored, and, naturally, this has led to a series of demands and requirements in the education environment. With the implementation in Spain of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), it has also become evident that there is a vital need to review many aspects of the existing model of university-level education, including organization and management, administration, and teaching and learning methods (Río & Hìpola, 2005).

The overriding priorities in university institutions are educational equality, the quality of higher education, lifelong learning, employability, a student-centered teaching-learning process, research and innovation, international projection and increasing student mobility opportunities (European Commission, 2009).

Moreover, all this need to be addressed against the backdrop of a university environment that is increasingly heterogeneous and diverse in terms of social and cultural considerations, age differences, and different personal and professional situations, and with an ever-growing presence of functionally diverse students. As a result, in recent years universities have clearly striven to implement more inclusive procedural policies and regulations at local and/or European level. This has been done taking into account Sustainable Development Goal 4 of the European Union’s 2030 Agenda, which states that an inclusive, egalitarian education should be guaranteed and lifelong learning opportunities should be promoted for all (European Union, 2010; United Nations Organization, 2015).<0}

This means eliminating barriers not only in infrastructure but also in virtual environments and the processes that take place in them. Universities should therefore review their practices in order to allow participation by all students and guarantee learning. It is necessary to redefine not only policies and actions focused on diversity awareness and inclusive education, but also those which affect ICT usage (O’Byrne, Jagoe & Lawler, 2019; Odame, Opoku, Nketsia & Nanor, 2021; Valee, 2017).

This study aims to analyze and describe both the ways in which teachers integrate ICTs in the classroom to accommodate diversity and their knowledge of the different national and international standards regarding digital competence and its incorporation into curricular policy.

Digital technology has increasingly influenced all areas of education, including higher education. Not only general communication and collaboration technologies are widely used in all educational areas, but also subject-specific technologies developed for specific professional contexts. Within educational programmes of building construction in higher education, this can, for example, be drawing programmes such as Revit supplemented with Virtual Reality technology, which is the empirical context for this paper.

The development of teachers’ teaching skills can be seen as combinations of different knowledge domains. Here, the so-called PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge) research tradition has been quite prominent since its introduction by Schulman (1986), mainly with focus on pre- and primary school areas. Particularly concerning teachers’ competences in technological integration, a special tradition has later developed under the term TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, And Content Knowledge). This framework was introduced in an article by Mishra and Koehler (2006), in which the authors argued that this area should be highlighted as a third domain due to the growth of digital technology development. Both the PCK and the TPACK tradition are based on the idea that the different domains are integrated or transformed into a new knowledge construct (Kind, 2015; Angeli et al., 2016). The perception of integration/transformation is rooted in a cognitive view of knowledge and learning (Schulman, 2015). However, this has raised some ontological questions about how a ‘knowledge domain’ should actually be understood (Shulman, 2015), and this, in turn, leads to challenges in conceptualising what regulates integration and transformation processes. This has given rise to criticism and discussion, both internally from the research field, but also from other sides, e.g. educational sociology fields. Howard and Maton (2011) have argued that the three knowledge domains in TPACK – though they identify important content areas – are locked in their empirical context. According to the authors, there is a lack of concepts for determining what forms knowledge takes; i.e. forms that can be compared across empirical contexts.

In order to identify some underlying principles of how knowledge practices are structured, the so-called specialisation codes from ‘Legitimation Code Theory’ (LCT) can be employed (Maton, 2014). Specialisation codes are about the ‘basis of achievement’; i.e. what counts as legitimate knowledge and what constitutes a legitimate ‘knower’ in a specific setting. A distinction is made between two sets of principles/dimensions: ‘epistemic relations’ and ‘social relations’. The former deals with the significance of epistemological matters such as possessing specialist procedures, methods and techniques related to the subject matter. ‘Social relations’ deals with the significance of personal traits/characteristics of the ‘knower’, whether such traits are innate or come from belonging to social groups (Bourdieu, 1988). The two dimensions can vary independently of each other as continua and thereby form four different code modalities; knowledge code, knower code, elite code and relativist code. These codes make it possible to analyse what dominates teachers’ transformation of knowledge into a pedagogical discourse suitable for students’ learning. The research question that the paper discusses is: How can specialisation codes contribute to conceptualising technological knowledge transformation into pedagogical discourse and thereby complement the TPACK framework? This paper thus proposes an educational sociology perspective on the transformation issue. The empirical work that forms the basis of the argumentation is a case study, which is part of a larger research project comprising a number of UC’s and universities in Denmark. The overall aim was to develop teachers’ digital competences in construction education. The actual case study is about a teacher’s transformation of knowledge about Virtual Reality (VR) to teaching practice in a Constructing Architect program (CA-program).

Digitalization in education has brought great challenges for teachers. Digital competence in teaching has become a key and necessary competence in the educational systems of the world (European Commission, 2020). European Union Council (2018) defines digital competence as "the safe, critical and responsible use of digital technologies for learning, work and participation in society, as well as their interaction with them" (p. 9).

Nevertheless, currently, the concept of teacher digital competency (TDC) has come out (Falloon, 2020). According to Krumsvik (2012), it is defined as: “'proficiency in using ICT (information and communication technology) in a professional context with good pedagogic-didactic judgment and his or her awareness of its implications for learning strategies and the digital “Bildung” (training) of pupils and students” (p.44-45). Despite the fact that it is a very widespread concept at the pre-university level, there are increasing studies that address it at the university level (Uerz et al., 2021).

In recent years, different frameworks have emerged to promote and manage it. At the European level, the European Commission has proposed the common framework DigCompEdu, which has quickly become a reference framework, as in the case of Spain, adopted by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE, 2022).

As for institutions, they have implemented digitization actions and plans, with different approaches. Looking at the examples of some European universities, we see various approaches, such as Bergen promoting the culture of change, improving the technological infrastructure of the campus and the use of digital services; the University of Leuven, which through its digital plan focused on the creation of free educational resources, support services for training and digital learning. Something along the lines of that, the University of Geneva have developed digital training processes for their teaching staff through automated strategies, online courses, or evaluation systems (Viñoles et al., 2021).

Nonetheless, when COVID-19 arrived, it became clear that there were still shortcomings, especially in the pedagogical use of digital technology (Viñoles et al., 2022). In this sense, and with regard to future university teachers, it is necessary to generate initial training strategies that promote the development of this competence in all its aspects (technical, pedagogical, and student competencies’ facilitator aspects) (Buils et al., 2022).

When it comes down to ensuring quality teaching in the educational system, it is essential to take care of the training of beginning university faculty. During the first teaching stage, novice teachers develop and consolidate habits and knowledge. These are the most complex and critical years, in which the teaching identity and its socialization are built (Kelchtermans, 2019).

This communication is part of a project that aims to design a training proposal for new faculty staff in a digital environment. The aim of this work is to identify the characteristics of the training offered to novice teachers in Spanish universities in relation to digital competence in teaching.

In order to identify those digital characteristics in induction programs, we shed some light on the competencies framework we adopt in our study: DigCompEdu. Through the Digital Education Action Plan: 2021-2027, the European Commission (2020) aims to enhance the capacity of teachers to use digital technology with skill, equity, and efficiency, thus improving educational quality. The importance of taking a competencies framework into account lies in the justification of decisions in the initial and permanent training of university teachers (Castañeda et al. 2018).