Open access peer-reviewed chapter
Abstract
Covid-19, which suddenly broke out in 2019 and has been popular all over the world for more than 3 years, has brought unprecedented changes to human beings. Before that, colleges and universities have already need to change and innovate their curricula and teaching to teach “twenty-first century skills” for students, which are problem-solving and critical thinking, creativity and innovation, intercultural understanding, communications, information, media literacy, computing and ICT literacy, responsibility and leadership, accountability and productivity, self-direction and initiative, adaptability and flexibility. In this situation, TPD (teacher professional development) evokes teachers to satisfy students needs for education in the twenty-first century and in the era of Covid-19 even post-Covid-19, which increases the urgency and necessity. Through the systematic analysis of the relevant research results, summarized strategies of TPD in the twenty-first century Covid-19 and post-Covid-19 era: evaluation of TPD needs, cultivating skills of the twenty-first century, integrating ICT instruction, peer coaching, creating the positive culture of campus, building collaboration, initiative learning, embedding the core values, sustainable professional development, research projects and training teachers’ emergency capabilities, to meet teachers’ learning and practice, and to address challenges that have existed and may arise in future.
Keywords
- Covid-19
- online teaching/learning
- teacher professional development
- twenty-first century skills
- twenty-first century education
1. Introduction
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, it has brought unprecedented changes to our life and educational environment, and it can be said that most of the devastating challenges [1]. For the sake of stopping the virus spread and reducing the death toll, people took radical or restrictive measures, such as keeping social distances, and even blocking and closing offices, markets, schools, and universities [2]. This has also led to the gradual transformation of almost all offline activities into online forms [3, 4, 5].
Education is one of the most critical industries affected by the global Covid-19 pandemic [6]. On the basis of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization report on the interruption and response of Covid-19 education (2020), to control the Covid-19 pandemic spread, the governments in 190 countries and regions around the world have closed educational facilities of the educational systems [7]. The report further noted that these closures “affected 80 percent of the world’s student population,” who had to be shut out of educational institutions [8]. Higher education institutions, like other educational institutions, are forced to continue to provide educational services through “online distance teaching” to respond the Covid-19 [1, 9].
In fact, in the pre-Covid-19 era, “online distance teaching” has been developing on a small scale [6, 10]. There is an old history of distance teaching: 1) correspondence curriculum-conducted by ordinary mails with little interaction; 2) distance curriculum-disseminating contents by TV or radio; 3) CD-room curriculum; 4) online curriculum-synchronous or asynchronous Internet; 5) mobile learning-using devices such as mobile phones, audio digital players (IPods and MP3 players), or PDA (personal digital assistant) [11].
Educational institutions are increasingly required to use digital technologies to teach students skills and knowledge they need in the digital age, so some schools have launched distance education projects before the advent of Covid-19 [12, 13]. After all, this is the twenty-first century with the speedy development of globalization, politics, economy, and science technology, thus people need to master more and newer skills and abilities to work, live and learn, while college and universities must train twenty-first century skills for students to meet the fierce challenges of today and the future [14, 15, 16, 17]: such as problem-solving and critical thinking, creativity and innovation, intercultural understanding, communications, information, media literacy, computing and ICT literacy, responsibility and leadership, accountability and productivity, self-direction and initiative, adaptability and flexibility [18, 19]. Teachers must develop and master these professional abilities before they teach students to meet the students’ needs [20].
However, in the era of Covid-19, teachers’ skills development of the twenty-first century is more urgent and necessary, especially under the social background of “online teaching,” which is forced to popularize [6]. Educators are the holders of knowledge and impart wisdom to students, but this concept has not been suitable for educational goals in the twenty-first century. Via clicks on computers, laptop, and mobile phones, students acquire knowledge or study technical skill, to enhance teacher professional development, we have to redefine teachers’ role [11]. Although many universities (especially non-developed countries or regions) are not interested in “online teaching,” Covid-19 makes this teaching model mandatory, and academic participants who are not ready for online teaching will be left behind by the age of science [21]. Moreover, the advocacy of the online classroom in the Covid-19 era will lay the foundation for solving the classroom behavior problems in any emergency in the era of post-Covid-19. Therefore, online classroom in the era of post-Covid-19 or its mixture with offline classroom will be a paradigm shift in the existing teaching practice [5, 8]. The corresponding teachers’ professional development or promotion is particularly important.
