Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University

Teachers

Nataliia V. Morze

, Oksana P. Buinytska

, Liliia O. Varchenko-Trotsenko

and Tetiana S. Terletska

Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, 18/2 Bulvarno-Kudriavska Str., Kyiv, 04053, Ukraine

Keywords:

Adaptive Learning, e-Learning, Microlearning, Students’ Needs, Moodle.

Abstract:

The article highlights the issues of designing a system for teacher digital competence development. The paper

describes the research that resulted in the development and implementation of a differentiated system for

digital professional development of university teachers at the Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University. The principle

of system differentiation is realized in two directions: to time possibilities of testing and minicourse passing;

to needs of teachers according to professional direction and disciplines taught. A model of organization of this

system based on self-assessment, self-education and micro-teaching principles has been developed. The main

structural elements of the differentiated system are a diagnostic test and sets of mini courses. The approaches

to the formation of the diagnostic test, including ensuring its integration, variability and validity, as well as

the principle of its use in order to establish the level of digital competence of teachers in accordance with

the developed corporate standard of digital competence were applied in detail. The content of the levels

is analyzed on the example of the levels Analyst-Researcher (A), Integrator (B1) and Expert (B2). For the

levels Leader (C1) and Innovator (C2) the structure based on the formative assessment process is offered. The

system allows teachers to build their own professional development trajectory as a digital footprint reﬂected

in a personal study, and the use of embedded business intelligence tools provides a visualized holistic picture

of digital professional performance.

1 INTRODUCTION

The objectively necessary mass transition to e-

learning during the quarantine and martial law peri-

ods has become a global challenge for the whole ed-

ucational environment of Ukraine, including higher

education institutions and teachers in particular.

An important issue is the quality of e-learning, as

noted, for example, in the 2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon

Report (Pelletier et al., 2021). This focuses speciﬁ-

cally on the quality of online learning as a technology,

the use of analytics, open resources, a mix of blended

and hybrid learning models. At the same time, the

requirements for information and digital competence,

which is the basis for effective use of digital tools for

online learning arrangement, are increasing.

For this reason, the issue of implementing an ef-

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3477-9254

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3611-2114

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0723-4195

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8046-423X

fective professional development system that contains

research, didactic, leadership and digital components

is of particular relevance. Teacher trainings play an

important role in educational systems of many devel-

oped countries. In Finland teacher trainings are or-

ganized at the working place by the educational in-

stitution, by The National Board of Education, by

The National Centre for Professional Development

in Education, by teacher training departments and at

higher education institutions with credit system of

study (OECD, 2011).

In Great Britain teacher trainings are arranged us-

ing one of two models: course model on the basis

of higher education institutions and school based in-

service education (Machin and Vignoles, 2005). The

process of teacher training in Canada is provided by

different educational institutions including universi-

ties, departments of education, school boards, re-

gional centres of education, volunteer organisations,

teachers communities and privat professional devel-

opment companies (Thomas, 2013). Professional de-

velopment of American teachers takes place at higher

Morze, N., Buinytska, O., Varchenko-Trotsenko, L. and Terletska, T.

Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University Teachers.

DOI: 10.5220/0012061400003431

In Proceedings of the 2nd Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2021), pages 35-45

ISBN: 978-989-758-662-0

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

educational institutions of different levels (Darling-

Hammond et al., 2010).

This leads us to the question of a higher ed-

ucational institution as a teacher training provider.

The aim of the paper is to describe a differentiated

system for digital professional development of uni-

versity teachers implemented on the basis of Borys

Grinchenko Kyiv University. In particular, the authors

consider the question of teachers digital competence

level determination and providing a differentiated ap-

proach to learning through the system of mini courses

for personalization of teachers learning trajectory in

digital sphere. The structure and the topics of the

courses are offered to meet the needs of teachers at

different levels. Also the possibility of formative as-

sessment implementation at advanced levels is taken

into consideration for high quality learning provision.

