**1. Introduction**

The Learning Framework of 2030 stated that the world is facing unprecedented social, economic and environmental challenges driven by accelerating globalization and a faster rate of technological developments [1]. A case in point is the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which forced universities worldwide to suspend all on-campus activities and move to online learning or distance learning either with or without any digital tools [2]. Linney et al. [3] reports that while adapting to this new normal, universities have quickly evolved their digital tools and platforms to ensure uninterrupted educational delivery to their isolated students. Teachers were expected to transform the way they teach, moving from the traditional contact model to an interactive online learning model [3]. Due to the changing nature of learning and teaching, there is a growing need for ongoing professional learning to equip teachers with skills

and competencies needed to adapt to the ever-changing student demographic and knowledge base, the speed of technological and societal changes [4].

In September 2015, the United Nations established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which serve as a road map for improving people's living situations, particularly in poorer nations [5]. The fourth of the Sustainable Development Goals pledges the international community to "provide inclusive and high-quality education for all and encourage lifelong learning" [5]. In realizing the National Development Plan's educational objectives (see Chapter 9), the study University's policy on Performance Management and Development [6] states that the employee and his or her line manager shall jointly develop an Individual Development Plan (IDP) to address any competency or other gaps that would impact on the employee's performance. This implies that upskilling teachers in the Department of Chemistry with competencies that would allow them to integrate technology in teaching for effective learning was part of the IDP that all teachers signed together with the line manager for 2020.

In 2011, the Nuffic-funded project intervention was introduced in the Department of Chemistry to train the teacher with the incorporation of technology in teaching. The Dutch teachers collaborated and assisted Chemistry teachers with developing a blended learning approach. In 2012, the department established the community of practice as Subject Groups. The purpose of the community of practice (CoP) was to facilitate collaboration, co-creating and sharing between Chemistry teachers. This CoP has been a success and still exists to date. Several teachers have also undertaken teacher training courses and workshops. Despite all these interventions, it was found that Chemistry teachers and students were still not using the learning management system known as IMFUNDO effectively for meaningful teaching and learning. For instance, more than half 56% of the teachers used the announcement tool to communicate relevant messages about the module to the students. Announcements were about changes to the teaching or assessment schedule, uploaded supplementary learning material such as videos, tutorials, etc.). However, the communication was one-way from the teacher to the students. More than half 53% of the modules used relevant learning resources such as PowerPoint presentations, notes or assessments. The PowerPoint presentations were, however, not interactive, not video presentations and did not have a voice recording of the teacher. Few of the modules used IMFUNDO for assessment purposes and used videos as a tool for anchored instruction. Based on these results, it could be argued that learning in the Department of Chemistry is largely teacher-centered based on the behaviorism learning theory [7]. The teachercentered approach is perceived to have a negative impact on developing higher cognitive skills of students, encourages dependency on the teacher and memorizes content [8].

The challenge in this study was that Chemistry teachers used IMFUNDO as a repository, mainly for "dumping" PowerPoint slides of the learning unit, sending announcements to students and sharing the latest study guide. This observation is not in line with the newly approved study University's Teaching, Learning and Technology Strategy and does not support student-centered learning. If a teachercentered approach and behaviorism continue in the teaching practice, it would be difficult for the institution to realize the University's 2020–2025 Institutional Strategic Plan Pillar 1: Future-ready graduates who make a positive societal impact and Pillar 4: Digitally-Advanced University.

Familiarity with subject knowledge alone is not enough for teachers to engage in effective and pedagogically meaningful instructional practices. Modern curriculum *Training Framework to Enhance Digital Skills and Pedagogy of Chemistry Teachers to Use… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102003*

delivery requires teachers to do their best to find innovative ways that not only facilitate but also optimize students' learning to the greatest extent possible. The incorporation of technology in teaching is ubiquitous, therefore in considering the integration of technology in teaching, a potentially useful method is to consider what it is that needs to be addressed, and how technology can be used to assist [9]. In the current study, the Department of Chemistry has been unsuccessful in adopting and integrating technology in teaching since 201. This was due to the lack of a framework for training teachers in skills and competencies required to successfully implement digitalization pedagogy, engage students and improve student success.