2. Methods
This paper adopted the method of content analysis to attain the aim: To explore the teacher professional development and improvement strategies for education in the twenty-first century in the era of Covid-19. Content analysis is a method of summary and quantification according to the scientific standards [22]. It is widely regarded as systematic and transparent process, such as searching for themes, collecting data, data analysis, data interpretation and description, considering data context, and even philosophical background [23].
The authors systematically review recent studies published online on teacher professional development and also focus on the education of the twenty-first century in the Covid-19 era. Keywords identified based on the objectives of the paper focus on strategies of TPD (teacher professional development) and the education of the twenty-first century in the covid-19. With the theme of TPD strategies in universities for twenty-first century education in the Covid-19 era, we collected and classified the data and frequency of words statistics for each keyword and summarized based on the paper aim.
After analysis, the strategies of university teacher professional development for twenty-first century in the Covid-19 era even post-Covid-19 era are proposed: evaluation of TPD needs, cultivating twenty-first century skills, integrating ICT teaching, peer coaching, creating the positive culture of campus, building collaboration, initiative learning, embedding the core values, sustainable professional development, research projects, and training teachers’ emergency capabilities.
3. The twenty-first century education
3.1 The twenty-first century education
The rapid development and new trends of globalization, politics, economy, science, and technology have a profound impact on our life, work, and learning in the twenty-first century, thus education has to be changed to meet and suit the twenty-first century development [14, 24]. Related stakeholders appeal that we need to innovate curricula and teaching to teach “twenty-first century skills” for students.
3.2 The twenty-first century skills
In the twenty-first century, students’ achievement and successful performance are important goals for education [25]. As students study knowledge and skills of the twenty-first century well, it can help them achieve higher academic performance in school, even better life and work after time [16]. Kozma [25] and Schleicher [16] also mentioned that school leaders should guide all staff to give service to students and give support them to develop the skills of the twenty-first century. Therefore, the relevant administrators must adjust and improve the related system to satisfy this requirement.
Some researchers have mentioned that students need to learn and have many skills for the twenty-first century [16, 17, 26]. There are twenty-first century skills framework listed by Partnership for twenty-first Century Skills [18]: problem-solving and critical thinking, creativity and innovation, intercultural understanding, communications, information, media literacy, computing, and ICT literacy. In 2019, this organization made the integration and supplement, then it listed three competencies types: 1) learning skills, they are problem-solving and critical thinking, innovation and creativity, collaboration and communication; 2) literacy skills, they are media literacy, information literacy, and ICT literacy; 3) life skills, they are responsibility and leadership, accountability and productivity, self-direction and initiative, adaptability and flexibility, social and intercultural skills [19].
Above skills are crucial to students and their specific meanings as partners. To deliver “employable” graduates, college and universities have to train twenty-first century skills for students thoroughly and retain and expand their development [27].
3.3 The twenty-first century higher education
In the twenty-first century, as globalization evolves, the role of higher education institutions is increasingly like a tool of public diplomacy [28]. In this age of knowledge in the twenty-first century, the people who are educated and their thoughts have become the foundation of building national wealth, and the higher education value was never so important [29].
Meanwhile, Jesa and Nisha [30], Egan and peers [31] showed that creative thinking and discovery have been the central and necessary mission for higher education recent years, almost all higher education institutions impart new knowledge and skills to the young generation. The purpose of college and universities is to train students to attain career success with knowledge and ability after graduation [32]. Thus, it has become a vital mission and task for colleges and universities to train students with twenty-first century skills so that they can survive in the global society in the twenty-first century.