The analysis of current research has shown that a

signiﬁcant number of scholars pay a lot of attention

to this issue. Seel and Zierer (Seel and Zierer, 2019)

stress that the implementation of digital technologies

in education will be effective if it is teacher and peda-

gogy rather than technology that takes the lead: “The

main focus of educational responsibility has always

been human development. The human being in peda-

gogy is both the starting point and the end result. This

approach must also be applied to the digitalisation

of education. Digital technologies cannot become a

substitute for the pedagogical component of the ed-

ucational process. Moreover, digitalization must be

subordinated to pedagogy”. Meyers et al. (Meyers

et al., 2013) believe that the development of digital

technologies and tools requires new knowledge and

skills from the educator; the educator should ensure

that applicants for education master digital tools in

order to be ahead of the younger generation and help

them master the necessary competencies to increase

the availability of new knowledge.

Yarbro et al. (Yarbro et al., 2016) stresses that in

the digital space it is the teacher who determines the

pace of learning, organizes the topics that implement

subject knowledge, and is responsible for students’

learning progress.

The Digital Competence Proﬁle of Educators

(DigCompEdu, 2017) proposed in 2017 describes 22

competencies, the focus of which is not on technical

skills, but on the teacher’s ability to use digital tech-

nologies to provide high quality education.

Kluzer and Pujol Priego (Kluzer and Pujol Priego,

2018) describe the implementation practices of the

European Digital Competence Framework (Dig-

Comp) consisting of 50 case studies and tools.

Ottestad et al. (Ottestad et al., 2014) deﬁne the

digital competences of an educator as a set of com-

ponents: general, which includes general knowledge

and skills that teachers should have; didactic, which

reﬂects the digital speciﬁcity in each discipline and

professional oriented with a description of digital rice.

According to the 2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Re-

port (Pelletier et al., 2021) at the beginning of the pan-

demic, educational institutions started to develop por-

tals/hubs that included different educational resources

and use new teaching strategies. The educational ref-

erence materials presented on them to help teachers

move quickly from traditional to online learning. One

of the best examples was the training of teachers at

Indiana University and its partners. The develop-

ers actively developed the site’s resources, allowing

them to quickly review and redistribute materials to

meet faculty needs. The site, its structure and content

have also been used in the future not only by colleges

and universities in the United States but also by other

higher education institutions.

The pandemic and martial law require new peda-

gogical approaches for educators to rethink the ways

and methods of delivering educational content to

applicants, motivating them, establishing electronic

communication and collaboration, performance as-

sessment, interactive tasks preparation and formative

assessment.

At the same time, an important point in deﬁning

quality is standardization, which is a complex multi-

factorial process.

The Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assur-

ance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG)

(Tomas and Kelo, 2020), standards for quality assur-

ance in higher education: internal and external, based

on the experience of quality assurance in the Western

European countries, set the only European format for

quality assurance systems and the creation of a sin-

gle European educational area. The documents stip-

ulate that HEIs should have certain procedures and

criteria to validate the qualiﬁcations and professional

level of teachers. Given that Ukraine is a party to this

space, higher education institutions implement these

standards, which are speciﬁcally stated in the Law of

Ukraine on Higher Education (On Higher Education,

2017).

The professional standard for the group of pro-

fessions “Teachers of Higher Education Institutions”

(Standard, 2021) deﬁnes the conditions for the profes-

sional development of teachers and speciﬁes a list of

their job functions, each of which provides a detailed

description of professional competences, noting the

necessary knowledge, skills and abilities, a consider-

able part of which require a sufﬁciently high level of

digital competence.

Taking into account the above-mentioned require-

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

ments in the professional standard of a teacher at Bo-

rys Grinchenko Kyiv University the “Teacher Proﬁle”

was developed, which reﬂects the manifestation indi-

cators and learning outcomes of a university teacher

in the context of such qualities: didactic, research,

leadership and digital competence.