The objective of this study was to develop a framework to improve the teaching of online modules using IMFUNDO, to ensure that students engage meaningfully with the online modules. Furthermore, it was critical that Chemistry teachers' digital skills, practice and pedagogy were effectively enhanced with the aid of IMFUNDO. To achieve the level at which Chemistry teachers adopted and integrated technology in teaching, a training framework based on Arena, Blended and Connected learning was developed and implemented via online webinars. The IMFUNDO reports were used to determine the number of modules developed and digital tools utilized.

### **2. Related literature**

### **2.1 Technology-enhanced professional development of teachers**

The importance of professional development in teacher education cannot be overstated [10]. Brown et al. [11], argued that there is no 'one size fits all' supplydriven or demand-led model of teacher professional learning. The Australian Government undertook an initiative called Teaching Teachers for the Future, to improve the preparation of future teachers by integrating technology into their practice [12]. The institution needed to support and upskill teachers if it desires to remain competitive in an increasingly uncertain global market, as most programs are only as successful as the people in charge of them [10]. In this study, the policy on Performance Management and Development [6], as well as the IDP, supports Li and Morris' opinion.

During the COVID-19 outbreak and national lockdown, the study university adopted the emergency multimodal teaching, learning and assessment strategy [2]. The strategy forced all the teachers to adopt and use IMFUNDO in their teaching practices to continue with learning and teaching in trying times [13]. Darling-Hammond et al. [10] argued that the nature of teacher development should be a continuous process of becoming and articulating an inner world of conscious choices made in response to the outward world of the teaching context. There are various approaches and strategies to teacher learning were established in higher education. At a study university in 2005, the Partners @Work empowerment strategy yielded positive results, but it was not sustained [14]. As indicated, the Nuffic-funded project as well as the eLearning Leaders intervention proved to be successful in introducing teachers to digital skills. However, the challenge remained of using the UMFUNDO to engage the students with the application of interactive tools. In an attempt to empower Chemistry teachers with the proposed professional development framework, the attention and emphasis were on including digital technology with various stages of curriculum delivery.

### **2.2 Transformative pedagogy**

Transformative pedagogies include higher levels of pedagogical practice, are learner-centered, engage higher-order thinking skills and include a variety of interactions between learners, content and teachers [15]. To support pedagogy, teaching with a technology system should be capable of supporting a transformative learning pedagogy. This means it should allow for the integration of authentic learning activities as well as learning activities that support collaboration, discourse and reflective thinking by students [16]. This implies that the use of digital tools and resources in transformative pedagogies enhances deep learning [17]. DoBE [17] argued that the use of digital tools and resources in transformative pedagogies enhances deep learning. When implementing the DoE framework, thinking skills, information management and interactions between learners, teachers and content should be taken into consideration.

At the core of good teaching with technology, there are three core components: content, pedagogy, and technology. These three knowledge bases (content, pedagogy, and technology) form the core of the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework [18]. The TPACK framework encourages teachers to design pedagogically sound learning activities that maximize the impact of both digital tools and content resources on teaching and learning in a given context [17]. Howard et al. [19] and Ngcapu et al. [13] support the use of the TPACK framework as it provided a focus on learning and pedagogy that is typically missing from conceptions of online learning. It would be safe to say that TPACK was the basis of effective teaching with technology [20] and was an essential component of transformative pedagogy [21]. Therefore, teaching successfully with technology requires continuous evaluation of the dynamic equilibrium among all TPACK components as well as continuous training of teachers and adequate ICT support by the university.