Galicia [33] illustrated that higher education has adopted strategies to address twenty-first century education by developing the twenty-first century skills of teaching and learning, such as integrating media literacy into teaching. And other examples such as developing communication and critical thinking skills for students [34], training students intercultural understanding skills and ICT skills [35, 36, 37]. Without using ICT, some high-quality teaching processes of college and universities are actually unimaginable, especially due to its impact on developing necessary competencies and skills for twenty-first century [38].
3.4 Higher education in the era of Covid-19 of twenty-first century
In fact, before the Covid-19 pandemic, higher education faced different challenges [39]. As mentioned above, because of students’ needs, teachers must master twenty-first century skills like creative thinking, critical thinking, information and communication technologies. Covid-19 brings more and more urgent challenges to higher education, such as the inability to interact face to face in the classroom, which means that teachers have to develop and organize students’ learning better and create a distinctive learning environment with the assistant of digital technology [40]. The digital competence discussion has already become a much-talked-about topic nowadays, after the advent of the Covid-19, and its huge influence on the educational industry, it ached a new height regarding the concerns of digital competence [41].
However, “online teaching” makes it impossible for teachers to maximize the power of body language, facial expressions, and teachers’ voice to enable students to understand the explained materials [2]; students are unable to ask teachers questions face to face, which may reduce the enthusiasm, creativity, and self-discipline of many students [42]; insufficient teaching resources for teachers and students, and most university teachers lack online teaching experience [2, 43], because many online courses were designed by learning design experts (that is, instructional designers) and delivered or implemented by instructor-teachers [40].
In the process of online teaching, family members may cause interference, resulting in the inability of teachers and students to focus on class and learning [12, 43]; communication technologies such as the Internet, virtual platforms, and social media are needed [4]. However, the conditions in some remote areas are limited, and many public departments and institutions especially in developing countries are usually unable to use formal online learning management systems to promote communication between teachers and students [1, 44]. Even in some backward countries or regions, a small number of students may not have mobile phones or computers, poor Internet signals, or no network [43]. Teachers and students who have lower digital ability are also easy to fall behind in “network classroom” [12].
Sobaih and peers [44] also listed 15 more specific challenges posed by online education: 1) new learning policies and programs; 2) new learning culture; 3) support of the management; 4) time limit; 5) security and privacy; 6) moral considerations; 7) IT infrastructure; 8) awareness of online classroom teaching and learning; 9) assessment and grading; 10) student needs; 11) coordination with students; 12) difficult implementation of practical courses; 13) student support; 14) sharing of materials and recordings; 15) selection of social media types to use. Mukhtar and peers’ [45] research shows that online teaching is inefficient, such as inability to teach practical skills (especially medical courses), lack of student feedback, limited attention duration, and difficulty in maintaining academic integrity, such as lack of discipline and plagiarism.
Everything has its advantages and disadvantages, and Covid-19 also brings some opportunities, such as promoting the development and utilization of “online teaching” or “virtual classroom” or “mobile learning” in colleges and universities, so as to maintain the academic connection between teachers and students and make education continuous [39]. Online teaching often uses paperless methods to distribute materials and submit assignments, which is environmentally friendly [2]. Teachers and students can teach and learn without leaving home, and the time and place are convenient [4]. Teachers can provide instant feedback through social media, which sometimes takes several weeks to dissipate in the traditional teaching environment [39]. Online teaching has a lot of flexibility, such as ease of management—teachers have the right to turn on or unmute microphones and videos; accessibility—less confident students can easily contact through social media; comfort—can easily and comfortably lecture and attend lectures; asynchronous learning—courses are recorded and saved, and it is easy to go back to browse the course videos for summary [20, 43, 45, 46].
University researchers are looking for short-and long-term solutions to the threat virus poses to humans. In order to provide creation to address the latest challenges of online learning, teaching technicians, especially distance education researchers, need to leverage the sudden increase of online learning participants as an opportunity for research advances. Most of researchers will participate in research activities because of these new problems, and that will record a large number of research innovations and publications [12].