2 DIGITAL PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT OF

UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

Professional development at the University is imple-

mented in ﬁve modules: digital competence module,

research competence module, leadership competence

module, didactic competence module, professional

competence module (Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Univer-

sity, 2015; Morze et al., 2022).

The digital competence module is offered to

teachers to develop information and digital compe-

tence, namely an introduction to modern educational

trends in the process of digital transformation, ways

of introducing innovative pedagogical technologies

based on various digital instruments into the educa-

tional process, 21st century skills, the peculiarities

of blended and online learning arrangement. Par-

ticipants explore digital tools for creating high qual-

ity e-content, implementing formative assessment, ef-

fective communication and collaboration. Learning

takes place in a blended learning format using the e-

learning course “Digital Module” located in the uni-

versity’s e-learning system.

In order to improve the teacher professional de-

velopment system, teacher satisfaction with the pro-

cess and the learning results is constantly monitored.

To analyze the dynamics of professional development

indicators analytical data is tracked in real time us-

ing a modern business intelligence tool – Microsoft

Power BI, which is a set of business intelligence ser-

vices with cloud support for data analysis and visual-

ization. The main advantage of this tool is the ability

to build interactive dashboards, with key performance

indicators that are available for viewing from any de-

vice connected to the Internet (Microsoft, 2022).

The availability of reports enables the top man-

agement of the University to analyse the develop-

ment of the teaching staff in dynamics, and for the

teacher to rationally build a trajectory of further self-

development.

3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

AND PRACTICAL

IMPLEMENTATION

According to the Concept of Digital Competence De-

velopment to improve the system of professional de-

velopment the Corporate Standard of Digital Com-

petence of University Teacher was developed, intro-

duced to increase the level of digital competence of

teachers, which is recognized as one of the key com-

petencies of successful person of the 21st century,

to improve the quality of educational process, actu-

alization of competitiveness of teachers by master-

ing new digital competences. The spheres of ap-

plication of digital competence at Borys Grinchenko

Kyiv University are determined by the main types

of teacher’s activities: teaching, research activities,

professional communication and cooperation; digital

self-management. Five levels of digital competence

are deﬁned:

• Analyst-Researcher (A), which is mandatory;

• Integrator (B1) Expert (B2) – sufﬁcient

• Leader (C1) Innovator (C2) – high.

As teaching and research activities are the prevail-

ing ones for HEI teachers, the courses covering cor-

responding topics receive more attention especially at

lower digital competence levels (ﬁgure 1).

The volume of a level varies from 50 to 60 aca-

demic hours. The average duration of a mini-course

is between 2 and 6 academic hours. Some topics are

introduced at different levels so that any gap in the

knowledge on the topic could be covered. For exam-

ple, at the Analyst-Researcher level there is a course

“Basics of e-communication and e-collaboration”. At

the Integrator level the topic is presented by two

courses: “Collaboration arrangement using digital in-

struments” and “Digital instruments for communica-

tion”. That means that a teacher with a higher level of

digital competence could return to the basics on the

speciﬁc topic when needed.

3.1 Model of a Differentiated System

for Digital Professional

Development of University Teachers

According to the approved digital competence stan-

dard, the systems for enhancing teachers’ digital com-

petence have been amended and the practice of com-

pulsory university-wide testing of teachers has been

abolished. Instead, a differentiated system of pro-

fessional development has been developed, which is

Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University Teachers

Figure 1: e-Courses by the types of activities.

based on self-assessment, self-study, the principles of

microlearning, e-learning, etc.

The differentiated professional development sys-

tem contains a diagnostic test and a structured set of

mini-courses that are presented according to the levels

of digital competence.

The differentiation of the system is provided with

the help of micro modules placed in the e-learning

system of the university. Online storage means that

teachers are not limited in the choice of time and lo-

cation to work with the courses. Such organization

also makes it possible to build your own professional

development trajectory by choosing the sequence of

learning. Teachers are not forced to take all the topics

presented in the level. They are also allowed to return

to lower levels to refresh their knowledge. That is the

content can be adapted to the professional needs of a

teacher at the moment.