There is no perfect digital pedagogy model and there are always challenges and opportunities with the integration of technology in teaching. Some users of the TPACK model have criticized the model for lack of practical examples to explain knowledge required for the crossovers TCK and TPK and how technology fits into these crossovers [22]. A drawback of the TPACK model was that teachers who lacked training and information technology skills could not adopt the technology in their classroom and inadequate post-training support discouraged the use of technology. Challenges highlighted by teachers in a private higher institution in Malaysia with using ICT in teaching and learning environment were lack of TPACK teaching and learning skills and ICT support. These challenges were attributed to poor instructional design and 80% of the teachers not using ICT in their teaching and learning environment [23].

Constructivism is a learning theory central to transformative pedagogy. According to Bada et al. [24] central to the philosophy of constructivism is that learning is an active process. Hence, from a constructivist perspective, the primary responsibility of the teacher is to create and maintain a collaborative problem-solving environment, where students are allowed to construct their knowledge, and the teacher acts as a facilitator and guide. Furthermore, Hamlin et al. [16] adds another dimension that learning environments that are based on social constructivist learning principles can enhance transformative pedagogy. Donnelly et al. [25] implemented a constructivist learning approach in a blended problem-based learning module. Findings of the study indicate that some aspects of constructivist learning may be directly stimulated by using technology, the findings noted an increased level of collaboration and that involvement with content is often reinforced by technology use.

*Training Framework to Enhance Digital Skills and Pedagogy of Chemistry Teachers to Use… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102003*

## **3. Research question**

How can a training framework be developed and implemented to enhance the digital skills, practice and pedagogy of Chemistry teachers to teach effectively using IMFUNDO?.

## **4. Method**

To respond to the question, action research was used to a better understanding of study problems. Action research is defined as an approach in which the action researcher and a client collaborate in the diagnosis of the problem and the development of a solution based on the diagnosis [26]. The process of action research involves, planning to initiate change, implementing g the change (acting) and observing the process of implementation and consequences reflecting on the process of change and replanning, acting and observing as well as reflecting [27].

On the 23rd of March 2020, a national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was announced in South Africa [2]. To respond to the national lockdown regulation, the study university implemented a remote multimodal teaching, learning and assessment strategy from June 1, 2020. This required an unprecedented rapid transition from face-to-face teaching to online teaching and learning. To assist teachers with the design and development of online modules on IMFUNDO, the study university implemented Emergency remote teaching and empowerment [2]. For 3 months, the instructional designers conducted online teaching and empowerment. The emergency remote teaching and empowerments' purpose was to empower lecturers in transitioning from traditional teaching to online or remote teaching through the use of various tools on the IMFUNDO to benefit students [2]. Since technology alone does not guarantee a pleasant or effective learning experience, it was vital for instructional designers to ensure that pedagogy was given higher attention throughout [2].

To further ensure the training of teachers in the Department of Chemistry, the training that was scheduled for 4 months (March 1, 2020–July 31, 2020) was then reduced to 2 weeks (April 14–17, 2020 and May 11–15, 2020) to ensure that teachers have the necessary technical skills and competencies to teach remotely [15]. The Arena, Blended and Connected learning design approach was used for training teachers to develop online modules [2, 15]. The Arena, Blended and Connected (ABC) learning design, according to Young [28] is a quick way to (re)design programs and modules through a hands-on workshop where academic teams discuss and create storyboards of students' activities. A minimal version of the ABC learning design adapted from [28] was followed and consisted of the following elements:


To develop a successful framework that improves teaching and learning using digitalization pedagogy and TPACK principles, firstly, the chapter reflects on the findings of the preliminary study, which was conducted in 2019 to develop a plan that improved the teaching and learning practices. From the findings, it was evident that a systematic approach was required for the training of teachers to ensure that they possess skills, values and attributes central to transformative pedagogies that were student-centered, engage higher-order thinking skills and include a variety of interactions between students, content and teachers. Secondly, the teacher development framework and a framework for designing online modules were developed and implemented.