Thus it can be seen that Covid-19 is not all bad, but the challenges and problems it brings far outweigh the opportunities [1]. Unfortunately, comprehensive research shows that most students and educators (educational leaders and teachers) are not ready for online learning in the era of Covid-19, both psychologically and skillfully [1, 40], which may lead to teachers’ inability to better help students learn and develop the skills they need in the twenty-first century to meet this challenge and more or unexpected challenges in the future. And for some governments, there are not enough policies to encourage and support college and universities to incorporate elements of modern educational technology into online curriculum [10]. However, teachers, as promoters of students’ learning, play a vital role in their respective higher education institutions, so it is urgent to seek strategies for the teacher professional development or promotion under the background of Covid-19 in the twenty-first century [1, 47].
4. TPD (teacher professional development)
4.1 Teacher professional development
Many people regarded education and teacher professional development as the cornerstone of educational progress in a school reform age [48]. The focus on school quality has been on teacher professional development over the past few decades [49].
The teacher is one of the biggest factors on students’ academic engagement and performance. DeMonte [50] believe that teachers’ skills and knowledge of subject and class practice can be improved and strengthened by TPD. TPD is one of approaches to address teaching and student performance, and it is necessary to have intensive, sustainable, and content-centric TPD [51]. Professional development increases teacher knowledge, teacher skills, and student learning [52].
Nevertheless, currently, teachers face many challenges: The gap between economic growth and the declining quality of student learning [53] to meet twenty-first century education challenge, teacher professional development requires the investment of professional skills and knowledge; innovation is also urgent to promote professional development of teachers [54].
There are different kinds of definitions for TPD. Some think TPD is the product of complex and competing influences in both policy and practice [55]. Silver and peers [56] focus on TU (teacher understanding) as a central part of the teacher professional development process. It seems like most usually think teacher professional development is teachers’ learning: how teachers learn to learn, and how they transform knowledge in practice for the benefit of their students’ growth [57].
There is a complex framework for teacher professional development. Opfer and Pedder [58] showed that it can be split into three kinds of systems for TPD, namely school system, teacher system, and learning activity system. School system, namely the influence of school culture and circumstance on teachers’ learning, it will share mission and vision of the school to teachers in order to support their teaching and learning. Teacher system explains the influence of teachers’ personal experience, beliefs, and goals on their own practice. Learning activity system is teacher professional development activity, like Liu and peers [54] mentioned cultivating a self-organized and self-maintained TPD practice community.
Teachers should work with their coworkers, so that they have mutual learning. One study believes that teacher professional development is embedded in work and sustainable [59]. Professional development is related to teachers’ professional skills, knowledge, and teaching content and helps to improve teachers’ professional ability and motivation [52]. As we know, there is usually a gap between theoretical understanding and practice. It is a procedure of being involved in change and organizational learning to plan and implement TPD [60]. The high-quality professional development is described in some research studies: consistent with school’s goals; being focused on core contents; active and initiative learning for new teaching strategies; collaboration for teachers; embedded tracking and continual feedback; and the link between doctrine and practice [61, 62].
Generally, professional development exploration and discussion are a long process, not short-term thing. And some schools have established the community for professional learning and development, so that it can change instruction practice and pay attention to students’ learning effect. Teacher professional development is centered on students’ learning. The findings debate promotes faculty teaching practice through careful observation and informal or formal discussions with peers.
4.2 The TPD of the twenty-first century education
Things are always changing. Based on the report of the UNESCO [63], systems of education are changing around the world.
One of the important contents of educational reform is teacher professional development [48]. In order to achieve twenty-first century education’s expectations, TPD has to focus on skills of the twenty-first century. Teachers participating in professional development must improve skills of the twenty-first century, for instance, problem-solving, critical thinking, intercultural skill, innovation, creativity, communication and collaboration, media literacy and ICT literacy, flexibility and adaptability, responsibility, and leadership [19, 64].
As professionals, teachers need to engage themselves in continuous professional development [65], and TPD should integrate skills of the twenty-first century into instruction. For example, incorporate intercultural understanding skills into literature courses; in management classes, practice skills of the problem-solving and critical thinking; focus on technical skills in mathematics classes [66]. Teachers increasingly learn and understand skills of the twenty-first century with the teacher professional development. Therefore, teachers know how to improve students’ skills for the twenty-first century, link skills of the twenty-first century to real life during teaching to stimulate interest of students [37].