The model of the differentiated professional de-

velopment system is shown in ﬁgure 2.

The developed model allows the teacher to be

aware and self-motivated to improve their skills, in-

cluding in the digital skills, using a diagnostic test and

passing mini-courses.

First of all, the level of digital competence of a

teacher is determined by the results of a diagnostic

test, mastery of level mini-courses with the possibil-

ity of building an individual trajectory of professional

development and the marking in a personal ofﬁce of

the achievement of the appropriate level – the digital

footprint.

3.2 Diagnostic Test to Determine the

Level of Digital Competence of a

Teacher

The development of a diagnostic test to determine the

level of digital competence of a teacher was carried

out in several stages. Firstly, the goals of the test were

deﬁned – self-assessment of the level of digital com-

petence and determining the need for its further im-

provement. It is self-assessment that lies at the heart

of a teacher’s motivation to choose their own trajec-

tory of professional development and improvement of

digital resource skills. Traditionally, goal classiﬁca-

tion has been implemented similar to Bloom’s taxon-

omy (Bulakh and Mruha, 2006), but according to the

levels of digital competence deﬁned in the Corporate

Standard, and the domain is described, will be diag-

nosed. It is deﬁned that this test will assess the cogni-

tive domain, i.e. knowledge and attitudes towards as-

pects of digitalization in the areas: learning activities,

research activities, professional communication and

cooperation; digital self-management. Indirectly the

psychomotor domain is assessed, because the passing

of the test takes place using a digital tool in a dif-

ferentiated system developed. The objectives do not

include and consequently do not offer tasks for the as-

sessment of the personal emotional domain.

The choice of testing as a measurement method

offers a number of advantages given the rapid re-

sponse in the self-assessment process. The diagnos-

tic test determines the level of digital competence of

teachers, i.e. the competences that colleagues have

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

Figure 2: Model of a differentiated system for digital professional development of university teachers.

or do not have now according to the given descrip-

tors of the corporate standard, detailing the skills of

university teachers according to the levels of digital

competence and the areas of application.

Secondly, a base of test tasks is created according

to the matrix, which is developed based on the struc-

ture of digital competence standard and 97 descrip-

tors. The matrix is three-dimensional 1 dimension

is one of the four activities of a university teacher;

2 dimension is one of the ﬁve levels of digital com-

petence; 3 dimension is conditional horizontal lines

of development of a certain competence, which are

formed according to the content and aspects of the

activity.

In order to be able to provide a variable diagnostic

test to determine the level of digital competence 3-5

alternative test tasks to each descriptor are provided.

The choice of test item formats is limited by the

capabilities of the chosen tool, i.e. LMS Moodle.

We use test tasks of the following types: multiple

choice with one or more correct answers, yes/no ques-

tions, establishing logical sequences or correspon-

dences. Graphic objects of a certain quantity are used

in the test tasks, but more textual materials.

Thirdly, in the process of shaping the test its in-

tegrated nature is taken into account and in connec-

tion with those two lines are deﬁned, i.e. the test has

subtests in accordance with the activities of university

teachers and on the other hand it is integrated accord-

ing to the levels of the CC. A decision was made at

the physical conclusion of the test and accordingly it

was taken into account in its speciﬁcation, the sub-

tests of the activities to be concluded into a test for

the speciﬁc level of the GC. Thus, a separate test for

the conﬁrmation or non-conﬁrmation of the Analyst-

Researcher level is created. The results will be pro-

cessed as soon as a statistically relevant number of

participants is achieved for the analysis and the sum-

marising. There is no need to equalise the test when

concluding it for a particular GC level, because its

balance in terms of difﬁculty has already been taken

into account, and consideration of the logical cover-

age of meaningful questions is provided by including

test items in accordance with the matrix for the es-

tablishment of comprehension of the competence de-

scribed by each descriptor without exception.

