**5. What to think of future teacher education?**

That 'everything used to be better' is a claim made by all generations. One teaching educator pointed out that 'students in the past have also written things they do not understand themselves. I do not think that is new. Everyone just wants to find the easiest way to a good grade, maybe.' However, if seeking the easiest way is a fundamental human trait, it is a challenge for teaching and learning now that knowledge is more easily accessible and presented, without engaging critical thinking and deeper cognitive processes. Wajcman [33] states that 'Rather than simply saving time, technologies change the nature and meaning of tasks and work activities, as well as creating new material and cultural practices'. We need to adapt to these changing practices and learning activities, and adjust how we educate our students to be prepared in this new learning context. The teaching educators in this study had some suggestions.

#### **5.1 How to adapt, and what not to adapt?**

Teaching educators in this study expressed a worry regarding the digital format versus traditional books. As information is more easily accessible, students tend not to read the books and research the greater context information it was gathered from. In a book, you often have to read larger sections to get a grasp of the concepts. When googling keywords, it is easy to find a lot of 'hits,' and then mix a selection of copied sections. This can apparently look like a reasonable text, but it is surface learning and without deep understanding of the content. Reading a book will perhaps create deeper learning, even though the text produced is less polished than a copy-paste text from already digested sections online.

*'I mean obviously, students have different skills, but I am thinking that critical thinking skills, reading hard information is definitely undermined, that is what I am thinking. I am noticing that with students.' (New Zealand teaching educator)*

*'I do not think their digital skills have become any higher in the last five years, I think almost on the contrary. They are very good at watching videos and looking for things online, but I do not think they are good at retrieving relevant information. They are not as source-critical as I would like. We probably have a job to do to make them able and skilled.' (Norwegian teaching educator)*

**67**

**6. Conclusion**

*Are Teacher Students' Deep Learning and Critical Thinking at Risk of Being Limited in Digital…*

*'They (students) are not able to transfer those skills and understandings into their learning environment. I would say the key thing again here is that the students might come in with skills and abilities, but not necessarily pedagogical understanding of how to actually implement that in their teaching practice. I think that's the key thing that we, initial teacher education lecturers, need to really focus on, and I think we need to come up to the plate and think about the digital literacies our students have… and actually think about being responsive to those as well.' (New* 

One teaching educator who perceived students as getting shallower in their learning was vocal about the value of structuring education around the use of books

*'I require them to read a textbook, because I think that doing lectures actually, online, is actually not a satisfactory way to get one's point across. So instead, what I do is I weave my points across all the ways that I teach each week, so all the things I present, all of my interactions and discussion groups and… I think it works up to a* 

To round up this chapter, I leave the final word to one of the New Zealand teaching educators who summed up most of the main findings in our study.

*'I think digital technology can be a lot more passive at times, and in terms of students, I think they just see technology as providing the answer. I think it is important to challenge them and say, "There may not be an exact answer to the question; you have to keep challenging and questioning." I sometimes believe they have become a lot more passive, and just accepting what comes via the technology as being the one and only, or the right way of doing things. Rather than challenging. I think it is due to the way the world has shifted. Where it is a lot easier for them to go online and get something, rather than physically having to go somewhere and think about it, like a library or hunt out a book, or… Everything is right there. Therefore, I think that passive learning most probably happens a lot more because of the technology, because they can just access wherever they are. In terms of preparation, coming through from high school, yes, I think there are some definite skills in terms of being critical of information that needs to be taught, prior to coming into higher education. Particularly in the sense of questioning the information they are accepting. I believe some disadvantages are that most probably the students do not challenge enough, they just accept technology, and I think that might be the way technology has been introduced over the years. "Here it is, here is the answer." "If you don't know, just google it, and you'll get something." So that passive, not* 

*point, but I'm expecting them to read the textbook quite well, really.'*

*questioning, not challenging… I think is a real disadvantage.'*

It seems that students' development of critical thinking and deep learning is challenged in digital learning environments. A high level of ICT literacy seems

The two skillsets, learning and innovation skills and digital skills, are connected. Students will not flourish in their digital skills if they are not intertwined with the 4Cs. Digital natives and Generation Z have a good technical understanding, but integrating that with the skills of being creative and critical is central to achieving

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96151*

*Zealand teaching educator)*

as well as digital devices.

deep learning processes in digital learning environments.

#### *Are Teacher Students' Deep Learning and Critical Thinking at Risk of Being Limited in Digital… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96151*

The two skillsets, learning and innovation skills and digital skills, are connected. Students will not flourish in their digital skills if they are not intertwined with the 4Cs. Digital natives and Generation Z have a good technical understanding, but integrating that with the skills of being creative and critical is central to achieving deep learning processes in digital learning environments.

*'They (students) are not able to transfer those skills and understandings into their learning environment. I would say the key thing again here is that the students might come in with skills and abilities, but not necessarily pedagogical understanding of how to actually implement that in their teaching practice. I think that's the key thing that we, initial teacher education lecturers, need to really focus on, and I think we need to come up to the plate and think about the digital literacies our students have… and actually think about being responsive to those as well.' (New Zealand teaching educator)*

One teaching educator who perceived students as getting shallower in their learning was vocal about the value of structuring education around the use of books as well as digital devices.