Meanwhile, effective teacher professional development makes teachers become active learners and contents co-creators [67]. The form of activities, teachers’ working background (school, major), and activity time affect teachers’ learning. And so are the successful factors of schools and evaluation and feedback of teachers affecting effective TPD [61]. DeMonte [50] and others [57, 68, 69] demonstrated that focus on content, active learning, collaboration, expert support, teacher professional evaluation, and duration are the keywords of effective methods to teacher professional development.
4.3 The TPD of higher education
Liu and peers [54] mentioned that higher education teachers are more demanding, more precise, more comprehensive, and more enlightening compared with K-12 education. High-quality higher education teachers are with extensive and profound intellectual knowledge and skills [30]. Similarly, teacher professional development should also be deep-seated. Furthermore, qualified lectures were innovative and trained in a variety of teaching methods. The teaching strategies of university teachers usually include authoritative strategies, democratic strategies, and basic information technology strategies [48, 70, 71].
The old learning methods do not produce students with the skills to reflect on the complex university issues. They are ecological, social, and economic outstanding problems, such as climate change, rapid biodiversity decline, poverty, and water shortages [72]. Interdisciplinary inquiry and collective action are key to promoting the learning of more knowledge. Therefore, teachers are encouraged to study more and newer knowledge and skills to nurture young generations, such as addressing complex problems, intercultural skill, ICT literacy, and leadership.
Nevertheless, in the traditional professional development, teachers usually have less opportunities to participate in the design. In fact, it will bring good challenges for teachers through the practical learning [73]. Practical learning directly involves experience of teachers and focuses on the feedback. The approach helps teachers develop constructive skills and knowledge, because teachers can better understand the system of school, reflect on teaching and curriculum, then they change the classroom practice and solve the students’ problems.
4.4 The TPD in the era of Covid-19 of twenty-first century
In Covid-19 emergencies, teachers are required almost overnight to be designers and instructors, to use tools that few people can master, to design valuable learning activities, and to flourish in this unfamiliar space [40]. Because teachers’ professional accomplishment is the most significant factor affecting students’ online classroom satisfaction, thus affecting students’ learning performance and quality, which means that teachers need to be very efficient and understand students’ psychology when lecturing, in order to highlight and properly teach the course content [74].
Most teachers do not have online teaching experience, and in some cases, some of the practices used in face-to-face teaching can be migrated to an online teaching environment, but teaching online courses still requires teachers to acquire innovative and unique knowledge, skills, and abilities to operate successfully in teaching practice and to support students’ learning [9, 43, 46]. For example, teachers need to learn to use many new virtual network platforms or software, especially for elderly teachers who are not skilled in modern technology; they must receive online teacher training or private guidance to prepare them for online teaching [10]. Teachers need to have the ability and literacy to manage communication technology, as well as skills such as flexibility, problem-solving, and creativity in curriculum planning and the use of distance learning tools [75, 76]. For example, teachers must be able to ensure that all students are ready to learn, which requires the exploration of creative teaching methods to attract them [43].
There are also a considerable number of teachers believe that social media has a lot of questions and questions from students throughout the day, putting more pressure on them, and time and energy management has become very uncontrollable [44]. There are also teachers who do not have such experience and do not have confidence in themselves, which makes online teaching a burden on themselves, thus unable to solve teaching problems very well. But in this special period, the complexity of teaching requires teachers to solve problems quickly in the virtual classroom [43]. Therefore, teachers’ flexible time management ability and problem-solving ability are also very important.
Teachers also need to overcome the traditional model and challenge the virtual teaching form in which can’t see students or even interact with each other [8]. Teachers need to redesign formative questions, tests, or exercises provided through digital and mobile technologies to interact with students to promote effective teaching and learning [4]. The evaluation after the delivery of teaching also needs to be significantly revised, thus the teaching evaluation of both teachers and students is more complex [12].