The validation process to establish the validity and

reliability of the test results will take place in parallel.

The participants will be informed of these nuances.

The passing score is provisionally set at 80%. How-

ever, the feasibility of such a limit to determine the

pass/fail result will also be tested and adjusted if nec-

essary.

For professional development using the differen-

tiated system the teacher is ﬁrstly invited to take the

test to prove the compulsory level of digital compe-

tence “Analyst-Researcher”. If the teacher enters 80%

of points, he/she can receive a certiﬁcate of conﬁrma-

tion of this level, or take the test of the highest level.

If the compulsory level is not conﬁrmed, the teacher

can take the mini-courses directly in the differentiated

professional development system. The list of mini-

courses on offer generally enables the teacher to prac-

tise all areas of digital activity in accordance with the

Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University Teachers

requirements deﬁned in the standard.

3.3 Multi-Level Mini-Courses in an

Differentiated System for Digital

Professional Development of

University Teachers

The title of each course indicates the number of hours

that are allocated to studying the material and what

will be entered into the accumulation system, there

are also marks on the percentage of completion of the

course and its completion.

The courses in the system are built on the basis of

microlearning which allows personalization achieve-

ment of teachers learning path by several indicators

including time framework, level of knowledge, con-

formity to teachers needs in digital technologies im-

plementation.

Mini-courses contain educational materials, in-

cluding mandatory ones with the appropriate mark,

and a ﬁnal test (for the levels Analyst-Researcher –

Expert) (ﬁgure 3).

At the levels Leader and Innovator formative as-

sessment is used to track the courses participants

progress. As at the above mentioned levels users have

become not only educational content consumers, but

also its authors and distributors, they are capable of

assessing their own progress according to the set cri-

teria as well as assess the results of the co-learners

activities. According to CCSSO formative assess-

ment (Formative Assessment for Students and Teach-

ers (FAST) State Collaborative on Assessment and

Student Standards (SCASS), 2022) is a planned, on-

going process used by learners and teachers in the ed-

ucational process to reveal and use results of student

learning to improve student understanding of intended

learning outcomes and support students in their indi-

vidual learning path. Effective formative assessment

process (ﬁgure 4) includes the following steps: identi-

fying learning goals and the ways to achieve them, an-

alyzing student’s achievements within their learning

path, providing self-assessment and peer feedback,

using received feedback to improve further learning

strategy.

At different steps of learning formative assess-

ment can be performed using various digital instru-

ments including those available in Moodle. Steps 1

and 2 can be implemented by Checklists in Moodle or

with the help of whiteboards. In the activity Checklist

students there might be a list added by the course de-

signers, but students can be allowed to add their own

items. To encourage students to work with checklists,

grades and activity completion options might be set

up, so that a course won’t be completed unless this ac-

tivity is done. Implementation of such activity makes

learners analyze their expectation from the course and

estimate afterwards what is achieved and plan further

steps for improvement.

Step 3 has the widest variety of activities and in-

struments for implementation.

Quizzes still remain one of the options. However,

at Leader and Innovator levels those activities, which

allow not only to check the knowledge but also to ana-

lyze, widen and implement it, should be given prefer-

ence. For example, it can be such activities in Moodle

as Forum and Wiki or external instruments such as

whiteboards, mind maps can be used.

There are different forum types available in Moo-

dle (ﬁgure 5) which can serve different purposes:

standard forum for general use, a single simple dis-

cussion, each person posts one discussion, Q and A

forum, standard forum displayed in a blog-like for-

mat.

Standard forums are the most suitable for connec-

tivism learning application, when students learn from

each other. This type of forum allows learners to cre-

ate an unlimited amount of topics as well as leave

comments on existing topics. A student can read an-

swers of co-learners before giving their own answer,

which contributes to their understanding of a theme.