*'I require them to read a textbook, because I think that doing lectures actually, online, is actually not a satisfactory way to get one's point across. So instead, what I do is I weave my points across all the ways that I teach each week, so all the things I present, all of my interactions and discussion groups and… I think it works up to a point, but I'm expecting them to read the textbook quite well, really.'*

To round up this chapter, I leave the final word to one of the New Zealand teaching educators who summed up most of the main findings in our study.

*'I think digital technology can be a lot more passive at times, and in terms of students, I think they just see technology as providing the answer. I think it is important to challenge them and say, "There may not be an exact answer to the question; you have to keep challenging and questioning." I sometimes believe they have become a lot more passive, and just accepting what comes via the technology as being the one and only, or the right way of doing things. Rather than challenging. I think it is due to the way the world has shifted. Where it is a lot easier for them to go online and get something, rather than physically having to go somewhere and think about it, like a library or hunt out a book, or… Everything is right there. Therefore, I think that passive learning most probably happens a lot more because of the technology, because they can just access wherever they are. In terms of preparation, coming through from high school, yes, I think there are some definite skills in terms of being critical of information that needs to be taught, prior to coming into higher education. Particularly in the sense of questioning the information they are accepting. I believe some disadvantages are that most probably the students do not challenge enough, they just accept technology, and I think that might be the way technology has been introduced over the years. "Here it is, here is the answer." "If you don't know, just google it, and you'll get something." So that passive, not questioning, not challenging… I think is a real disadvantage.'*

## **6. Conclusion**

It seems that students' development of critical thinking and deep learning is challenged in digital learning environments. A high level of ICT literacy seems

*Teacher Education in the 21st Century - Emerging Skills for a Changing World*

Based on what the teaching educators explained, it seems like digital learning environments are enabling advanced multi-structural learning at such a high level that their lack of relational understanding and ability to create extended abstracts have been overlooked. Digital tools make students appear skilled in handling information as they can copy ready-made text online by googling keywords. This apparent skill in writing could be misleading for teachers in their assessment of the student. When students reach higher education, they are perceived as unskilled and uncritical, as higher education reveals a worrying lack of learning strategies that would enable them to reach deeper levels of understanding [22]. It seems that through primary and secondary education, they develop an imbalance between learning and innovation skills, and information, media, and technology skills [3]. Furthermore, this imbalance seems to create an asymmetrical reinforcing effect as digital environments make it easy to present multi-structural understanding at a high level, which can disguise the need to work with students' ability to think criti-

cally, a central part of the higher order of thinking in the SOLO taxonomy.

That 'everything used to be better' is a claim made by all generations. One teaching educator pointed out that 'students in the past have also written things they do not understand themselves. I do not think that is new. Everyone just wants to find the easiest way to a good grade, maybe.' However, if seeking the easiest way is a fundamental human trait, it is a challenge for teaching and learning now that knowledge is more easily accessible and presented, without engaging critical thinking and deeper cognitive processes. Wajcman [33] states that 'Rather than simply saving time, technologies change the nature and meaning of tasks and work activities, as well as creating new material and cultural practices'. We need to adapt to these changing practices and learning activities, and adjust how we educate our students to be prepared in this new learning context. The teaching educators in this

Teaching educators in this study expressed a worry regarding the digital format versus traditional books. As information is more easily accessible, students tend not to read the books and research the greater context information it was gathered from. In a book, you often have to read larger sections to get a grasp of the concepts. When googling keywords, it is easy to find a lot of 'hits,' and then mix a selection of copied sections. This can apparently look like a reasonable text, but it is surface learning and without deep understanding of the content. Reading a book will perhaps create deeper learning, even though the text produced is less polished than

*'I mean obviously, students have different skills, but I am thinking that critical thinking skills, reading hard information is definitely undermined, that is what I am thinking. I am noticing that with students.' (New Zealand teaching educator)*

*'I do not think their digital skills have become any higher in the last five years, I think almost on the contrary. They are very good at watching videos and looking for things online, but I do not think they are good at retrieving relevant information. They are not as source-critical as I would like. We probably have a job to do to* 

**5. What to think of future teacher education?**

study had some suggestions.

**5.1 How to adapt, and what not to adapt?**

a copy-paste text from already digested sections online.

*make them able and skilled.' (Norwegian teaching educator)*

**66**

to challenge the lens traditionally used to assess students' capabilities and needs. Furthermore, ICT skills and learning and innovation skills seem to mutually influence each other, as low learning and innovation skills make the students' ICT skills stagnate when assessing their critical use of online resources. We find that learning in a digital environment complicates the development of critical thinking, but we also believe that this can be corrected by redefining what it takes to prepare students for the future. For a long time, the focus has been on developing their digital skills. However, it would seem like we have not paid enough attention to what the digital transformation requires of interwoven aspects related to learning in digital societies. We need to develop the traditions in education, where the focus has been on technical skills more than on interdisciplinary competencies. If we are able to better secure and develop students' abilities to be critical and creative, and to collaborate and communicate, digital learning environments could act as learning resources for all students. Without this skillset, there is a risk of students using digital resources in a way that prohibits deep learning and the development of higher order thinking. Based on the input of the teaching educators, it is essential that education is structured in a way that a lack of the 4Cs is noticed by educators and teachers, and that learning is structured to develop such skills. It is unfortunate if students acquire a high degree of information, media, and technology skills, as digital immigrants do, without the learning and innovation skills required to manoeuvre constructively in the overwhelming and easily accessible landscape of digital learning. Education needs to structure learning that challenges students to connect different skillsets, so new contextual skills and knowledge are developed. Just like critical thinking in digital spaces.