Teachers need to define the duration of online courses according to students’ self-regulation and metacognitive abilities [4]. Teachers need to ensure and remind students that online resources, platforms, and applications for e-learning should not infringe on users’ data privacy [44]. Moreover, teachers may need to know more about psychological counseling, as the continuous blockade not only brings challenges to students’ learning, but also has a significant impact on students’ mental health [6, 9]. This social division is a traumatic event that may have long-term cumulative adverse effects [7], such as related stress, depression, and anxiety [1, 77]. Cao and peers [78] identified three factors of anxiety for students: 1) economic stress; 2) the impact on daily life activities; 3) academic delays and difficulties during Covid-19 [78].
In order for higher education institutions around the world to remain competitive, it is necessary for teachers to be prepared for professional development. And now, more than ever, universities should invest in the teacher professional development, enable them to learn about effective teaching methods with or without online technology, and further to expand the effectiveness of education so that students attain development [40, 46].
5. Suggestions on the professional development of university teachers in the era of Covid-19 of twenty-first century
Pham and Ho [10] given the following suggestions in the study: 1) Policy: after Covid-19, encourage the combination of “online teaching” and “offline teaching” in most higher education courses, which will help higher education institutions, teachers, and students prepare for a smooth transition to the era of digitization and globalization. 2) System: institutions of higher education should build a quality system for online examinations and student engagement, such as changing teaching methods to maintain the quality of teaching, learning, and evaluation. 3) Support: financial, academic, and technical support for institutions of higher education that have not started online teaching during the Covid-19 period to obtain the latest management system operation [10]. More researchers have also mentioned the importance of reorganizing the teaching evaluation system in colleges and universities, such as replacing it with homework to avoid face-to-face final exams [2, 39, 44, 75].
Bao [42] summarized several effective strategies for university teachers’ online teaching under Covid-19: 1) To better solve problems, universities and teachers work together to make contingency programs. 2) Redesign, dividing teaching contents into smaller units. 3) Improve the ability of communication and cooperation to gain multi-party support. 4) Improve the ability of management and motivation, and increase the control of online teaching, so as to strengthen students’ active extracurricular learning [42].
As teachers need to provide psychological counseling or guidance for some students, universities or relevant institutions should also provide teachers with richer and corresponding psychological professional knowledge [6]. For the future, universities should evaluate their online learning strategies and use postmodern feedback to enable teachers to use different online solutions [39].
In terms of the competencies that leaders must possess in the universities environment, the role of principals is crucial, not only during the Covid-19 pandemic, but also under normal circumstances, the role and ability of principals must be able to provide teachers with a positive space to improve their teaching and learning abilities [20]. Colleges and universities need to help teachers improve their skills, develop teacher training programs, and help teachers adjust and adapt to their teaching styles and the way they interact with students in order to adapt to the online education environment. However, it should be adjusted according to the macro background of each country, the student profile and the field of learning [47]. As most college teachers have no online teaching experience and have no confidence in their online classes, universities also need to help teachers build effective self-beliefs so that it enhances their self-confidence in teaching [20, 43].
The government and relevant departments need to further promote the construction of educational informatization; to prepare standardized learning and teaching equipment for students and teachers; conduct teachers training online, and support online academic research, especially to help students with difficulties during online classroom [79]. In order to provide a professional reference basis for teachers’ online teaching, there is a need to develop a competency framework and other standards for that; to develop evidence-based policies, complemented by guidelines for the implementation of these policies so that it develops a comprehensive teacher education system and develop teachers’ professional knowledge and skills [11, 46].
Almazova and peers [3] also mentioned that technical, psychological, methodological support and TPD plans are crucial to minimize negative impact of rapidly changing educational processes and to ensure effective online education: to help address mental barriers in online classroom; a developed material and base of technology, including software and hardware; support from organization and methodology-suggestions related to instruction activities during the digital education; TPD programs and supervision from universities, with a focus on the teachers’ academic work quality while online working [3].