Standard forums are also the best option for a help fo-

rum as previous questions and answers can be studied

before adding your own one, so the answer might be

found even without questioning. Each person posts

one discussion forum is similar to a standard forum,

but it lets one user create only one topic. Q and A fo-

rum requires a student’s answer before viewing other

learners’ posts. This type of forum makes a student

ﬁnd their own solution to a given task and then gives

an opportunity to compare it with other options.

A single simple discussion is a forum where stu-

dents cannot create their own topics, but only give an-

swers to the existing one. This type of forum might

be used for assessment criteria discussion or feedback

on some topic.

Feedback is important both for a learner to im-

prove their learning strategy and for course authors

to apply changes to the course. Moodle provides

several options for feedback implementation. First

of all, a checklist created at the beginning of the

course is helpful for a learner to estimate whether

they achieve their goals or their learning path requires

some changes. Secondly, Questionnaire and Feed-

back activities can be used. Feedback answers might

be shown to all participants or available to the course

creators only depending on the goals; it can also be

anonymous. Feedback templates can be created to be

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

Analyst-Researcher Integrator Expert

Basics of e-communication and e-

collaboration (2 hours)

Collaboration arrangement using

digital instruments (4 hours)

Theory and practice of digital tools

utilisation in different kinds of ac-

tivities (6 hours)

Basics of netiquette and corporate

culture (2 hours)

Digital instruments for communica-

tion (4 hours)

Interactive learning resources de-

sign (4 hours)

Work with scientiﬁc proﬁles (2

hours)

Methodology of statistical data pro-

cessing (4 hours)

Digital tools for professional self-

presentation (6 hours)

Checking a scientiﬁc publication

for uniqueness (2 hours)

Use of advanced search in sciento-

metric databases (4 hours)

Means for students’project (group)

work arrangement (4 hours)

Collection and analysis of statistical

data (4 hours)

Video ﬁlming and editing (4 hours) Design and utilisation of interactive

videos (4 hours)

Quotation rules in scientiﬁc publi-

cations and bibliographies (4 hours)

Use of bibliographic managers and

cross-references (4 hours)

Different types of web-conferences

arrangement depending on needs (4

hours)

Gradebook maintenance (2 hours) Infographics utilisation for learning

materials design (4 hours)

Implementation of scientiﬁc statis-

tical data analysis using digital in-

struments (4 hours)

Assessment of students’ study

achievements in the e-learning

system (2 hours)

Implementation of peer assessment

in ELC (4 hours)

Adaptive educational activities ar-

rangement (6 hours)

Use of digital instruments with cor-

porate account (4 hours)

Use of ELC for microlearning im-

plementation (4 hours)

Layout of publications in Latex (4

hours)

Work with ELC (10 hours) Use of ELC for blended learning

implementation (4 hours)

Professional YouTube channel cre-

ation and editing (4 hours)

Video design and utilisation (4

hours)

Interactive quizzes (4 hours) Work with international scientiﬁc

communities (4 hours)

Infographics design and utilisation

(4 hours)

Intergration of MOOCs into educa-

tional process (2 hours)

Systematic utilisation of innovative

pedagogical methods in ELC (4

hours)

Structuring and visualising theoret-

ical materials (4 hours)

Arrangement of work with col-

leagues using corporate accounts (4

hours)

Use of digital instruments for plan-

ning work (4 hours)

Arrangement of students interac-

tion during a web-conference (4

hours)

Online classes arrengement using

web-conference tools (4 hours)

Layout of publications (4 hours)

Main types of quizzes design (4

hours)

used in all courses of the system.

Thus, courses of Leader and Innovator level (ﬁg-

ure 6) follow all steps of the formative assessment

process from setting up goals to feedback and further

learning strategy planning.

The system provides tracking of tasks and own

learning progress (ﬁgure 7, 8).