6. Discussion
It can be shown that TPD strategies in college and universities by reviewing and analyzing related researches for the Covid-19 era (even including post-Covid-19 era) in the twenty-first century as below: evaluation of TPD needs, cultivating skills of the twenty-first century, integrating ICT instruction, peer coaching, creating the positive culture of campus, building collaboration, initiative learning, embedding the core values, sustainable professional development, research projects, and training teachers’ emergency capabilities.
6.1 Evaluation of TPD needs
It is a beneficial way: teachers reflecting on professional development. It involves analyzing teachers’ needs and problems, improving training processes, and improving learners’ efficacy and beliefs. Moreover, evaluation is able to improve cognition and practice of teachers. Self-assessment is also suitable for TPD. In the urgent Covid-19 era, the needs of TPD vary from time to time, especially the forced “online teaching” is the new experience for many teachers, and the skills or professional development that teachers need are different from those in the past. Countries, regions, and universities need to work together to reorganize teaching, learning, and evaluation systems to help teachers and stakeholders get more appropriate feedback and further enhance professional development.
6.2 Cultivating skills of the twenty-first century
TPD must assist teacher to cultivate skills of the twenty-first century. The skills of the twenty-first century usually refer to problem-solving and critical thinking, creativity and innovation, intercultural understanding, media literacy, computing and ICT literacy, responsibility and leadership, accountability and productivity, self-direction and initiative, adaptability, and flexibility. They need to be connected and coherent with contents, curriculum, and strategies of TPD. Especially in the sudden outbreak of the Covid-19 era, these skills are all the more urgent and necessary, because “online teaching” has been forced to become a mandatory teaching mode, and in the post-Covid-19 era, this model is more likely to be mixed with offline teaching to cope with the accelerating era of digitization and globalization.
6.3 Integrating ICT instruction
For TPD, it is able to use information communication technology. Generally, the online program provides a space for teachers to communicate mutually, so that they can learn or share twenty-first century skills training experience. Peer coaches are able to apply some videos while giving teachers training. Although most university teachers do not grow up in the Z or Alpha generation in the digital environment, they hold the mentality of lifelong learning or even master necessary information and communication technologies in the twenty-first century. They can be applied to teaching and academic, so that teachers can obtain better professional development.
6.4 Peer coaching
Coaching or guidance brings appropriate practice and tools for TPD. Experienced teachers need to be introduced to educate them in effective ways to develop their skills of the twenty-first century in professional development. The peer coaches may act as consultants or advisors so that they can help teachers who are not non-experienced and develop non-experienced teachers with communication skills, self-management, problem-solving. In general, because of knowing teachers well, peer coaches are able to devise useful guidance on how to teach skills of the twenty-first century and how to motivate students’ learning during online and offline class. For example, in the context of Covid-19, many college teachers do not have the psychological, knowledge and skills experience of online teaching, so they can get more abundant guidance through peer coaching of experienced teachers.
6.5 Creating the positive culture of campus
Campus culture represents the learning environment of the school. In order to support TPD, school managers need to concern whether the organizational structure and system and environment are appropriate. To some extent, college and universities should develop positive culture of campus, to support TPD for the Covid-19 era in the twenty-first century education. For example, according to the actual situation of various countries, localities, and schools, school leaders should formulate teacher professional development plans different from offline teaching from the aspects of psychological obstacles, technical level, method support, teaching activities, academic development, and so on so that develop the supervision and guidance policy of online teaching.
6.6 Building collaboration
The collaboration methods include teacher network, teamwork, learning community, and peer coaching. With professional development embedded in work, group teachers are able to have together discussion, to share diverse ideas, and study mutually to get the same aim. More importantly, teachers improve themselves through working with others, in interdisciplinary teams, with the same aim for students’ performance and success, as well as preparing for online teaching and improving new and corresponding teaching strategies.
6.7 Initiative learning
In general, the professional development program provides teachers some opportunities, which are active and increased engagement. Teachers are able to retrospect students’ twenty-first century skill performance, the status, attitude, and effect of online learning, obtain their teaching feedback to support future professional development. In the process of devoting themselves to learning, students must fully participate in the three aspects of behavior, emotion, and cognition. In the case of online learning, more students will be unable to concentrate on learning because of a variety of situations (family interference, unsupervised, bad psychological state, poor network and facilities, etc.). This requires teachers to use more skills and teaching strategies to stimulate and help students to learn actively.
6.8 Embedding the core values
TPD needs to conform to teacher’s aims, needs, attitudes, beliefs, and cognition. TPD also has to tally with the goals, standards, missions, and visions of the country, region, and college levels. In order to increase the skills of the Covid-19 era and post-Covid-19 era in the twenty-first century, the programs regarding teachers’ training must be tailored to the targets, and certain section must be tailored to the context. So that it can make teacher professional development keep pace with the times, as to be able to deal with many sudden challenges.
6.9 Sustainable professional development
The duration is usually the length of time for TPD. There is a process for TPD, and it is not short-term shopping. However, TPD time is too long is disadvantageous. Some studies have shown that the impact on TPD is greatest when the duration exceeds 100 hours and less than 1 year. TPD period has to ensure contents and quality, to help teachers learn how to make skills of the twenty-first century into the curriculum and teaching, and help teachers develop and improve online teaching skills and strategies, and prepare for mixed online and offline teaching models in the post-Covid-19 era.
6.10 Research projects
We know that research projects play an important role in TPD of college and universities. Research of teachers’ development, discussion, absorption, and practice of new skills and knowledge is essential. TPD of twenty-first century skills will be universal, effective, continuous, and constantly updated because of research projects. Such as “online teaching,” which is very new to many teachers, has been investigated and studied by university scholars in many countries using different methods, and even continuous follow-up research, to support teachers’ sustainable professional development.
6.11 Training teachers’ emergency capabilities
University teachers need to cultivate emergency capabilities and keep a set of emergency plans in line with their own, whether in terms of psychology or action. Keep constant vigilance and learning to acquire emerging cutting-edge knowledge and skills, and to sum up their own plans and strategies of addressing acute problems, even keep them in a state of constant update. It is helpful for teachers to acquire or update professional development and skills better and faster when they may encounter large-scale events such as Covid-19 or other unexpected events in the future.
7. Conclusion
In a word, universities’ TPD for Covid-19 and post Covid-19 education in the twenty-first century is all-important. To satisfy the needs of students, teachers must improve students’ twenty-first century skills, including problem-solving and critical thinking, creativity and innovation, intercultural understanding, communications, information, media literacy, computing and ICT literacy, responsibility and leadership, accountability and productivity, self-direction and initiative, adaptability and flexibility. Teachers must master them to change the antiquated instruction. In the era of Covid-19 and post-Covid-19, they are particularly urgent and important. Strategies of TPD may include evaluation of TPD needs, cultivating skills of the twenty-first century, integrating ICT instruction, peer coaching, creating the positive culture of campus, building collaboration, initiative learning, embedding the core values, sustainable professional development, research projects, and training teachers’ emergency capabilities. These strategies can satisfy teacher’s learning and practice and help enhance TPD of college and universities education in the twenty-first century, Covid-19 era and post-Covid-19 era.
8. Significance of the study
The paper aims to provide relevant information on the teacher professional development of college for the education in the twenty-first century, Covid-19 era and post-Covid-19 era. The results pay attention to effective strategies of TPD for Covid-19 era education of the twenty-first century in college and universities. TPD for the Covid-19 era education of the twenty-first century is indispensable. University teachers will have more insight and understanding about the professional development of education in the twenty-first century. In addition, TPD became a portion of school innovation.
Education of the Covid-19 era in the twenty-first century provides new models and opportunities for teachers’ professional development, to provide professional development strategies and suggestions for teachers and administrators for twenty-first century education. Subsequent researchers are going to obtain more specific information and knowledge concerning TPD in twenty-first century education. In this context, future studies are able to do more on TPD for education of post-Covid-19 era of the twenty-first education.
Objectives
To explore the teacher professional development and improvement strategies for education in the twenty-first century in the era of Covid-19.
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