The full completion of the mini-course is dis-

played in the block “Status of completion of the

course” of the mini-course, and the points scored, i.e.

hours, are automatically displayed in the Gradebook

of a certain level of digital competence (ﬁgure 9).

The analysis of data from the additionally in-

stalled plug-in block “Progress of completion” and

the report “Activity completion” for each level of

digital competence separately allows to evaluate the

progress of each teacher in mastering mini-courses of

a certain GC level, to identify which mini-courses are

most or least in demand for further consideration in

the process of improving the system as a whole (ﬁg-

ure 10).

Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University Teachers

Figure 3: Example of the mini-course for Analyst-Researcher level.

Figure 4: Formative assessment process.

Figure 5: Forum types in Moodle.

4 CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER

RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES

Today’s requirements and normative documents

adopted at different levels prompted the research par-

ticipants to review approaches and methods of profes-

sional development. Thus, a differentiated system for

digital professional development of university teach-

ers was designed in accordance with the model pre-

sented in the paper, where the main parts are dig-

ital competence levels, diagnostic test, sets of mini

courses for each level of digital competence.

The designed diagnostic test considers the need

for integration of digital instruments implementa-

tion skills in all kinds of teachers activities: re-

search, teaching, professional communication and

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

Figure 6: An example of Leader level course.

Figure 7: Tracking the performance of mini-course activi-

ties.

digital self-management. It is aimed at the current

level of teacher digital competence deﬁnition.

Level mini-courses, arranged according to the lev-

els of digital competence of the teacher, declared in

the developed Corporate Standard of Digital Compe-

tence, contain materials according to the deﬁned de-

scriptors by types of activities. Teacher qualiﬁcation

improvement in the differentiated system begins with

passing a diagnostic test, based on the results of which

redirection is made to take mini-courses of the appro-

priate level.

Figure 8: Progress of implementation.

Figure 9: Course completion status.

The designed differentiated system for digital pro-

fessional development allows to personalize teacher’s

learning path by providing possibility to choose

courses within the determined level or below accord-

ing to the teacher’s needs, gaps in the knowledge and

topics of interest. Related topics are placed at dif-

ferent levels which provides learners with an oppor-

tunity to widen and deepen their knowledge on the

most required themes as well as to return to the pre-

vious level. As the courses are built for self-learning,

the participants are not limited to a certain time or lo-

cation. Altogether these promote the self-motivation

of teachers to increase the level of digital competence

and, accordingly, the quality of providing educational

services in general.

Implementation of formative assessment at the ad-

vanced levels of the system provides learners with

wider study options as they not only consume in-

formation presented in the course, but also identify

their own goals, track their progress, learn from each

other and perform self assessment and peer assess-

Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University Teachers

Figure 10: Activity Completion Report.

ment. Such activities available in Moodle as Forum,

Checklist, Feedback, Questionnaire and others can be

used to arrange formative assessment.

In the future, it is planned to expand the system

of teacher training in other areas: research, didactic,

leadership, professional. This will allow teachers to

acquire additional knowledge and constantly improve

their skills to perform their professional duties.

The experience of the differentiated system

for digital professional development implementation

might be useful for other universities which can take

the offered system as a basis and adapt it to their con-

ditions and needs.

REFERENCES

Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (2015). Regu-

lations on improving the qualiﬁcations of sci-

entiﬁc and pedagogical workers of the univer-

sity. https://kubg.edu.ua/phocadownload/Nauka/

stajuvannia/polozhennya_pidvyschennya2015.pdf.

Bulakh, I. Y. and Mruha, M. R. (2006). Stvo-

riuiemo yakisnyi test [Creating a Qualitative Test].

Maister-klas, Kyiv. https://testcentr.org.ua/books/

stvoryuyemo-yakisnyy-test.pdf.

Darling-Hammond, L., Wei, R. C., Andree, A., Richard-

son, N., and Orphanos, S. (2010). Professional De-

velopment in the United States: Trends and Chal-

lenges . Technical report, Dallas, TX. https://edpolicy.

stanford.edu/library/publications/89.

DigCompEdu (2017). Digital Competence Frame-

work for Educators (DigCompEdu). https://

joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/digcompedu_en.

Formative Assessment for Students and Teach-

ers (FAST) State Collaborative on Assess-

ment and Student Standards (SCASS) (2022).

Revising the Deﬁnition of Formative As-

sessment. https://ccsso.org/resource-library/

revising-deﬁnition-formative-assessment.

Kluzer, S. and Pujol Priego, L. (2018). DigComp into Ac-

tion: Get inspired, make it happen. A user guide to

the European Digital Competence Framework. Pub-

lications Ofﬁce of the European Union, Luxembourg.

https://doi.org/10.2760/112945.

Machin, S. and Vignoles, A. (2005). What’s the Good of

Education?: The Economics of Education in the UK.

Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.

ctv301fj7.

Meyers, E. M., Erickson, I., and Small, R. V. (2013). Digital

literacy and informal learning environments: an intro-

duction. Learning, Media and Technology, 38(4):355–

367. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2013.783597.

Microsoft (2022). What is power bi? https://powerbi.

microsoft.com/en-us/what-is-power-bi/.

Morze, N., Buinytska, O., Varchenko-Trotsenko, L.,

Vasylenko, S., Nastas, D., Tiutiunnyk, A., and

Lytvynova, S. (2022). System for digital profes-

sional development of university teachers. Educa-

tional Technology Quarterly, 2022(2):152–168. https:

//doi.org/10.55056/etq.6.

OECD (2011). Lessons from PISA for the United States.

https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264096660-en.

On Higher Education (2017). Law of Ukraine on

Higher Education. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/

show/1556-18?lang=en#Text.

Ottestad, G., Kelentri

c, M., and Guðmundsdóttir, G. B.

(2014). Professional Digital Competence in Teacher

Education. Nordic Journal of Digital Liter-

AET 2021 - Myroslav I. Zhaldak Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

acy, 9(4):243–249. https://www.idunn.no/doi/abs/10.

18261/ISSN1891-943X-2014-04-02.

Pelletier, K., Brown, M., Brooks, D. C., McCormack, M.,

Reeves, J., Arbino, N., Bozkurt, A., Crawford, S., Cz-

erniewicz, L., Gibson, R., Linder, K., Mason, J., and

Mondelli, V. (2021). 2021 educause horizon report,

teaching and learning edition. Technical report, Boul-

der, CO. https://library.educause.edu/-/media/ﬁles/

library/2021/4/2021hrteachinglearning.pdf.

Seel, N. M. and Zierer, K. (2019). Bibliometric syn-

thesis of educational productivity research: Bench-

marking the visibility of German educational re-

search. Research in Comparative and International

Education, 14(2):294–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/

1745499919846189.

Standard (2021). Professional Standard for the group of

professions “Higher education institutions teachers”.

https://tinyurl.com/y6r9a9d4.

Thomas, L., editor (2013). What is Canadian about

Teacher Education in Canada? Multiple Perspectives

on Canadian Teacher Education in the Twenty-First

Century. Canadian Association of Teacher Education.

http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113301.

Tomas, C. and Kelo, M. (2020). ESG 2015–2018 ENQA

Agency Reports: Thematic Analysis. ENQA Oc-

casional Paper 28, European Association for Qual-

ity Assurance in Higher Education AISBL, Brussels,

Belgium. https://www.enqa.eu/wp-content/uploads/

ESG-2015-ENQA-Thematic-Analysis-ﬁnal.pdf.

Yarbro, J., McKnight, K., Elliott, S., Kurz, A., and Ward-

low, L. (2016). Digital Instructional Strategies and

Their Role in Classroom Learning. Journal of Re-

search on Technology in Education, 48(4):274–289.

https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2016.1212632.

Differentiated System for Digital Professional Development of University Teachers